http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/John's Blog @ the Maison de Stuff.Sat, 25 May 2013 13:20:26 +0100en-ukhttp://backend.userland.com/rss092http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/icons/mdsbutton.jpghttp://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/John's Blog @ the Maison de Stuff.[Friday 24th May 2013] In the office in Tokyo again in the daytime, then in the evening headed over to Shinagawa station to get the shinkansen to Hiroshima, where I'd be spending the next week with Chie, Erika, and the Moriwakis. Not a particularly eventful journey really - a bit boring in fact. I just about got a glimpse of a silhouette of Mount Fuji - slightly frustratingly although there was an unusually clear sky, it was pretty much dark by the time the train got there, making me wish I'd picked a slightly early train - 15 minutes would have made all the difference. Arrived in Hiroshima at 11, Chie's Mum picked us up from the station (Chie's sister was on the same train, but sitting at the other end). It was lovely to see Erika again after 4 nights away.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003385.html[Thursday 23rd May 2013] Not quite such a long day at the office today - I was in at 8:30, but left at 5 - although lunch was a 15 minute affair so I think I still technically did overtime. Met Andy in the evening, as is becoming the norm at the Hobgoblin in Roppongi. I was keen not to be stuck in horrible Roppongi all evening, so as soon as I could drag Andy away from probably the only place in Tokyo which has English cask ale on tap (which meant about pint number 4 for him - I've learnt from past experience not to bother trying to keep up) we headed over to Shinjuku. I'd envisaged we might do a bit of bar hopping there, but as soon as Andy saw the ridiculously oversized steins in the Asahi Beer Hall (apparently 1.3 litre capacity, although Japanese beer always comes with a massive head and they're pretty lax with measurements so I'm pretty sure it was actually much less in practice) it then became impossible to drag him away from there for the remainder of the evening.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003384.html[Wednesday 22nd May 2013] Did about a 13 hour day at the Tokyo office today. Was originally thinking I'd just eat something wherever I could find it and slink off back to my hotel after that, but somehow I ended up dragging myself all the way over to Ikebukuro when I finally finished work, and followed the long established tradition of dinner at Rohlan followed by whisky at Quercus. As always I had the vegetarian tonkatsu, and for the first time tried their "hot and sour ramen". This was vast - sometimes ramen can be a giant bowl of soup with just a few noodles floating about. This however would have been a full bowl even if they'd left the soup out, and it sort of defied the laws of physics that it all fit in at all. Normally when visiting Japan I give Watanabe-san advance notice that I'll be popping in to see him at Quercus, but given the somewhat short term planning of this trip, I hadn't got round to that, so just sort of showed up. He was quite surprised. It was also nice that Kohe-san, one of the old regulars I've chatted to in the past was there. He used to live in London, and speaks English with an English accent, although we mostly spoke in Japanese this evening.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003383.html[Tuesday 21st May 2013] Woke up just before 6am this evening, and was in the office before 8am. That was pretty much the pattern for most of this week - I seemed to average less than 6 hours sleep, and somehow was fine with that. Met up with Tanaka-san in Ebisu in the evening - neither of us could really think of anywhere new or different we want to go, so we ended up just revisiting some of the same places we'd been to in Ebisu on my last visit. Started off in the same branch of Pronto, then as a slight deviation went to an Indian restaurant for dinner, then went back to the alleway full of little bars and restaurants, which somehow didn't seem as fun second time round. Japan really isn't set up for bar hopping / pub crawls - there's effectively a cover charge at every place you go to in the form of an "otoshi" - a little snack which you pay for whether you want it or not, and is all the more annoying for me as it almost always involves fish. I wish in hindsight we'd gone back to the vending machine bar in Yurakucho!http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003382.html[Monday 20th May 2013] Our flight landed around 9:30am, and after getting through immigration and customs we briefly met up with Ai-san (Chie's friend who works as a cabin attendant) who was passing through Narita between Singapore and Bangkok. It was a very quick hello, and then Chie and Erika headed off on the shuttle bus to Haneda airport, from where they'd be flying straight to Hiroshima. I waved them off and then wearily got aboard a train bound for central Tokyo. I arrived at my office around lunchtime - the plan was that I was going to do a full day's work today, but by 4pm I realised I was falling asleep at my desk, and decided I ought to go back to my hotel for a bit of a nap. I was very disciplined with this - set the alarm for 8pm, then got up, went for a quick dinner at the vegetarian Chinese place near the hotel which we'd discovered in March, and then headed back into the office from 9pm onwards. I was utterly determined to do something close to a full day's work.