Tokyo - 25 Years Later

There's something of a golden rule in Tokyo "only ever do three things in one day". I may have mentioned this before but it runs pretty true and is a good guide to not breaking down along with the world around you. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of one that refines to how many activities are a good idea in a week, or even four. And excluding a number of other mornings, the last few weeks would really benefit from something of a guiding light. It's been an interesting interlude.

Kick off related to an old friend arriving with four others I last saw at his wedding some twenty five plus years ago. It was a genuine pleasure to see them after a beach in Hawaii in the heady days of 1996. For a couple of them it was their first trip to Tokyo, so naturally, when then end of the evening arrived, we hit the karaoke. I sing like a donkey but turns out two of the ladies had beautiful voices. We also managed to (legally!) source something for one of the guys collection (he didn't have a Japanese one). And they had a wonderful time. Especially when I told them my "looking after Tom Brady in Tokyo" story...

And the following day it was the turn of another family of friends that I probably hadn't see for another twenty years visiting from overseas. The two boys, now teenagers, who I was meeting for the first time, were great, one a dog whisperer and the other an academic. The interesting issue was with both sets of friends, we didn't reminisce on old times, we chatted, laughed and talked about the future. The only history recounted was swimming with turtles off the shores of Maui and trying to call a friend after I'd dropped his phone into a pint of beer. Seemed like a good idea at the time but apparently HR weren't too pleased...