Sorry for the lack of updates, we’ve been back at work, and unless you really want to read an update entitled “Today I saw a cloud”, I’ll just skip over most days and write about the interesting stuff.
Last night, I met up with Yuta, who I actually met at the Youth Hostel in Kyoto. I’m not sure how he managed to avoid be mentioned on my blog yet, but he did join us for our random Youth Hostel Chinese food extravaganza (mentioned here). He’s since moved into Tokyo and started studying English at university. Needless to say his English is great which is nice for me because it means I can close my eyes and pretend I’m in England again. Then smash my face into the top of a doorframe.
Anyway, a week ago or, I sent him an email which basically said “I want beer.” Not three days later he had organized for me to meet beer! He should run a dating service! But for beverages! We met in the middle of Shinjuku station, which proved harder than expected, where I was lead to the rest of the group. It turns out his university, along with a few others, had recently had an international get-together of some sort. As a result, our group was a rich tapestry of nationalities, with Japanese, Italian, German and British people present. I should state now that the Germans and English were hopelessly outnumbered, with just one person each. But I’d like to think that we did a bloody good job at keeping our end up. Although we still couldn’t convince the Italians to give us the World Cup. Come on guys we just want to see it. Just once. We’ve forgotten what it looks like.
Anyway, our destination for the evening was a Tsukiyaki restaurant. Tsukiyaki is a big bowl of meat and vegetables which are left to boil in water on your table. Everyone is then welcome to grab pieces of meat (with chopsticks), and dip them in your bowl, which is full of raw egg. Then you eat it. That’s right, raw egg. All the British readers of this blog just fainted. But you’ll have to believe me, Tsukiyaki is mind blowing amazing. I think it’s my favourite Japanese food, although I have said that about an awful lot of food this year.
After our egg, meat and beer extravaganza, we headed to Karaoke. This would normally be where I say “we sang a whole bunch of songs and went home.” I guess that is true, after all. Except we went home six hours after we went in. Because we decided to do all night karaoke, coming back in the early morning on the first train. Believe me, after about three and a half hours, you will really start to run out of songs to sing. Luckily, it was all you can drink soft drinks, so I put away about a gallon of coke and Oolong tea. Bloaty.
Eventually 5:30 rocked around and we made our way back home. I was surprised how many businessmen were on the trains then, although it was impossible to tell if they were going to work, or if they’d just finished. They certainty didn’t look very optimistic either way.
Sorry this update was so short, even now I’m kind of tired from the night. My throat hurts, my ears are still ringing, and if anyone offers me Oolong tea at any point in the next two weeks I might start crying. Tomorrow, if time and weather allows, I want to head out to Harajuku and take lots of pretty pictures, so stay tuned for that!
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