ぼんやり、テレビを見てたらおかしな夢を見ていた。気がついて時計を見ると東京は夜の七時。。。

I don't know where to start. The last four days have been eventful.

Friday we met up with Shinya and his girlfriend. It's been over 2 years since I saw him, so I was really happy. We had nabe at a gorgeous restaurant in Shinjuku.

 Mmmmmm!!

 Shinya did a great job.

 We also had some kind of fish intestine... It was good!

 Kathrine found a mustache shaped tempura.

Saturday Kaoris sister got married. I wasn't invited, and I didn't mind since I haven't met Kaori's sister or her husband before arriving in Tokyo two weeks ago. But after I came (and before I even met Kaori's sister) they decided I could come to the Shinto ceremony. The dinner reservations couldn't be changed, but actually I don't mind. I think I would've felt strange listening to speeches and stuff at a private family event in a family I hardly know. But obviously it goes without saying that I was extremely honored to be able to go to the wedding ceremony. As a member of the family told me, it's not even all Japanese that has been to such a wedding.

It was amazing. It was so beautiful and serene. It was almost dreamy with the chanting/singing of the monks and the gagaku. I'd much rather do a Shinto wedding than a Christian one.

 Kaori wore this wonderful kimono.

Sunday Torsten and I went to Yanaka to relax and enjoy the old houses and temples.

 We found a quiet spot in the sun at a cemetary. Someone was flying a kite above us, though I didn't get that on camera.

 We sat in front of this shiny Buddha. It was rally nice.

 And there were a lot of pretty flowers everywhere.

 As we went down the road we passed these fellows. I feel I've been told what they're all about a lot of times but alas right now I just don't recall.

 There was a kindergarten with these adorable panda busses.

 And some lovely posters at an old sake store.

 It wasn't open for business any more.

We didn't do any research before going there, and I'm not sure we saw everything there is to see. But it didn't really matter much. We had a real nice time.

As we went on we got pretty hungry (or at least I did). We searched some time for a place to eat, when we suddenly found ourselves outside a nekocafe. It wasn't any of the ones in the link, though. It was just a small western style café with quiet jazz and... well... three cats. I was thrilled! I rushed inside telling Torsten that I was willing to pay any price to eat at a cat cafe. And so I did:

 We both had toast and coffee. It was 850 yen.

 This kitty was sleeping next to us most of the time but woke up after we'd finished eating.

Both the interior and front of the store was covered in pictures and paintings of cats. Here's Tamon, one of the resident cats.

Furthermore there was a map of all the cat related spots in the area, including drawings and even names of cats in the neighborhood.

Before dinner I parted with Torsten and went to visit my former host family. the Ui family. I'm so happy that I can easily visit them, and I plan to go there a lot.

To finish this wonderful day I went for a relaxing bath at the local sentou with Kathrine! It was great, except all the old ladies thought we were Russian. Not that being Russian is bad, it's just that generally it's the stereotype that the foreign prostitutes around a big station nearby is all Russian girls...

Today was a long day. I went to the ANA Intercontinental Hotel with Line and some other colleagues to hear a presentation on press and news media by Jørgen Ejbøl. The main event for me tonight, however, was meeting Jake Adelstein, the author of Tokyo Vice. He and his assistant Stephanie Nakajima were a lot of fun. Check their work out.


It's also Valentines Day today, and in Japan that means that us girls give chocolate to virtually any boy (and tomochoko for the girls!) in our surroundings. Then every those boys are expected to give chocolate back on White Day. I decided to play along and bought heart shaped giri-senbei for my boss. He was happy but seemed to think the Japanese Valentine concept is silly. And it's hard not to.