iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Emma Goto @emmago.to · 29/06/2026

Thought my blog was suddenly getting more popular, but seems it's just a bot of some sort crawling 😭

Screenshot of my Umami analytics. Filtered my traffic to be from Linux users in the United States. A small percentage are probably real users, but can see the huge spike from a bot in the last 2 days.

Emma Goto @emmago.to · 23/06/2026

New feature on the blog - since I store position coordinates for a lot of my blog posts, I've extended the "read more" section at the bottom to include spots that are nearby ☕ ⛰️

See more links at the bottom of my post on Armadillo Bakes&Coffee. It shows two more cafes in the nearby area - Yanaka Coffee and AOYAMA COFFEE ROASTER. Below that is a list of recent posts from my coffee section.

Screenshot of the See more section for my hike up Mt Houou. It shows some of the other peaks in the Southern alps - Mt Kita, Mt Kaikoma and Mt Senjo

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 19/06/2026

You can also see all the places I visited on this map! www.emgoto.com/map/izu/ Tbh if I didn't have the map I probably would have just done 1 post for the whole thing and called it a day. But the map weirdly incentivises me to want to properly mark down all the places that I've been.

Screenshot of my blog's map page. Shows a map of Izu, with little dots for all the places that I've been.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 17/06/2026

I integrated my blog with bubbles.town - now there's a little bubble emoji down in the comments section of my posts. ... the one downside is that you need a Mastodon account to do any sort of upvoting on it 😅

The bubble emoji, plus the number "1" next to it, which signifies that my post has gotten 1 upvote on Bubble

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 15/06/2026

I've been a bit guilty of neglecting my /now page so I decided to convert into more of a feed-style with new posts, comments and other updates. www.emgoto.com/now/

Screenshot of my /now page. It has a row for each time I comment on a post somewhere (in reply to someone else) or when I publish a new post. (Not pictured - I also put new bird sightings and when I update posts as well).

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 04/06/2026

My first cherry tomatoes of the season! Didn’t think I could do this on an apartment balcony in Tokyo so this is pretty exciting

Some cherry tomato plants are on the vine, a few are bright red

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 24/05/2026

As part of this, I also graduated my coffee posts (since I have 22 of them now) onto their own section on my blog - yay! Previously they all just lived underneath my notes. It's now a nice and even 8 sections on the site so lets hope I don't have plans to add any more.

Screenshot of the /coffee section of my blog, with an intro and some blog posts underneath it.

Screenshot of the navigation drawer on my blog, now featuring a coffee section at the bottom.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 24/05/2026

The main problem I had with this was that I had a programming section that was dark mode, and then a books section that was light mode. To be honest I was quite fond of them as they were but I thought maybe for consistency's sake it would be nice to be able maintain the same mode across the blog.

A screenshot of the programming section of my blog - which features a terminal-esque setup - but in light mode with a cream colour palette.

A screenshot of the programming section of my blog - which features a terminal-esque setup - in dark mode with a black/purple colour palette

A screenshot of the books section of my blog - which features a background that looks like the blog post is written on a notebook - but in dark mode.

A screenshot of the books section of my blog - which features a background that looks like the blog post is written on a notebook - in light mode.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 24/05/2026

New on the blog - I've finally got around to introducing a light/dark mode toggle 🌝

A screenshot of the homepage of my blog, in light mode. I've gone with a cream/brown colour

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 16/05/2026

My husband is a bicycle geek, and he got Claude to build him an animation of a foot pedalling on a bike plus a bunch of sliders so that he could calculate the optimal seat position. I was rather amazed by the whole setup 😂 (he's not a programmer at all)

(rather blurry) photo of my husband's laptop screen, it has two red lines with a knee hinge to symbolise the foot pedalling and then the rest of the bike is outlined with some black lines. A bunch of sliders on the LHS to let you change the seat height, etc.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 28/04/2026

www.emgoto.com/mt-ryugatake/ Some nice Fuji views from my hike up to Mt Ryugatake last week!

Photo of Mt Fuji, in the foreground is a lawn of pink shiba-zakura flowers plus a small lake

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 18/04/2026

New hike on the blog, featuring Mt Fuji views, some (unexpected) cherry blossoms at the peak, plus some cows for good measure www.emgoto.com/mt-ono/

There is a large white flowering tree that takes up most of the frame. Underneath its branches sit many picnickers. In the distance you can see Mt Fuji.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 15/04/2026

I've also been playing around a bit with the design of my hiking pages - have added a new summary section to the top of the page, so readers who are interested in hiking it can get the most useful info straight away.

