The end of a dream?
Offensive family picnic?
The location of the picnic left a lot to be desired, and some would probably suggest that the language did too.
A window into a different Tokyo world?
Or if not a different world, then definitely a different Tokyo time.
Gritty Shinjuku drinks
With the fairly recent addition of a fancy new hotel and cinema complex, Tokyo’s wonderful grubby Kabukicho red light district has started to see distinct signs of gentrification. So families now mill around on a day out, and tour groups regularly move through en masse, frantically firing off smartphone and tablet photos like their lives depended on it.
But for the time being at least, it still maintains a good amount of rough and ready charm. Drunks, for example, can still be seen passed out on the street. Both male and female. Or even males pretending to be females. Plus the area’s various alleyways remain incredibly dingy, with some of its eateries not all that dissimilar. And as such, weekend afternoons in particular are still as gritty and marvellously impromptu as ever.
Quiet Tokyo beers
With work clearly no longer one of his worries, a few quiet beers to wile away a warm afternoon didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.
West Tokyo’s natural wonders
Tokyo’s often brightly decorated streets are fascinating to explore. They are gritty, attention grabbing and absolutely littered with good bars and eateries. In fact so seemingly limitless are the city’s offerings that even relatively small areas possess more than enough stimulation for countless lives, let alone the measly one we are limited to.
But escaping the urban scene is good every now and again. Absolutely necessary sometimes. And yet even then one doesn’t need to leave the capital, as way out west it’s another world altogether. One where the colours are all natural.
Climbing is still social but in a very different sense.
And perhaps most important of all, relaxation is preposterously easy.