First Day in Japan (and my Birthday!) - Japan Spring 2008


First Day in Japan (and my Birthday!)



Saturday 15th March 2008

First day of our trip in Japan, including a few pictures from a reunion / birthday party with some old friends from work.

Japan Spring 2008

John's Pictures
Maison de Stuff

13:46:51 Shortly after checking in to our hotel in Ikebukuro - oh what joy on seeing beer vending machines once more.14:05:23 It seemed only proper to have my first 生ビール of the trip at the first available opportunity.14:07:37 So here we are in 花月 (kazuki)- a small chain of ramen restaurants. There was one of these near where we used to live in Tokyo, and to my delight (and surprise) they had an entirely vegetarian ramen dish on the menu (they were even quite explicit about what the stock was made from).

14:07:52 Really very tasty - lots of pepper, lots of garlic. Mmmmm.14:12:52 Bizarrely the pepper in this very reasonably priced ramen restaurant was from Fauchon.14:51:09 ...to help me remember our room number.

20:10:33 So later on as a sort of combined reunion and birthday celebration I met up with some of the friends I used to work with in Japan. First of all for some tempura in Parco in Ikebukuro. For some reason Chie took this picture while Tanaka-san was on the phone.20:10:47 ...here's Megumi-san and David enjoying some tempura.22:49:04 ...and later on here we are at my favourite bar - Quercus, also joined by Aoki-san, Yuka-chan, Haruka-kun and Haruka-kun's new girlfriend (Sayaka-san).

23:33:15 David and Aoki-san being typically daft.