the end.

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July 30, 2007

not quite over yet

at the end of my iaido enkai last night, my sensei offered to take me fishing in the bay near fuji. he told me that he'd pick me up at 3:00am to go and that we'd be back in time by 6:00am or so.

i couldn't fall asleep till about 1:30am last night, and woke up an hour later to go fishing...

we only caught one fish.

and it was a baby.

and at first i was thinking of highly suggesting that we throw it back from whence it came as to, you know, not overfish and what not. then i also remembered that my teacher got 4 hrs of sleep, took his boat, bought ice, and stayed up for two to three hours with me trying to catch fish...

i kept my mouth shut haha.

anyways after that i got back, passed out for an hour again as i was headed up to tokyo to meet up with masaya for the last time.

to my joy and surprise he brought his senpai, hirayama san (or yasu) and his wife (orie). and let me tell you, i haven't seen masaya in a year since he left for germany a year ago around this time. he invited me to nagano to go snow boarding and always opened his door if we needed a place to crash in tokyo. for just that alone, i am grateful. but more importantly he's been an amazing friend and genuine about his effort and want to speak english and be my friend as well.

we had lunch, went shopping, played mario kart with the four of us (awesome btw!) and went to shoot pool.

which i think was the highlight.

we played 2v2 and it was me and hirayama san and masaya and hirayama san's wife. yasu and i were the underdogs, going 0-2 (no thanks to me, the f-up count is me 3 and him 1 lol), but with a turn of events (his wife sunk the 8 ball on the second shot), and quite possibly a miracle shot from yasu san, we tied it up 2-2 and could leave it happy knowing that we (yasu and i) were not completely creamed.

some of the most fun i've had in a long time, honest.

then we made our way up to nerima, where for 4 straight times, the elusive katsu shop has, well, eluded me. literally.

i also learned about this place from yasu a year and some change ago.

the story behind it is that melissa and i came up here after recontracting orientation and we... ended up not ordering the katsu (even though we thought we did)... and then the next time mel and i and chris found it was closed, and then mel, chris, annabelle, and i found it was closed, and then (though i can't remember) but i have this feeling that a fourth time it was closed as well, but i FINALLY got my katsu!!!

huzzah!

and it was absolutely delicious.

but one thing really got to me that i didn't even realize.

for you see i thought that masaya was in tokyo just to look for a job and that he's been here for a long time... and then he told me that he came out here, all the way from nagano, just to come see me.

and you know what else he did? even though it was completely out of the way, he stayed on the train with me to shinagawa and even waited for my train.

that's the kind of amazing guy he is and i only hope that all of you guys reading this will only get a chance to someday meet him.

he's an amazing friend who i'll never be able to forget, and the night that i got to share with them as my final night in tokyo was some of the best fun that i've been able to have in japan and i'm glad it was with them.

though i do admit that my biggest regret was that i didn't take any pictures while we were shooting pool

you know those moments where you and some good friends have a long good laugh that goes on for a long time, only to find all of you with teary eyes, difficulty breathing, a pain in your sides and just the greatest feeling of contentment afterwards?

that's what the whole night was like.

Posted by Jeff at July 30, 2007 04:34 PM

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