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want to meet at fmd_good Market Deli
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What factors contribute to network speed variations in different locations?
Building wiring is only half the story. In Tokyo the bigger factor is often which provider actually serves your address. NTT East owns most of the fiber backbone, but the ISP you pick rides on top of it, and during peak hours (roughly 9pm to midnight) a cheap reseller ISP can drop to a fraction of what a direct NTT FLET'S connection delivers. Remote areas aren't automatically slower either, sometimes a small town on Hikari Cross gets better throughput than a dense ward because there's less contention on the local segment. So the "urban equals fast" assumption breaks down once you factor in how many people share your splitter and how your ISP peers with content networks.
The time of day matters less than what your neighbors are actually doing on the line. In a lot of Tokyo share houses and small offices, someone torrenting or running a seedbox saturates the upstream and everyone else feels it as slow downloads, even though a speed test to a nearby server looks fine. That's why Ookla numbers can say 900 Mbps while Netflix still buffers at 10pm.
Another thing people miss is DNS and peering for specific services. A place can have excellent raw throughput but terrible routing to overseas game servers or overseas streaming, because the ISP's international transit is congested or takes a weird path through Hong Kong or LA. So a "slower" connection in a smaller city might actually give you lower ping to Tokyo game servers than a cheap apartment line in Shinjuku. If you care about a specific service, test that service, not just a generic speed test.
wifi is the other thing people sleep on. in Tokyo most apartments come with a cheap buffalo router from the ISP and everyone in the same building runs 2.4ghz on the same few channels, so your "1gbps" line turns into mush at 8pm even if the fiber itself is fine. switching to 5ghz or a newer wifi 6 router on a less crowded channel often fixes it more than changing providers. also places like Shimokitazawa have tons of small cafes and share houses packed into old low rise buildings, so the airwaves there are way more congested than some new tower out in Koto ward
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Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.