Tokyo weekends

Tokyo weekends

Since most of my weekdays are spent gazing at a computer screen in utter apathy, weekends in Tokyo are precious. The last months have begun, and the number of weekends is getting less and less. You can notice that all of us are getting a bit edgy and maniacally planning each weekend.


The "BBQ weekend"

A Japanese friend of ours, Kosuke, invited a few of us for a barbecue at his house northwest of Tokyo. And what a barbeque it was. Good food, sunny weather, Jack Johnson and Bob Marley music, and Sandy, the laid-back house dog…the mood was set.
We ate non-stop from 2.30 pm to midnight, and I even roasted raw Brazillian coffee in a pan on the barbecue and grinded it by hand in the coffee mill - I’d guess it was about 100 turns for one cup. Bit less convenient than pressing the button of your Senseo/Nespresso-machine (the roasting and grinding in total took about 45 minutes).
Around midnight, Kosuke and Kosuke’s friends should have gone to sleep but no, without anyone noticing we somehow left the house and suddenly found ourself singing karaoke. Interesting differences in westerners and easterners singing karaoke I must say. While our japanese friends chose ballads and tried to sing as emotional and on-key as possible, we sang on a totally different level, the louder the better, with a sound-quality somewhere on the spectrum between a cow in labour and a cat being strangled.
After a while we though that it was taking quite a while already and that “the karaoke staff should have already told us that our time is up” when we realized we had rented it until morning so after singing until 3.30 we were knackered and stumbled to Kosuke’s house.

We were woken at 9.30 when it was announced to us that we were going to the onsen (hotsprings) nearby. Jolly good fun but a bit challenging to sit in hot baths and saunas with half a hangover and without breakfast. But it was really relaxing and Kosuke and us agreed we should set up an onsen in Holland, Japanese style. And, naturally you should also be able to do Karaoke while bubbling in the onsen.

In the afternoon we said goodbye to Kosuke and spent some time at the Sanja festival in Asakusa, one of Tokyo's biggest festivals. Then, I went home and fell into a deep sleep.