Packing Up

Posted on 2006/12/22 17:38:17 (December 2006).

[Saturday 16th December]
So now the ardurous and unenviable task of packing up and moving out the flat was upon us. We basically just had two days to get it all done in. Today consisted mainly of a stream of assorted delivery people and so on coming in to pick up various boxes and things. Most of the larger domestic appliances and items of furniture had been earmarked to send to various friends which all worked out rather well.

Looking back we probably didn't take things all that seriously today - I was pretty knackered after my last week at work, and other than shipping out the various things we'd arranged to have collected today we didn't really do any serious packing or tidying up.

On Monday of this week we had planned to go and meet up with Watanabe-san for a last goodbye, but we'd had to cancel, so I'd promised we would pop in tonight instead. So in the evening we pretty much just said "sod it!" to the moving/packing activities, and went off to Ikebukuro. I'd hoped we might also get chance for one last meal at Rohlan, but to my disappointment it appears they're closed on Saturdays. So instead we went to the tempura place which we'd been to the first time we came to Ikebukuro, and there was a nice kind of symmetry to this.

So after the tempura we popped in to Quercus to see Watanabe-san for a while. Given that the spectre of packing was still looming, we didn't stay all that long, but long enough to enjoy one last Ichiro's Malt (from Chichibu distillery - pretty much impossible to find outside of Japan) and a 30 year old Lagavulin.

It was quite sad to walk out of the door to that bar which had become something of a home-from-home. Again, I'm sure I'll be back at some point, and hopefully we might get a chance to see Watanabe-san in the UK next spring. Still though, there's nowhere quite like this place in the UK, and this will be one of the chief things I'll miss about Japan.

When we got back home Chie made an admirable effort to stay up for a while and do some packing. I on the other hand was just plain knackered and rather selfishly left her to it whilst I dozed off.

Post a comment