Three Days in Tokyo

It was awesome to finally be leaving on this trip after having it planned for quite a few months now. I wasn’t quite sure how I would handle being back in Japan (the last time I was here was three years ago) but just like last time there wasn’t any culture shock and by the time we got to Kayo’s house and chatted with her family I was back into the swing of the language before I went to sleep : )

Sunday 21 September

Met Junya at Nippori station and dumped my pack at his house (where it ended up staying for the whole time) then headed out to Ginza for lunch. Nozomi, Kevin, Hitoshi and Shinobu met us at the station and we spent the whole afternoon eating sushi waiting for Juliette, Shikwan and Genta to join us. Shoko even showed up (she was my other buddy – with Junya – when I was in Japan and we went to Niagara Falls together in 2006) she had been studying in Denver and I didn’t know she was back in Japan already so was totally surprised and stoked to see her!










We headed to Junya’s work (a Belgium Bar just down the road) and he ordered me a huge beer in preparation for Oktoberfest on Thursday and everyone had a few beers as a warm-up before the night cruise. Awesome of Junya to get everyone together (there were about 20 of us) and organise this for me, had such a great time dancing and drinking with everyone – an all-you-can-drink night cruise around Tokyo Bay is such an awesome idea! – and I’m happy that I felt a lot better after this cruise than went we went for Ken’s birthday (I blame the yukata!)



















Monday 22 September

Ended up sleeping at Junya’s parent’s house as his apartment is quite small so it was awesome to be able to see them again and awesome to have a home-cooked Japanese breakfast as a great start to a big day. Decided that seeing as I was here, it would make sense to pop in to the Tokyo office of my work just to say hi – couldn’t hurt right! – everyone was pretty surprised with my Japanese (I’m stoked I haven’t forgotten that much even though it’s been three years since I’ve really used it) and it was great to get a feel for the office and the people in case an opportunity ever comes up there in the future.

Wandered from the Embassy down through Shibuya to Harajuku – took purikura, bought a new tie and just revelled in the atmosphere of Takeshita Doori, chatted over cake and an iced green tea in the late afternoon and met everybody at about 7ish for a big night – seeing as the next day was a public holiday. Started off at an izakaya (Japanese pub) with heaps of beers and delicious food that just kept coming – reminded me so much of the nomikai’s I used to have for my University Clubs (even ordered a Cassis Orange that just came as a big serving of Cassis and a fresh orange to squeeze into it yourself!) and was great to be able to sit there for hours while people made their way to Ginza after work.










Today just happened to be Hitoshi’s birthday so at about 10ish we went across the road to Junya’s work where he’d organised a Belgium Chocolate Cake as a surprise – so much fun sharing it around (for some reason I ended up feeding it to everyone around the table!) and it was just awesome to hang out and chill with everyone just like old friends. Most people left to catch their last train home and it ended up being just the three of us – Shoko, Junya and I (that’s how this crazy adventure started) – chatting till the wee hours, I’m really lucky to have those guys in my life : )

Tuesday 23 September

After a power nap (1.5hrs) I was back up again and heading out to Yokohama to meet Naomi and eventually her workmates. Seeing as they all had the day off, we went quite a way out of town (train, bus and walk through a park) out to the beach and had a BBQ. It probably doesn’t sound very Japanese but went you’re BBQ'ing small strips of meat, veges and rice cakes instead of steak and sausages with no tomato sauce in sight it’s a bit more of a cultural experience : ) We even made fishing rods and caught crabs in the rock pools to put in our miso soup for after the BBQ – I wasn’t very good at it but it was a lot of fun teasing the crabs with bits of squid and trying to catch ones that were big enough to eat without getting soaked by the waves.



















Ended up staying to watch the sunset and didn’t leave until much later than originally planned but we were having such a good time. In three days there’s really not enough time to catch up with everyone properly but I made one last effort and headed out to Shounandai to check out Humphrey and Naoko’s place (which is soooo spacious for a Japanese apartment!) so great to catch up with them again before eventually crashing at 1:30am at Naomi’s place in Higashi Kanagawa











I have some pretty amazing friends in Japan and going back made me realise that I totally wanna spend more time there and with them – just have to figure out when and how…. will keep you posted : )