Had a guided tour of the traffic jams of Tokyo whilst being taught the finer points of Japanese life by Marie. Unfortunately, when teaching us some Japanese symbols she asked what two trees were. "Six" came the reply. You had to be there. We only had time for a quick look around a temple before being taken to the stadium for the opening ceremony. It was during the temple trip that we came across the old duffer with the appalling syrup. Not even a close fit and an awful style to boot.
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| A lone skydiver hitting the target |
The opening ceremony was as boring as expected but to make it worse, it pissed down. To rub things in, we missed the GB team when we were hiding from the downpour. When Sakamoto came on with his Action, Image, Exchange bit we decided we'd had enough.
2011
Ryuichi Sakomoto
Tokyo trafic - see here
The whole visit to Tokyo was an amazing eye opener for me - I'd had little or no exposure to Asia and thought Tokyo was fantastic and mysterious. When I left I firmly believed it was unlikely that I'd ever visit again. Five years later I was in a job in Sydney that involved working in Tokyo for a week every month. In little over 2 years I visited there 25 times and not only did I know the difference between kanji, hiragana and katakana but I was pretty good at reading kana and could even speak a little Japanese. The bars of Shinjuku were like a second home and I even watched Boro reach the FA Cup final with a mate in a Tokyo bar.
Next month Christy and I are taking the kids there for a 2 week holiday. I'd better start refreshing my language skills.
"Action, Image, Exchange" - this was an in-joke that meant it was all a bit esoteric and arty for us. The kodo drumming was good though.
Syrup - Syrup of figs - wig.
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| Goodbye beach balls |
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