busts, birthdays, books, bollocks

Bizarre things often happen in Japan. Birthday discount on domestic flights was the saviour of the day. Before I even went on this little holiday though, I received chocolate boobs as a present. What kind of country is this that produces such a thing? I am fast learning yet even more culture shock from a great book, Tabloid Tōkyō: 101 Tales of Sex, Crime and the Bizarre from Japan's Wild Weeklies, also a belated birthday present.

This year my B'day began with 8am Japanese style breakfast in the beautiful snowy Niseko. I asked Kuni to thank his wife for being a brilliant cook. After helping the driver load everyone else's luggage on the bus, I hopped on and got back to sleep. A 10 minute stop at Forest 276 for a hot coffee can from the bank of vending machines would be the last footprints I make in Hokkaido's snow.

Fear rose up inside me as the fully loaded jumbo-jet brought me down into the busy cities of Tōkyō. The train connection through to Tōkyō station was pretty straight-forward. With a couple of hours to kill, the information booth lady suggested the Imperial Palace gardens. I wandered around until I bumped into the rather awesome horse-mounted samurai statue of Kusunoki Masahige.

Tōkyō Tower,
originally uploaded by vfowler.

Finally met up with my old house-mate Eriko, wished her happy birthday (in Japanese and English) then presented my gift to her, some Hokkaido chocolates - white of course! Eriko's class-mate, Asaka, soon joined us and away we went to Tōkyō Tower. This turned out to be a great idea, not just for fantastic views of the blaring lights burning into the black of night, but since it was both Eriko's and my birthday, we got free entry and cake.

We soon found ourselves in Doma-Doma, chatting, eating and drinking sake and beer until the last train shuttled us to Eriko's place. I'd nearly forgotten 24hour supermarkets exist. We stopped in for some supplies to carry on the mood until sleep eventually overcome us. Asaka is an impressive snorer!