Chie and I met Martin and Ivan at the Chibo restaurant on the 38th floor of the Ebisu Garden Plasa. Ivan is a friend of Martin that just moved to Tokyo to work for Sony Ericsson as an “Expat”. Together we enjoyed okonomiyaki and talked.

After dinner Chie and I helped Ivan buy some medicine (è–¬) for his throat. He was sounding like someone drinking too much Whiskey and smoking too much cigarettes.

A funny thing about medicine in Japan is the kanji 薬 pronounced kusuri. It is a combination of the kanji for fun (楽) and the radical for grass (). So if you take some grass then you become happy.

Chie has been busy supporting a friend with a family matter the last couple of days. So to relax we went to Yasaka for dinner. It feels like home, and we do not have to cook 😛

After ordering the Taylor Made shirt at Isetan Chie and I continued to the Koei restaurant. It is a Korean BBQ restaurant in Shijuku. We met Mina-sensei there and… Vegetarians may want to stop reading now… Set in to eating as much grilled meat as possible. And we had a lot.

After 2 hours they asked for the last order. It turned out the restaurant had a 2 our limit when you make a reservation. With some negotiation we managed to extend this to 2.5 hours, and a free bottle of Korean chochu (alcohol).

Rolling out of the restaurant around 8:30 pm we continued rolling to the Shinjuku JR station. Mina-sensei went her way and Chie and I went our way, taking the Yamate-sen (former Yamanote-sen) to Shibuya. In Shibuya we pushed our way throught the crowds to the bus stop and… Just missed the bus.

Since it is almost New Year we got into a cab, an ugly green colored one, and got home.

“Dagen före doppardagen” – they day before the dipping day, if translated straight to English from Swedish. The meaning is that it is the day before the Christmas evening. Old tradition in Sweden is to use buljong from cooking the ham to dip perhaps dry bred in and eat, hence Christmas eve became the long awaited “dipping day” when old dry bread became a little bit easier to eat.

Fortunately we do not need to rely on buljong from cooking the ham to enjoy our bread or food today. We went to Yasaka instead. With Martin and his friend Anders. Martin works at Sony Ericsson and Anders was visiting from Sweden over Christmas and New Year.

We had a good time eating and talking. I think that Martin and Anders enjoyed the food and atmosphere at Yasaka almost as much as we do.