lijunlaopo.com

Shin is visiting Tokyo this weekend for business. 

Hard to believe we haven’t seen him for 1 and a half years.  He brought us his favourite Fukuoka dessert, which I am trying hard not to finish off while Patrick is in the bath.

So good.

Patrick will see him again tomorrow but I will have to work.  Not fair.

We went to watch the Japan vs Syria under 22s football last night. So much fun clapping a long to all the football fan songs.

Australia needs some better fan songs… ‘F**k off you wankers” just isn’t as fun to clap along to.

The Japanese team won easily thanks, I’m sure, to all our clapping and singing.

Today we visited the Imperial Palace East gardens to see cherry blossoms and eat lunch. We bought some lovely boxed snacks from Daimaru food court at Tokyo station and enjoyed our lunch overlooking the Imperial Palace Garden pond.

After the gardens closed, we walked back through Ginza and to the Sony building where we played with all the latest gadgets, then we napped on the train all the way home.

Good day.

We walked all over Tokyo today.

We started in Yoyogi Park and enjoyed the picnic atmosphere as families lunched under the cherry blossoms. We decided to just keep walking towards the Imperial Palace until we came across a bank so we could pay our rent.

Unfortunately our bank doesn’t appear to be particularly popular, as there wasn’t a single branch to be found.
We did come across all sorts of interesting things on our travels though, mostly unexpected cherry blossoms and shrines hidden between the shining skyscrapers.

We found one particularly interesting shrine entirely devoted to dogs. The shrines are all well hidden among the usual city buildings and are all such calm and peaceful places to stop during the day.

I hope the nice weather continues for long enough that we can picnic under the blossoms at the Imperial Palace tomorrow.

I had to teach a children’s class today.

Luckily for me, one of the children didn’t turn up. so I was left with one little girl by herself. She behaved! We had fun AND she learnt stuff.

Ahhh.. Now just a little bit of my fear of children has lifted.

I was craving fruit when I finished work this evening, so we headed over to the fruit shop I had noticed across the road. The fruit shop wasn’t a juice bar as I had expected, but a store that sold fruit packaged as gifts.

I spied a lovely bunch of big green grapes but nearly died when I saw the price. They were $70.

Seventy. Dollars.

It was a regular sized bunch of grapes…

This hardly compared, however, to the mango that was $110.

One mango.

…

I don’t understand.

Thank god they have the prices written on the shelves. We settled for a little tub of pineapple. A bargain at $5.

The cherry blossoms have bloomed; they appeared yesterday. Patrick walked me through the park to see them on the way home, but they were not as well lit as we expected them to be, so it was a little difficult to see. Despite the bad lighting, there were still plenty of merrymakers happily getting sloshed under the blossomed branches.

Better luck in the daytime tomorrow!

We had dinner in one of our budget eateries tonight. This place makes lovely fresh tasting udon plus beef bowls or curries. They also have a great selection of tempura battered bits and pieces to add to our trays. We can both happily stuff our faces here for only around $10 for the two of us. Excellent! I also like the picture out the front of the little girl enjoying her udon.

We had another yummy dinner this evening with Jason and Miki.  How lucky we are to have them as our friends!

We went to a place called something along the lines of 居食屋「和民」.  (see here..)

So good!  And again very cheap.  We went to Baskin & Robbins’ for dessert and I got my caramel ice-cream fix.

The place we went for dinner is part of a large chain, but it was beautifully laid out and the food was really good.  I don’t think there would be any chain restaurant like it in the western world.  We also took our shoes off at the door and padded about the beautiful polished floors of the restaurant in our socks.  Great fun!

My theory that number four would stop following me after I exposed it’s antics didn’t work, my shoes went into locker number four at the restaurant.

When we were heading home, we came across a pair of singers performing in the Hachiko square,  They were excellent.  We often come across people performing in the street.  They are never performing for money, but for publicity.  We stayed to watch the boys perform until they were politely interrepted by the police and escorted away.  We were handed a flier.  They are called High-Style.  When they become huge, don’t forget I told you they were good…