Ginza life, interim
2024 in full bloom
It’s already the end of April, and I have been deliberating how best to reflect on the past month working in Tokyo. Grateful - for the week that I arrived to be greeted by cherry blossom trees almost bursting at the seams; for the friendships revisited and for the generosity from everyone I met (not easy for enneagram 2s to accept, when oddly, we give too much). Tired - because work is work, and how different a mindset it is when you know that there is a job to be done, even when you’re living in a relatively foreign environment.
The irony was the fact that I ended up living in Ginza. Right smack where tourists would congregate and line up to purchase their countless luxury goods where, on weekends, they casually place their purchases on the streetside to pose for photographs, almost ludicrously, sprawled atop a chair in the middle of the pedestrianised roads. It made for interesting observations and stories in my head.
But back to sakura season.
I was lucky to have this trip stretch out long enough to see neighbourhoods of trees heavily pregnant with their blooms, with families and friends either on picnic mats or just seated on the grass beneath the trees, enjoying a store-bought onigiri and some drinks. Yet there was this part of me that felt I wasn’t in the moment enough; that I looked, but I wasn’t truly absorbing. This feeling continued through the past weeks, even as the trees shed their blooms, and emerged just this bit of an unfamiliar shade of very green.
Embracing what brings me joy
In the past four months, I unexpectedly went full speed ahead diving into the joy of fangirling again. I have a mental image of a stern head shaking sister of mine (“not again, didn’t we go through this from 2005-2009”) but you know what? I’m happy being this happy. Two SHINee concerts - one in Tokyo (pulled off this amazing feat after shepherding my extended family to Kyoto and saying brb) and one in Singapore, and an EXO mini concert in Incheon.
I love music, I like their songs, and I like that we all have a really good time together. Except for the two ladies flanking me who kept asking me to translate what the singers were saying onstage (help..) .
Lemons, lemonade and soba
The month that led up to this short-but-not-short immersion had its challenges and long moments of self-doubt, which I was thankful to work through with trusted people supporting me. And as we’ve learnt, make lemonade from lemons, and definitely when there’s time, find a good soba shop with equally good tempura.
In the past week, I went around Tokyo with V enough times to learn that there could be good soba-poor tempura, good tempura-poor soba, and the winning formula of good soba-good tempura.
I will recommend the following meals that made me very happy: Sumiyaki Unafuji Yurakucho (unagi), Meigetsu-an Ginza (soba), Asakusa Hirayama (soba), Pizza Marumo, Roar Coffee (never was let down, ever) & Yakitori Akira.
May - a month of new beginnings
While we are only dipping our toes into the fifth month, I wonder what the second half of 2024 will present. I hope you can find something that brings you joy as well. I keep saying this, to you and to myself. Don’t put off joy.
Love,
Medhā