Tokyo Birthday

I’m exactly where I want to be when I turned 50.  And I’d be remiss not to thank the guy who made it happen. We usually vacation in July and the last time we did August was literally our honeymoon, 18 years ago.  So i'm not sure if god intervened or the stars were aligned or Kenny was in a good mood, but this happened.   It was quite the perfect day.  It started with a text to my mom:   

This lady waited so long to go to the hospital that I was crowning and the nurse wouldn’t help until the doctor got there. She was begging the nurse to catch me and was trying not the push.  Of course, I was in a rush to get out!!

We started off as we always do, at Lawson.   This time we got coffee, egg salad and onigiri.  Yup, I got the Ikura onigiri.  We headed to do some shopping we missed yesterday.  

But first a stop at a random bakery. 

We shopped and this lovely man, Teiji, helped me make my dinner reservation.  So excited. He was great.  Then back to Ginza to a pen store.  

I was getting grouchy by now because suddenly it’s late and we didn’t eat and shopping kinda sucks. So I quietly took Kenny to a cafe….a little simple cafe: 

We didn’t want to eat much because of dinner but I needed  Mont Blanc.   So we were chatting with our waitress.  Telling her how excited we were to have their dessert.  We ordered a tea pot and the dessert. 

Our waitress then said she got me a birthday gift.  

I didn’t want to drink it. 

So this is what stupid happy looks like. 

This chick, with a simple little move, made me cry.  It was so sweet and she was so sweet and made my day.  

After this we went back to the room to prep for dinner.  Tempura in Japan is an art form. And I really wanted good tempura, not the tendons we had been having. We promised the restaurant and our shop friend we would be on time.  Showered, changed and ready to go. 

Tenmo tempura is a family owned little place.  Father, mother and son.  This man was making tempura for 40 years.  His father made it and his grandfather made it.  His son was learning. 

Grandpa's pic

And then this happened:

Plate ready to go. Btw, he put new paper 3x through the meal. 

Spring onion, i think. 

Fresh bamboo shoot, oddly delicious

 

Big mushroom, tasted like meat. 

Shitake, my fav!!!

Edamame, i think.  Or at least some kind of pea.  

You think it's an egg?  It's an onion. 

Such good fish.  

Shishito Pepper.  

This is a mix of fresh egg and veggies, kind of a pancake in essence.  Delicious ending. 

Meet the Mosaburo family. 

I got a gift here too but I didn’t open it.  

Do you know what very happy people do?   They go sing.  

At Vigo Karaoke - part of the Big Echo group. 

There are videos that you shall never see! But invite us to karaoke and we will definitely go. Funny side note, this was both of our firsts with Karaoke so we had nothing to compare it too.  The room was great but the video on the screen was odd.  And the music was hard to sing to.  Regardless, when we got there, I immediately said 2 hrs and Kenny thought 1. Of course we did 2 and when we were almost done, we were both sad that it ended.  So. Much. Fun.

Did you think my bday day ended???  It did not.  Not without our regular nightly ritual. 

That’s truffle chips, baumbuken and ice cream. Just in case you didn’t know. 

And that’s how I turned 50.  With lots and lots of sweets, some beer, amazing food and good times (minus the sweating, feet hurting, grouchy from Shopping part).