Screenshot of the green summary section I've introduced on the Mt Iwadono hiking page - provides summary of course options, when to hike, weather forecast link and public transport options.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 14/04/2026

Random thing that I vibe-coded recently - when I open a new tab in my browser, it opens an editable week note page for the current week. Behind-the-scenes it's just displaying a file from @obsidian.md - a bit handier than having to switch windows, and it automatically makes a new file each week.

Screenshot of my Chrome browser - on a new tab. It's rendering a text editor with the current week at the top and then some goals and tasks underneath it

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 26/02/2026

A couple of new notes up about my snowboarding weekend in Muikamachi - it's such a pretty town ❄️ www.emgoto.com/muikamachi-a...

A kei truck on the road through Muikamachi. In the distance you can see the mountains (covered in snow) plus large wall of snow on either side of the road.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 11/02/2026

I've done quite a good job of visiting various bits of Japan, but you might notice the top end of the Tohoku is looking quite bare - I had plans to visit Iwate in 2025 but that got rained out, and I have done two hikes in Aomori back in 2023 which I still need to put up on the blog 😅

Screenshot of the top bit of Japan's mainland - Aomori, Akita and Iwate prefectures. There is a conspicuous lack of dots on this part of the map.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 11/02/2026

I had this vision in my head for a while now for what my Map page should look like and I think I'm kind of there now! You can now filter by location and category, which could be handy e.g. if you are looking for hikes to do in a specific area 👀 🗺️ www.emgoto.com/map/

My /map/ page now has a LHS sidebar with location filtering, and tag filtering on hikes, coffee, food, etc.

The RHS is a map of Japan. It's mostly a lot of green dots, since my blog is mostly hikes (ha)

Filtering by coffee in Tokyo results with a few pink dots.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 10/02/2026

Latest update on the blog - I added a search bar ✨ My book reviews section is the only non-dark mode section of my blog so I had to get it (mostly) working for two colour schemes. I need to get around to properly doing dark/light mode across the site sometime.

Screenshot of the search bar, accessible in my navigation's side drawer. I've searched in "Niigata" and its returned some results

Another screenshot of the search experience, but this time from my book reviews page, which is in lightmode.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 08/02/2026

It snowed overnight in Tokyo. One of my goals for February was to get a photo of a warbling white-eye or "mejiro" (they are so cute!) ... and then there were a couple flitting about in the snow-covered bushes right outside my apartment which made things pretty easy 😂

A photo of a mejiro. It has a distinctive white ring around its eye. It's a kind of light khaki-ish greenish head with a dirty brown body. Around it is a bush with snow on it

Another photo of the mejiro, looking away from the camera

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 07/02/2026

We shipped a new feature on @hardcover.app recently - the long-awaited series tracker! It lets you see your in-progress book series, plus which ones have upcoming releases.

Screenshot of the series tracker page - it shows that I am following the Hierarchy series by James Islington, plus the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Both of them have a new book coming out in the future 👀

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 28/01/2026

Also got a pretty neat shot of Mt Fuji ✨

A trail leading to one of the mountain huts sat Mt Jinba. Behind the hut building you can see Mt Fuji in the distance

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 25/01/2026

And it's been oddly motivating to have this map feature on my blog - it feels like I'm playing Pokemon or Animal Crossing or something and collecting locations to put on here 😂 Time will tell whether I can keep it up long-term or decide it's not worth the hassle though! www.emgoto.com/map/

Screenshot of emgoto.com/map. You can see 5 orange dots in a section of Japan stretching between Shimane and Tottori prefectures, plus a sidebar with some info on some of the dots (Matsue Castle, Daisen White Resort)

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 25/01/2026

Have been having an unreasonably productive time blogging lately and have put a new note up every day for the past week (sorry to followers of my RSS feed). I've not been much of a travel blogger in the past (other than for hiking) but giving it a go for the moment.

Screenshot of the homepage of emgoto.com - posts every day including ones on Matsue Castle and the Tottori sand dunes

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 11/01/2026

And in a similar vein, sometimes I generate multiple photosets from one blog post (to crosspost to Instagram) which I was also hiding from my feed since it also felt spammy/repetitive. Now I've got it as sub-items so the association is a bit clearer and it's a bit easier for people to skip.

