Truly Tremendous Time in Tokyo

Our final day in Tokyo, after we did a little more shopping in Shinjuku and enjoyed a restful day, we met up with Scott's Assistant (at his office in Vancouver- though she is from Miyazaki) Yurika's brother. We went to an Izakaya called Showa Roma meaning a romance for all things from the Showa era. Here you can see one of my favorites, an old poster for a Godzilla movie where he battles Mothra and Ebira- a giant moth and a giant prawn-- delicious!

Okay what is Showa? Well in Japan, they recognize two different calendar systems- the easily recognizable Gregorian calendar which would make this year 2007. They also have a system of counting years based on the terms of the emperors- for example right now is called Heisei 19 as it is the 19th year of term for the current emperor. The previous era which was Hirohito's reign was called the Showa era - there was a total of 63 years. It's very complicated and must be a lot of work to calculate some things using this system! So basically the pub was a retro pub with a lot of old cool pictures.

Well, Yurika's brother was a really nice guy and we had to have Makoto translate for us a lot, though I could speak in my basic level Japanese to him. We got along well and had some good laughs and some more good food. I was actually drinking grapefruit sours- where I could juice half a grapefruit and mix it with Shochu- it was really refreshing! Well our time grew to a close and we had to leave, I kind of liked the mugs with the black background and cool looking script so asked if they sell them, the guy just gave me one! That was nice!
That night wrapped up a great stay in Tokyo. The next day Scott and I hit Royal Host for breakfast for the 4th day in a row and then said our goodbyes and took our buses our seperate ways. It's kind of tough to have such a fun time and head back home sometimes and I was really not so excited about coming back to Hamamatsu after a great trip. The traffic around the train station was blocked out because of the Hamamatsu festival (which I missed yet again!), so it slowed down my return home even more. But eventually I made it, and I was back home!