This week in Tokyo 16-22 September
Monday 16
On Monday I made my debut on national Japanese TV! I’m saying debut because it’s good to be aspirational and hope that I make further TV appearances.
I was featured for 3 minutes on a show called Why Did You Come to Japan? It’s not as aggressive as it sounds.
On the show, I explained why we were living in Japan and talked about our mission to visit all 47 prefectures (states) in Japan, which got the production team and presenters very excited as I told them we had already been to 41.
In case you’re wondering how this came about... I was stopped by the TV crew at Haneda Airport when I landed in Tokyo at the end of August after my UK trip. Of course I said “yes” when they asked if they could interview me - I wasn’t going to let the fact that I was basically wearing pyjamas and had been on the go for nearly 20 hours stop me.
Somehow I managed to string a few sentences together and two days later they called to say that they were definitely going to use my segment on the show and asked for photos from our travels! Finally we had vindication for taking thousands of photos in Japan!
I’m not going to include the video of the clip but here are some stills from the show.
For those of you really desperate to see the video clip, my mum or mother-in-law will have no qualms in sending it to you. Out of everything I’ve done I think this is what they’re proudest of - I might as well make my career break permanent.
Monday was a national holiday here and other interesting stuff did happen but I don’t want to upstage my own TV appearance by talking about other matters.
Tuesday 17
As I was adjusting to my new found fame (three strangers on social media commented that they saw me on the show) I decided to keep a low profile and wore dark glasses and a hat when I went to meet a friend for lunch. We went to a few shops that weren’t as good as we had hoped and then we ended up at the Starbucks at Tsutaya (a bookshop) at Daikanyama T-Site. I had the seasonal apple jelly Frappuccino and then sneakily flicked through some Tokyo guidebooks to note some spots to visit for future days out.
In the evening, Wil and I met some friends and their adorable baby for dinner at Bill’s in Ginza. The baby was very well-behaved, the food was gobbleable and before we knew it 3 hours had passed!
Wednesday 18
On Wednesday morning I met a friend at the Yoyoi Museum to go to an exhibition called Antique Kimono Kaleidoscope. My friend knows a lot about kimonos so she was the perfect person to go with to explain what was on display. A wide range of kimonos and accessories were included and I would have loved to have tried them on - some of them were absolutely exquisite and the colour and pattern combinations were right up my street.
We then chatted away over a long leisurely lunch at Franz & Evans in Omotesando which always has good options for pescatarian or vegetarian meals (and the cakes are good too!). Apparently there are a few branches of this cafe in London but I had no idea whilst I was there and I only discovered the Tokyo branch.
Thursday 19
I woke up and coined the term “sofa loaf” (the cousin of couch potato) because all I felt zero inclination to go ahead with the day that I had planned. But I got my act together in the nick of time to make it to the free monthly organ concert at Tokyo Opera City Hall. I’ve been to a few now and for all of these, the organisers had the brilliant idea to show a close up of the organist playing on a large screen so you can see their hands and feet work their magic - it is ridiculously impressive. The venue is also very impressive and here is a sneaky photo I managed to take.
I then went to an exhibition by Julian Opie, a British artist, at the gallery next to the concert hall.
As the weather was really mild (i.e. one of the few days a year when it was perfect sitting in the park weather) I decided to spend the afternoon reading in Shinjuku National Gyoen. But along the way I stopped to treat myself to a ginormous sandwich from & sandwich (it is very common for shop or cafe names to make little sense) which is my favourite place to grab lunch if I am near the park.
Friday 20
I spent the morning at home but headed out in the afternoon to meet a new friend - exciting! And cheesily or aptly enough, we were going to a pretty good spot to forge a new friendship…
We went to a pop-up to mark the 25th anniversary of Friends being released. One side of the cafe in Loft in Ginza had been turned into Central Perk and we indulged in a photo shoot.
Saturday 21
It was another long weekend and we had planned to go to an area called Kamikochi which is all about being outdoors and enjoying the scenery. There is no point going if it is going to be rainy or grey and the weather for the weekend looked pretty miserable so we cancelled our trip to Kamikochi and booked a last minute trip to Akita prefecture instead!
We zipped out of Tokyo on a bullet train and arrived in Akita prefecture late on Saturday morning. Our main stop that day was Kakunodate, one of the few examples of a well preserved samurai town. I loved the style of architecture and the wide streets (unusual for Japan) were lined with weeping cherry blossom trees so it all very pleasing on the eye. We tried the regional inaniwa udon noodles for lunch and ended up buying a packet to bring home because we could actually tell the difference and liked the region’s take on them!
We drove to Akita city that night and had a mediocre meal and watched part of the world rugby match between New Zealand and South Africa.
Sunday 22
We started the morning with breakfast (cake and tea) at the Akita Museum of Art.
It doesn’t take much to persuade me to go to a gallery or museum but I was particularly keen to visit because the museum was designed by Tadao Ando, the same architect who designed the museums on Naoshima island which is one of my favourite places in Japan.
We spent the afternoon strolling through a park and headed out of Akita city after lunch. We made a brief stop at a gorge but the weather was pretty miserable so we decided to head straight to our hotel instead. We watched the current sumo tournament on TV before gorging at the hotel’s buffet dinner.
Setting the scene for as I wrote this blog:
Location: On the train home from Morioaka to Tokyo.
Weather: A bit grey but still fine to be out in just a t-shirt.
Soundtrack: The Kinks.
Bonus fact: I have actually been interviewed a few times by random Japanese TVshows/ tourism documentaries but never managed to see the final result until this week’s show!