Screenshot of the feed item for my Mt Nabewari hike. Below that is 2 nested posts, that are smaller in height, that list 2 sets of photos that from the same hike.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 11/01/2026

And also made an update on how I generate the "latest updates" section on the homepage. I haven't been adding the notes section to my feed because it could get quite spammy, but maybe this is a good middle-ground - if I post multiple notes on the same day, I summarise them into 1 feed item.

Screenshot of my blog's post feed. The first item is for a note about Catan, and then underneath it says "+ 2 more notes created (My Coffee Corner, Viticulture)"

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 11/01/2026

✨ swapped out my top navigation for a slide-in drawer

A screenshot of the black drawer that slides in from the right on the home page of my blog. It covers about a 1/3 of the screen and links out to all the various sections on my blog - books, code, hikes, photos, map and notes.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 04/01/2026

You can also zoom out and view the Earth as a globe, which is a pretty nice feature from Mapbox ✨

A globe view of the Earth, with little orange dots marking my blog posts' locations. There's dots in China, Japan and Australia.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 04/01/2026

Added a new category on my blog - a map 🗺️ I've put 4 posts on it to test it out. Next up is adding a lot more posts + some filtering so it's a bit easier to use as well. I'm back to work tomorrow (after a nice long holiday break) so this is where I'll have to leave it for now 🫡 www.emgoto.com/map/

A screenshot of emgoto.com's new /map page.

Features a sidebar on the left, which lists any posts on my blog that have a position associated with them (I've only set it up for 4 posts at the moment). Plus a large map, powered by Mapbox, on the right.

Not putting the map in my navigation links just yet since I want to get it in a better state, so think of this as kind of a preview mode.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 03/01/2026

Also my top menu is starting to get quite cluttered with all the sections - recently came across @vhbelvadi.com's blog which I think has a really neat menu design, might steal some inspiration from that 👀 vhbelvadi.com/blogroll

Screenshot of a page from vhbelvadi.com - the hambuger menu opens up as drawer that comes in from the right (full screen on mobile) which takes up the full height of the page and is very neatly organised

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 03/01/2026

New section on my blog I'm playing around with (still a WIP so I haven't deployed it just yet). I like bookmarking places I've been on Google Maps so it would be like that but in my blog. Also feel like I'm running out of category colours, not too sold on the teal (maybe I could go orange)?

Screenshot of a potential new "map" section on my blog - on the LHS is a big map (powered by Mapbox) and on the RHS there is a sidebar with links out to my notes

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 27/12/2025

And I got super lucky with the weather - some great views of Mt Fuji 💯 Really the perfect hike to round off the year.

A clear view of the summit of Mt Fuji. It's got plenty of snow on it! There are some low-lying mountains in the near distance with Mt Fuji in the back.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 25/12/2025

Currently writing up the blog post for my final hike of the year, and just wanted to share this cute photo I got of a deer 🥰

A deer staring straight at me. It's in between some deer fences and has some tiny little horns. I think also it's munching on some grass so I think I interrupted its lunchtime (sorry!)

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 24/12/2025

When I want to feel good about myself I log in and play a round of Typeracer 😂

Me at 183wpm and first place on the Typeracer leaderboards

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 18/12/2025

I love Jimnys too!! Here's mine 😎

My Jimny in front of Mt fuji (this one's near lake Shojiko)

Another shot of my Jimny, in the muddy carpark next to a ski field. Nice sparkle though ✨

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 15/12/2025

Good question - so it's a bit of a hack where I have what is essentially a "copy and paste" plugin in my Obsidian that copies files to my Astro repo. Maybe a symlink would have worked too 🤔 I talked about it a bit here - www.emgoto.com/obsidian-dig...

Screen shot of my "push folder" plugin, I just run this and it will copy-paste across all files that have the isPublish: true variable to my repo.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 12/12/2025

For some reason my blog post on Cursor has been the most-viewed post on my blog for quite a while now, from people finding it via Google search. ... I think everyone immediately clicks out of it though because the post was like 9 months out of date and was for Cursor v0.4 while it's now up to 2.2 😅

Screenshot of my Umami analytics - my cursor blog post gets 400 page views in a week. Visit duration is only 2 seconds though.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 10/12/2025

The main thing I was struggling with was I wanted some structure to make it easier to navigate (rather than it just being a dumping ground of links). Settled on having an optional "folder" for each of my notes so I can categorise it.

