Tokyo time = fun times

I must make an admission, I don't like big cities. New York is too crowded and makes me feel claustrophobic. Tokyo to me, always felt overwhelming and concrete jungle-like. I am more of a small city/surburban/country person because I like access to nature. But, my recent trip to Tokyo made me think differently about Tokyo. It seemed more accessable and nice. Also, my workspouse lives in Tokyo now, so anything with her is great in my eyes. It was fun to walk around all of the neighborhoods, be a tourist, shop, and chow-down!  

The first part of my week was work, which was full of long hours and interesting briefings. I had anticipated that our conversations would be depressing because we would be focusing on the lack of leadership, tough economy, demographic problems, and recent Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disaster. But our meetings were actually quite positive and focused on areas of hope, like growth of civil society and businesses working on social entrepreneurship. That was really inspiring! 

On the weekends, I was with my wonderful workspouse. The first weekend together we went out for dinner at a yakitori restaurant where she turned me onto sours. We also went out to Odaiba with my friend Adrienne where we did a lot of drinking and eating. The weather was great so we ate outside and caught up, then we had parfaits. I really should have taken a picture of them because they were so good!  It was very easy to lose track of time when you are with good friends, which I did! Oops! The second weekend, we went shopping at my favorite shops in Shinjuku (Uniqlo, Tokyuhands, and I finally made it to Top Shop!) and then we traveled out of Tokyo to attend a party that was hosted by my Tokyo colleagues at her beautiful home. We also went to Adrienne's place where we had a nice and chill night, exactly what I needed after a crazy week. Then the next day, I moved over to Mari's cute apartment and then we took off to Kamakura to see the big Buddah and hydrangeas. You might be thinking, did I just hear her say hydrangeas, like the flower? Yes, we spent two hours waiting to climb up a mountain/hill to see an assortment of beautiful hydrangea plants. It was a really fun day that ended with good friends and food (okonomiyaki) - yum! It was a nice end to my trip.