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003381.html[Sunday 19th May 2013] We hadn't stayed too late at the wedding last night, mindful that we were off to Japan the next day, although mercifully the 2pm-ish flight meant we didn't need to leave home until nearly 11. Erika was fairly good on the flight, although I started to feel a bit stressed towards the end - the cabin is dark for most of the flight, and somehow most of the passengers seem to go to sleep (I still can't understand how people can manage that). Erika wasn't being especially noisy but she was a bit tired and a bit fed up so was a bit grizzly for a time, and I felt quite under pressure to not disturb the other passengers. As before we spent a lot of time walking up and down the plane, and standing at the bit at the back where the lights are kept on, but that's no longer an option if there's turbulence and they put the seatbelt lights on. So some parts of the flight were a bit frustrating, but we got through it. I watched the first Hobbit film on and off when Erika was sleeping or otherwise engaged. I don't think I liked it quite as much at the Lord of the Rings films - there seemed to be a lot more bits added in (I found Sebastian the hedgehog particularly surprising) but it made for a pleasant distraction from the tedium of being on a plane.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003380.html[Saturday 18th May 2013] Picked up a hire car in the morning (which ended up more like the early afternoon) and drove down to Midhurst in Sussex, for Kyle and Hannah's wedding, at the Cowdraw Walled Garden, adjoining the Cowdray Ruins. Although the weather was a little overcast, it was pleasant enough to be outside, and the location was rather idyllic - we arrived to a quintessentially English scene, with the ruins, surrounded by fields wherein the grass was being cut, and people were playing cricket. The walled garden itself was even more idyllic, and the highlight of the day was very much the milling about outside before and after the ceremony and the meal. Erika was of course a big hit with the other guests - and I'm very pleased to report for her first wedding she was very well behaved throughout the ceremony, barely a peep out of her, although I was standing with her by the door, just in case anything did occur.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003379.html[Friday 17th May 2013] Given our impending trip to Japan, and it being a Friday, we decided to have "fish" and chips for dinner - again using the fake fish from Holland and Barrett we'd discovered recently, which is surprisingly good. But chip shop chips, of course. We also made mushy peas (from fresh peas, so not really the same as the real thing, but then the real thing is kind of foul) mainly for Erika's sake. We also gave her a couple of chips. I'm sure we probably shouldn't but it was just the two, and we're so careful with everything else we feed her (no salt, no oil, etc) that we decided it would probably just be fine. Not unsurprisingly she seemed to really enjoy them.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003378.html[Thursday 16th May 2013] Breakfast on the balcony at my office.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003377.html[Wednesday 15th May 2013] Andrew - friend from work - had been in the US for a bit, and arrived back today - I also managed to find out it was actually his birthday. So an impromptu evening out in Brixton ensued. I seem to be getting over my phobia of going South of the river - Brixton in particular is impressively vibrant and actually quite exciting. We started off with pizza at Franco Manca - where I have been a few times before - then walked across the "street" to a bar called 7, wherein we had embarrassingly cheap cocktails. I tend to think of cocktails as something synonymous with really smart hotel bars in St. James's, and can easily be around the £15 or 20 mark - herein they had a bunch at £5, and when I asked for a negroni - not on the main list - I was warned that was going to be a heady £7. It's a different world South of the river.http://www.maison-de-stuff.net/john/articles/00003376.html