My latest "Walking between Shibuya and Harajuku" post belongs to the "Things to do in Tokyo" list

Going to the "Things to do in Tokyo" page, I can see any notes that belong to that list. I can also add a description here if I want to, so this page can function like a post in itself rather than just being a pure list like a tags page would be.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 10/12/2025

Finally happy with the design of my blog's new notes section! www.emgoto.com/notes/ ✨

screenshot of my blog's /notes/ page. It's got a bit of a pink theme, and lists out all of my notes with a little excerpt of each post.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 02/12/2025

Just brainstorming - if I make use of Obsidian's Bases feature it becomes a little bit easier to stay on top of what I have published at the moment vs what is a draft/idea that I want to publish. (I have files named "index" in folders so I have to display the folder name as well. A bit unwieldy).

A screenshot of an Obsidian base, filtering everything that has "publish: true" in my vault at the moment.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 02/12/2025

The main problem I'm trying to solve is I want an easier way of going from Obsidian -> my blog. Currently, files in my "notes" folder get copy-pasted to my blog, but let's say I wanted to copy-something from my hiking folder... Maybe I could have a new "publish" boolean in my frontmatter?

Screenshot of an example note in Obsidian - let's say I wanted to write a quick note about Mt Naeba, I could have a "publish" boolean value in my frontmatter that I could check to get it published?

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 02/12/2025

Trying to figure out how to organise my @obsidian.md vault, anyone got any tips? I started by at least putting all the files into folders (quite a few were floating about) but I get the same sort of feeling as shoving my clothes that were on the floor into a closet - out of sight, but still messy 😅

Some of the foldiers in my Obsidian vault, the ones I most frequently use is probably the blog / hiking folders.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 01/12/2025

I'll do a bit more of a reflection on it in my 2025 wrap-up blog, but to be honest the newsletter wasn't really a "success" metric-wise - I gained about 30 subscribers this year 😅

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 30/11/2025

Something about this guy makes me laugh - someone went out of their way to get him rugged up for the winter but it seems quite undignified 😂

A fox statue that was guarding a little shrine on my hike up Mt Takao. Sometimes Japanese people like to put beanies etc on statues to keep them warm in the winter months. This fox is setup with a big red beanie, a patterned poncho and then to top it off what looks like a green glove on his tail. Very festive.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 24/11/2025

Also spotted a family of deer - so cute!

A deer (probably not full-grown) with some horns sprouting in, looking right at the camera.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 24/11/2025

As always, another great view of Mt Fuji from near the peak.

A snow-tipped Mt Fuji in the distance, with some lower-lying green and brown mountains in the foreground

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 24/11/2025

Played our first game at home - I won! Part of what makes a good 2-player board game for us is if both players are good at it (it's no fun if one person is always steamrolling..) so let's see if my partner can start to pick up some wins as well 🤞

A setup of the boardgame Viticulture on my tiny dining table. I really need a bigger table

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 22/11/2025

We happened across a boardgame cafe and they had Viticulture! I'd been curious about it for a while, but wasnt sure on buying it because it looked pretty complicated. Had to quit playing halfway through since it was closing time but I decided to buy it 😆

A boardgame setup at a cafe, featuring a mug of matcha latte, cards with grapes on them, and a bunch of other winery-themed game pieces.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 17/11/2025

Had a really lovely hike to Mt Mitake, on the western edge of Tokyo. I came right at the peak of the autumn leaves, so all the trees were looking so beautiful 🍁 I've been doing a lot of hiking this year to mountains that are quite far away, so it was nice to get back to something more local.

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 17/11/2025

Nice!! I recently moved to a bigger apartment and have space to keep my pourover setup out now ✨

A corner of my apartment. Got some beans and filters, and my kettle, in a little green trolley from IKEA. Plus on the counter is my grinder, scale and a teapot with the pourover thingy on top. And a pot plant in the corner to top it all off!!

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Emma Goto @emmago.to · 29/09/2025

Yeah actually I think I'd go even more closely aligned with the existing stuff around it (added some random notes to the alt text) of course I'm not a professional designer by any means so feel free to ignore any or all of it!

If you were curious about my line of thought:
- Removed the all-caps title, since I think adding bold is enough of a differentiator
- made the amount of space above and below the divider equal
- centred the previous post link in the box. I think just generally with UI design having sort of this "equalness" between all your UI elements just looks more pleasing
- also left aligned the content. centre does look good if there's just 1 box, but I was thinking if you had 2 squares (for previous and next post) having it left aligned makes it fit more with the stuff above it

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