Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everybody and thank you all for visiting my site over the past couple of months.

Japan Trip 2008 – Day 4 3/12/08

Nakamise Dori in Asakusa

On assignment today for my friend and her company in Asakusa. My job is to write for her company in order to promote Asakusa and to attract more tourists to the local restaurants. Did the usual haunts plus a visit to the Bandai HQ building where outside you’ll find some statues of their most popular characters such as Kamen Rider, Ultraman and Doraemon. The windows highlight the latest toys and figures you can get. Also had a bit of a stroll though Sumida Park.

Five Storey Pagoda

At 1pm I met up with my 2 friends at the Kaminarimon Gate. We went to a local tonkatsu restaurant for a meal. The restaurant was quite famous seeing all the pictures of various Japanese celebrities with the head chef there. There was one of Hamada from the comedy duo Downtown and the fat comedian Hidehiko Ishizuka. Luckily for me when I was ordering the daughter of the head chef could speak fluent English so she explained what was on the menu for me. I went for a gyoza based meal which was really good. Absolutely stuffed after it as my best friend couldn’t eat her whole meal and dumped some of her tonkatsu in my bowl!

Kamen Rider outside the Bandai HQ building

More character statues

As the girls had to go off for a little while on business I took a ricksaw ride. There’s a whole fleet of these guys hanging around the Kaminaromon gate and plenty of people were using their services. My friend knew one of the guys working there so he took me around. He spoke perfect English and was so knowledgeable and a really good guide – explaining about how old the restaurants were and at the kabuki theater where there’s a Japanese style Walk Of Fame he picked out the legendary Takeshi Kitano’s handprint. I really enjoyed the ride. It was good fun.

One of the rickshaw men

After that, all 3 of us took the waterbus down to Hakone Pier and back again. I must have shot over 100 photos during the trip. Returning to Asakusa we headed to Kamiya’s Bar and a chance for me to try the drink of choice there – Denki Bran. Denki Bran is a mixture of gin, rum, brandy and some herbs. It wasn’t that nice to be perfectly honest with you and I was supposed to sip it but I was necking it down! We had a good hour there just talking.

The Japanese Style Walk Of Fame

Later on in the evening we had to split up as the girls went back to work for a while. On the way back after changing at Ueno and getting on the Yamanote Line there was a 30 minute delay at Uguisudani as an ‘accident’ had occured on the line. Judging by the ambulances rushing to the scene it was obvious somebody had committed suicide. There was no alternative but to wait as there was only the Keihin Tohoku line to take and that didn’t go near Shinjuku plus no subway station. Eventually though services did resume and I carried on to Shinjuku.

Tokyo Tower during sunset

Tomorrow I’d be heading out of the city for the first time.

A beautiful sunset

The Sadness Of Iida Kaori

Iida Kaori

One of the things I’ve been trying to do since coming back from holiday is catching up with idol news I’ve missed over the past month and one piece of extremely sad news I came across was about the death of Iida Kaori’s son.

I remember feeling happy for her when she got married and again when she gave birth to her son. Being that everything was quiet on the news about her throughout the year who was to know of the tragic event in her life. The fans assumed she was happily getting on as a new mother.

Apparently there was kidney complications from birth with her son but he was released from hospital in April. Then on July 27th things got worse and he died from kidney failure. He was only 6 months old.

I can’t even begin to imagine the grief she and her husband went through, even worse when it’s such a young baby suffering.

Kaori though has thrown herself back to work and get ready for the Elder Club concerts. I’m sure her friends and colleagues in H!P will give her all the support she needs. In the future she’ll probably try again for another child. Let’s all hope that nothing like this happens to her again and she’ll have a healthy baby.