Tokyo NYE Part I

We had a few goals for today, and sadly not all of them were realised to their fullest potential.

Goal #1 was to buy Kate and me some new spectacles because even though we had private health insurance, it is still cheaper to buy them here. Only catch was that same day service is for single focal length only. No worries though because Kate has apparently had bad eye sight forever but neglected to tell her parents, so she now has a lovely new pair of glasses and it is like watching a baby giraffe learn to walk... She is wandering around Tokyo like she is living in a whole new world now, literally with a look of amazement on her face. I bought a new pair of distance and a new pair of reading specs. All three pairs for just under $300 and ready within 45 minutes.

Whilst waiting, goal #2 was to walk along "kitchen street" (Kappabashi Dougu Street). Major disappointment here and I almost wanted to cry because this was one thing I really wanted to do in Tokyo; explore the kitchen shops. And pretty much every single one is now closed until next Monday. Wahhhh. There were a few knife shops open, and Craig bought himself his first shop-bought Japanese-made carbon steel knife. He has made them before at home. A lovely young Russian kid in the shop served us so had a good conversation with him, in Japan studying his MBA. There was one non knife shop open and I bought myself a new kitchen pastry brush. The shop lady said "hand wash only", I said "I will tell the kids no dishwasher" and she laughed, obviously recognising the futility of this statement. To my children: if you read this, do not put my new brush in the dishwasher... like ever!

After the quick pickup of the new specs, we headed to Akihabara which is the anime and tech district. Kate needed to buy some Pokemon cards as a gift. I was also thinking we would go to a maid cafe for lunch but the food looked crap, and I guess you are paying for the experience so we went to an izakaya instead, and it was brilliant! We couldn't spend very long (25 minutes to be precise) because we had a 3pm chopstick-making workshop to walk to 25 minutes away, but we were given a plate of sardines and other things to cook at a grill at the table which comes with the experience. This in addition to our share plates of nigiri and sushi rolls. Because we couldn't linger like we really wanted to, we are going to find another izakaya for dinner tonight as our last meal of 2025.

In a very un-Japanese way, our workshop was running 30 minutes late to start, so we could have actually lingered...

And we are now all the proud owners of our very own hand made chopsticks. Craig and I made ours out of Japanese Cedar, Kate made hers out of Hinoki Cypress. It was good fun. After that we walked home on the hunt for a stupid lightning cable so Kate can go out for NYE with a functioning phone. Craig seems to think there is no need to start staying awake until midnight, so I might end up out with Kate, although fireworks are not a big part of Japanese NYE, and in fact it is being actively discouraged to gather around Shibuya Crossing which explains why the rooftop garden was closed off when we wanted to go there yesterday. Katie and I think we might head to Tokyo Skytree since it is only 1.5km from our house. There is a gathering at temples at midnight where a gong is struck 108 times to dispel the 108 worldly temptations, so we may well end up there too.Read more