Christmas 2005 in Tokyo

Christmas 2005

Christmas in Japan

So finally, I was able to do something I've been wanting to do for 10 years: bringing Marieke with me to see Japan!!! See, I lived in a suburb of Tokyo, called Kawasaki, as a student, when I was working as an intern at Matsushita, at that time the biggest electronics company in the world, better know for its brands Panasonic and Technics. I lived there the first half of 1996, at the same time as Marieke lived in Indonesia as an exchange student. I did visit her on my way to Japan, but she was never able to visit me. Then during my career in Procter & Gamble I have had multiple dealings with Japan, visiting Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto a few times over the years. Again, without her. So you can imagine I was super-excited that finally she was going to experience a bit of Japan, its people, its culture and its cities and sights!

Tadashi (a Japanese friend of mine that I know from P&G) picked us up from the airport and took us out to Yokohama, and arranged some more typically Japanese places to visit. We stayed in a capsule hotel, we went to see the temples at Nikko and got our picture taken in true "puri-kura" style. All in all an experience that we will never forget!

Read the (long!) full story at the entry for December 2005 (either in recent or in the archives...)