Uneven Pavement

Enjoying the outdoor onsen at our hotel after a long night of parties. It was been a while since I have made a blog post. I have been extremely busy this December. A lot of Paatei's (partiessssss!) Let me start by sharing about "Forget-The-Year-Parties", or Bonenkai. Most if not all places of work have this end of the year, forget-the-year parties. At first I though it was a funky translation , forget the year? but the idea really is to forget the stress of the work year and start a fresh new year. It is an end-of-the-year work celebration among co-workers.We had ours the beginning of the month, and it was such a blast! We ate a lot of delicious food, karaoke, and went to an interesting bar. These luxurious parties are paid by our monthly "party dues" every month after we get our pay check we each contribute to our party fund $30, this all goes to fund these "enkais"(work parties). One of our co-workers was tasked with planning this years end

" When you travel remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you feel comfortable, it is designed to make its own people comfortable"- Clifton Fadiman Well I went to Tokyo this weekend and saw a lot! This is my second time going, first time I just visited Harajuku.  My first stop was the Tokyo flea market. I totally though this would be a locals only kinda spot but it was definitely full of tourists from all over the world looking to buy Japanese treasures. They mainly sell Japanese antiques, collectibles and vintage stuff.  As you can see from the advertising, it is very modern and pretty- totally aimed at tourists. Dang it....I though I had found a hidden gem.  Vintage Kimonos ( absolutely stunning around 4,000- 20,000 Japanese yen, or $40-200 USD) People set up their tarps and open up their car trunks and set up all around this parking garage. I wandered and look at about almost every little booth hoping to find a cheap kimono