This is the fourth of five posts in my little Japan-memoirs-series.
Part 1: Tokyo-one
Part 2: Tokyo-two
Part 3: Tokyo-three-Kyoto
Part 5: Tokyo-five
Waking up in Tokyo that friday morning, I realised that today I was going to be literally lost in translation. The swedish delegation had gone home earlier that morning, the amazing tourguide from Kyoto was obviously nowhere to be found and I was left feeling quite small in this big city.
Well, that was until I met up with Christian and Peter who had also decided to spend an extra couple of days in this glorious country.
I had some thing on my agenda though. I needed to do the obligatory “dad-is-away-present-shopping-run” and I had my eyes set on some kimonos for the girls, and a ninja outfit for Emil. Peter and Christian needed to switch hotels, so we decided to meet up in the Shinjuku area for lunch, and some camera store browsing.
We went back to the Asakusa area, because that’s where I knew I could find my presents, but also because Christian knew of a very cool street selling only Japanese kitchen knives. In all that, we basically just roamed the streets together, exploring. With nothing on our schedules other than to dwell in the marvellous street scenes of Tokyo.
Later that night I had arranged to meet up with the guys from Fujifilm Tokyo for a little bit of friday night R & R. – and no that apparently isn’t short for ‘rest and recreation’ – but rather ‘ROCK AND ROLLING!’
I was supposed to meet up with Kunio-san, but it turned out that all of them wanted to go have dinner with me on a friday night. So there we were, Me, and 7 of the coolest Japanese guys on the planet who also happens to be running things at that little company called Fujifilm.
We had excellent dinner. 11 different cuts of some of the best meat I’ve ever had. 11 cuts of Kobe beef. It was without a doubt the best meet I’ve ever tasted. Adding to the richness of their meals, everything is based around achieving the heightened flavour of Umami. All the side dishes was based on how to achieve umami. It was beyond great.
After a flood of meat, wine, beers and highball we went to do karaoke. I was afraid that I would find myself on the stage at one of the big karaoke clubs, singing my poor danish soul out. But on the contrary, what they did was book a small room with just the 8 of us, and then we had tambourines and 2 mics. Everything was set up to be very social, and very entertaining. This was basically just another form of party entertainment. And it was SO. MUCH. FUN!
We ended the night at a very local live-music club, where it seemed like I was the only western guy they had ever seen. And when I started dancing, everyone found it even more amusing. I simply cannot remember the last time I had so much fun in one night. A night that slowly drifted into amnesia….. I blame the highball!
Awesome photos as always! Can’t get enough of your updates.
You’re very kind thank you!
The taxi driver photo and the last photo are my favorites. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing. Always love your photos
How is the action stopping power of the EF-X20 Flash compared to the X8. I wanted to upgrade to a better small flash, but I love that the X8 cycles of the camera battery instead of AAA batteries. Not sure if it’s worth it for basic street stuff. The X8 seems to be doing ok, but doesn’t freeze the action as well as some of my speedlights.
There is a lot more power to the X20 than the X8 – But the real downside is that it turns of whenever the camera goes to sleep. VERY inconvenient at times.
Yeah that’s what I hear. The big problem with the 8 is the manual control are buried in the menus. So you almost have to shoot TTL which pulses two flashes, and it’s very disruptive when longer shutters. I wish they made an x20 that could also use some of the camera battery.