Takase san: the man with the dough

I was so afraid of the lingering smell of fish from Tsukiji so I made sure I was well doused in Anna Sui's Dolly Girl for a meeting with my sugar daddy, hell, I even put on a suit and killer shoes for the occassion. First, the scholarship recipients were given a tour of the Takase factory to educate us about the history and daily operations of company. I want to say I found it riveting but then I'd be lying, it was the dullest thing I've had to endure in a long while since it was all in Japanese and Takase is a shipping company, so we were just looking at boxes. The only thing that made it remotely enjoyable was meeting a really funny Irish guy, Derry, who couldnt speak Japanese either, so we amused ourselves with an alternative commentary.

Back at Takase HQ, they'd laid out a feast for us, thank God cos I was positively starving. Then, they tell us we had another tour to go on and the food would have to wait...oh, so near but so far. So off we trotted for a tour of Ginza, Tokyo's Knightsbridge, which wasnt bad at all par my rumbling tummy. Derry is living in Tokyo for the year so he was dispensing some invaluable advice about places to go and places to definately avoid. We spent the large part of the Ginza tour trying to get my elusive neon lights photo, though my pictures fail to capture the glitz and glam of Tokyo. Sometimes, photos are just not enough, you have to be there to get what it was like. The entire street had a lumious glow to it, so many different coloured lights stretching as far as the eye could see. A Frenchmen joined our duo allowing me to practise my schoolgirl French on him. I surprised myself with how much I could remember, though i couldnt remember' j'habite a...'- oh the shame!

Back again at Takase HQ, food still laid out but we're not tucking it just yet. Wait, we have speeches and introductions to go through. They asked us to limit our speeches to three minutes, though I could only muster 30 seconds in Japanese and then I had to revert to English but I was so close to losing my nerves and doing the entire thing in English. Derry didnt even realise about the speech so we were drafting his during the Ginza tour. It was really nice to have someone there, beaming proudly while I did my speech and his wasnt bad either considering it was a last minute job.

We said a toast and then finally, we could start eating. The food was so scrumptious, and a free bar too! The people there were really lovely and were absolutely loving my British accent, they kept trying to copy it though they'd come out sounding like Michael Cane. 'Oh reeelly, sweethaaart?' I got a little tipsy on the free alcohol, t'is not good to have an Irishman as a drinking partner. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and Derry and I are still in touch so yeh, another friend in Japan!