about anything.

Last week, out of the blue H. casually mentioned Tom McRae playing Scandinavia. “Meh”, I thought distractedly. “I do like his music… I should see about going.” It has been a few years now since I was treated to two of his songs and they have been frequent guests in my iPod since. So, humming ‘Boy with the Bubblegun’ I booked the tickets (not entirely sure I would go pick them up) and fluttered away to other thoughts.

But… the show was yesterday and I am so extremely happy I decided to go. And that is despite them being postponed an hour by the symphony orchestra recording with 1400 people in the audience and coming home exhausted at 1 am (by bike I might add). Read the rest of this entry »

I was treated a concert by one of my close friends last night. One of those cases of an old band resurfacing (Dia Psalma) and us squeezing into a corner on a balcony watching people and hollaring the lyrics in drunken giddiness. As a battery recharging situation it was absolutely amazing and I got to purr quietly to myself noticing the stark differences between the groups of people who attended it all. Read the rest of this entry »

Just so you know…. people tend to try to avoid staring at you when you sit crying for a few hours on the plane. Turns out little sleep, having a cold messing with your sinuses, dealing with an already intrusive sadness from ending a fantastic vacation and “P.S. I love you” is NOT a good combination (I will watch it again, don’t worry). I feel sorry for the polite Japanese men surrounding me, I must have looked like a very silly and emotionally unstable woman. Read the rest of this entry »

So we woke up in Hakone and it was still pouring down outside. Not just pouring, it was like a tropical storm.. only cold. And we really had no choice other than to make our way towards Kyoto… in the rain and wind. Read the rest of this entry »

You like the rain. You always have. The more chaotic the onslaught of water the better. The warmer your chest, the calmer the smile. So you decide to brave the corridors in the outfit the hotel offers for onsen visits. You silently walk through the maze that take you past smiling staff and fellow guests, eyes turned to the ground and a faint notion that someone will be on to you soon. Someone will know you have no idea where you are going. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow… so.. how put this? I’ve avoided tourist tours… and I will avoid them in the future. But since Kyoto for some reason seemed unable to provide us with a hotel that had a room opening for all the days we wanted to be there we opted to hop on a tour for mount Fuji and stay in Hakone today…

Big… mistake. Read the rest of this entry »

Today was venturing out of central Tokyo, to the uncharted groupings of houses holding another part of the 35 million inhabitants. The part of the city where the chances of someone understanding your english goes down significantly and the frustratingly confusingly aligned maps have nothing but kanji and random numbers. We had fun. Stopped by a park on the way in Shinjuku. Cost us 200 yen to get in but it was very much worth it. I know I said Ueno rocked, Shinjuku might have rocked more.  Especially if you move past that first patch of grass.

On our way back, after some heavy guesswork on our part on what stop symbolised ours on the map of costs for the trains, there was this girl falling asleep playing with her PSP. Terribly cute.

This really is a wonderful trip. Everything from my amazing birthday to the vegetating in the parks to the slow strolling down confusing streets. Had another wonderful, lazy day today. Ended up just being in the hotel room eating the rest of our picnic food and reading papers and talking till late in the afternoon. For some reason we did not hear the cleaning crew try to enter, but found a note from them stuck under the door saying they did not want to disturb and could we please call them if we wanted the service anyway.. or just refill the supplies… or something. Made us smile but we opted not to contact them when we took off for another stroll in Akihabara. Even so they had snuck in while we were gone and tried to tidy as best they could. Sneaky. Read the rest of this entry »

I think I can safely say that if I was to pick one thing about this trip that made it totally worth it up till this point… then it would be Ueno park. Curled up on a blanket with some random picnic food and gazing at pale cherry blossoms all around and the gentle fall of their petals (and random conversations and even more random food bought from the various vendors). I could go home today and still feel satisfied. Read the rest of this entry »