Tokyo Blog

I’ve found another pastime I prefer to ‘looking at the leftover Hanami casualties at 2 o’clock in the morning in Ueno Park’. This is a slight variation; ‘Hanami party crashing’. Actually, we were just walking in Ueno park on Friday night, and I had paused to scoop up a mouthful of Takoyaki (octopus balls), when some guys started shouting at us from one of the allotted party areas, underneath the cherry blossom trees. I was about to get defensive, having been more accustomed to the English way of life on a Friday night; you get shouted at, it’s probably abuse, so it’s time to get shirty! As it was, the guys were beckoning us across to come join their Hanami party, which we did. We were pretty pleased to have found this group of people to hang around and drink with. I was supposed to be going to a Hanami party on Sunday afternoon, but it looks like I’ve had one party already, and when we parted we were talking about arranging another drinking party for after the weekend, so that makes three!

It was a really good night, and it made me aware of how friendly the Japanese people are, and how enjoyable their festivals are. They shared their beer and sake with us, and my housemate even got interviewed on Japanese Television! Oh, and we shouted at some police officers.