The latest mustlovejapan shoots are finally finished and online for your viewing pleasure! Three new movies have been added, featuring me, your beloved host! Just go to the site and check out:

China town in Yokohama: Japan’s biggest Chinatown, what did I do there? Mainly eating, Chinese food rocks!

Nanohana food stand in Tsunashima: This small shop sells take away bentou boxes, yakitori and many other kinds of food. Watch me explain how it works. And of course, eat my fill…

The Jha BAR: This is a beer speciality bar, where you can drink beers from all over the world. I introduce the place, drink some recommended beers and speak Japanese (with subtitles!). Oh, don’t forget, of course I eat some fish ‘n chips as well.

Mustlovejapan.com, where you can watch me eat all the food in Japan!

My friend from Japanese class in Amsterdam, Balazs, had sent me the contact details of Saki-san, a Japanese girl who currently lives in Tokyo. I contacted her, and last Saturday we went on a date. However, since we would meet at 2 in the afternoon, I of course still had time to go clubbing on Friday. Artem met up with us during dinner, after which we went to Harajuku, where I tried to buy the shoes I really wanted at the time.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have the shoes I wanted in my size, so instead we just went for some crap. With crap, I of course mean the icecream wrapped in crêpes they sell everywhere in Harajuku. It is a very popular snack, where you can choose a, usually sweet, filling, which they roll in a warm pancake. Although I went for ice cream, it is also possible to get a cheesecake filling, or even ceacar salade. Although I don’t think I’ll ever try it with anything other than ice cream.

Outside the crapshop, we were fooling around a bit, of course impersonating Arnold, the governator, badly (get down!), when two Japanese women walked by. The look on the face of one of them was awesome. We were fooling around, totally ignoring everybody around us, making way too much noise for Japanese standards (read: the average noise people make in our metros). The look the woman gave us was one of: “what are they doing, oh they are gaijin, pfff,” as she strolled by disdainfully.

We went to our guest house, to start the alcohol consumption required to guarantee a good night of partying. Back in the guest house we were basically bullshitting the whole time. Making fun of everything and everyone we could, as much as possible. Around 12 we left our house to catch the last metro to Shibuya, where we were planning to go to Club Asia.

When we got to Club Asia, the party seemed to suck a bit, so we went to another club across the street. It promised hip hop, rmb and dancehall, and boy did we get it. Inside we found a small, but tall club. It had a small area where we entered, then down the stairs we found an even smaller area where people could chill a little. Downstairs was the biggest area, where there was room to dance. Being the amazing hip hoppers that we are, we kinda stood out of the crowd, which consisted mostly of blinged out Japanese and Black people.

We had loads of fun and were even surprised by a performance by a Japanese rap group. This was awesome, because just before the group started, the floor was packed with guys trying to get girls, effectively blocking everybody from doing any dancing or whatever. But as the group started to do their performance, all the guys suddenly left, and we found ourselves standing in the middle of a crowd of chicks, with hardly any guys around!

So we partied like crazy, but unfortunately none of us managed to “score.” Although Artem was doing pretty good with a girl we met their, who eventually took us to go and eat something afterwards. The place we went to eat was filled with drunken Japanese people, all enjoying their selves very much. The food kind of sucked though, and it was very expensive, but we had fun nonetheless. After dinner we took the metro home, where I quickly fell asleep. Time for the blind date!

At two o’ clock the next day I arrived at the starbucks where we were supposed to meet. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t make it in time, because I left my house kinda late that morning. Luckily, when I arrived at Shinjuku station I received a message from Saki-san that she took a wrong train and would arrive a bit later. So I quickly ate lunch at the starbucks, and when I finished she arrived.

Saki-san is a very sweet girl, who grew up in Kobe and is currently living with a friend just outside of Tokyo. Which meant that she didn’t have a clue on where to go either. She called a friend, and we decided to go to Shinjuku park. This is an awesome park, located about 10 minutes by foot from Shinjuku station. Inside they have a Japanese style garden, an English style garden and a French style garden. We walked around the Japanese part of the garden for over an hour, seeing some amazing sceneries, koi fish and an awesome Chinese building.

After the park, we went for some coffee near the station, were after a while we were joined by Seiko-san, after which we went for dinner and drinks. We went to an Izakaya, a Japanese restaurant where you simply order a lot of small dishes, which you share with everybody. Meanwhile you are basically drinking as much as you can take. It was very fun, and the food was great. I drank a traditional Japanese drink, which was quite strong, but very tasty!

After dinner, we met up at Shibuya station with another friend of Saki-san, Maki-san (do you still follow?) and a friend from my guest house, Swaroop. After a lot of walking around, trying to decide where to go next, until Swaroop led us to the hub. The hub is an English styled pub which was very fun. It was interesting to see though, that you couldn’t just sit down wherever you wanted, you had to be seated by the waiters, or keep on standing around.

After the hub, we missed the last train for Roppongi, so we didn’t go clubbing. Instead we went for something to eat and drink some more. We hung out with the girls until about 3.30 in the morning, when we decided to call it a night. We went outside and walked straight into a blizzard (well almost, it was snowing), and took a cab home. The next day I woke up quite late, to find a nice white view outside my window, and the sounds of children playing in the snow.

I arrived at my hotel about 2 hours ago. First taken a shower, and then I was off for my first Ramen and Kirin beer. Let me tell you, they tasted goood! Behold my first true Japanese Ramen!

Now I’m off to bed, trying to get rid of my jetlag asap!

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