After getting back from our Kanagawa trip to Kamakura, Hakone and Odawara, (see Eli and Ayjay’s Adventures Part 2 for those details/photos if you haven’t seen them already,) it was time to return to work. Luckily, I was working lates on the Monday, so could take Eli out in the morning. We went for a cheeky drink for breakfast, saw Sensoji temple and then walked down the Sumida river with our convenience store dinners and ate overlooking Skytree. The photos we got together at Skytree, I will treasure forever. I think they really show how close we had grown in such a short space of time (love you Eli!) and the sky was just picturesque so we were lucky to get mementos of this time together that were/are so nice.
We then headed to Kiyosumi gardens, one of my favourite Japanese gardens in Tokyo (and although it wasn’t at the time, it is now our local Japanese garden, since we moved to Koto-ku in May). I left Eli at the gardens to explore, as I had to get to work, and then we met up at home later on. That night we wanted to chill, so we chatted as we were stuck in our train station stamps and goshuin into our collection books. We had been to so many places, so it was so nice to see all that in one place, and to help Eli write the place names by each thing (while I was next to her to read the kanji and remember specifically where things were in terms of location). The little crafting session was pretty therapeutic, and it was lovely to hear Eli’s thoughts on everything she’d seen and done. It seemed like Eli was having fun too, until we hear a “Oh no! How the bloody hell have I done that?!” Looking up, we see Eli, unfolding the book for her goshuin (it folds out to make one, long paper line, not individual pages). Each page usually holds a goshuin, but somehow, Eli had managed to skip three or four pages, each of them double sided, leaving around seven blank gaps between two of her goshuin. She seemed really annoyed at herself, “How am I going to fix that?” she tutted, shaking her head and trying to work out the puzzle she had created. Sammy and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Just leave it! It’s a funny story!” Tears in our eyes with laughter, Eli soon joined in laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. We knew that sometimes you can accidentally skip a page when gluing things in, but none of us could figure out how she’d managed to skip like a quarter of the book without noticing! It was really funny, until we realised Eli wanted her beautiful book to be perfect and that this big gap being there didn’t feel good to her. I reassured her, “Well tomorrow we’re going to work out of a big coffee shop near Tokyo Tower and there are loads of shrines around there. I can give you a list and you can maybe go to some of them to fill up some of the pages.” Eli loved that idea, but insisted I gave her more shrine names than missing pages, so no matter which ones she visited, the gap would be completely filled.
I thought it was impossible to visit seven shrines in the space of a day, but Eli was determined and when that woman puts her mind to something, she can do anything I swear. She whizzed around, getting up early despite getting to bed late and, by the time she met us at the coffee shop, she was exhausted but had most of the shrines done. I handed her my gluestick and she stuck them all in super carefully as she rested and enjoyed her coffee. I gave her some recommendations for the area, as we were near Roppongi and Ebisu. That evening, we showed Eli what all you can drink (nomihoudai) karaoke in Japan was all about. It was such a blast, trying all the different drinks on the menu and singing songs from the widest range of genres. There was a drunk guy who came in at one point, staring us down and trying to talk to us before his friends steered him back to his own room, but he didn’t taint the buzz that was in the air from such a magical evening. I can’t wait to do it all over again next time Eli is over!
According to my schedule, I planned on just letting Eli explore herself the next couple of days because I was working all day, but my shifts changed last minute on the Thursday, so I ended up going shopping to get Sammy some new slippers. His were literally disgusting; falling apart beyond belief. They looked like he’d climbed Fuji wearing nothing but them, dragging his feet along the way. I could not believe how long they’d been in that state too. We’d just been so busy over the last couple of months, I hadn’t had chance to replace them. That day though, I decided enough was enough. My shift was moved, so I stopped in Akihabara (just because that was the closest daiso to any of the stops on my commute). As I was walking through the stores, a tiny voice in my head told me that maybe Eli was heading to this area that day. I wasn’t sure, just something about that sounded familiar. I messaged her – she was in Akihabara too! I couldn’t believe it! I asked her if I could get her a coffee and we had a little one hour break in the middle of our day. It was so lovely, especially as this was probably the last kind of time we’d be able to chill like this until she left to go back to the UK. I’m not sure how Eli eventually ended up spending those final 24 hours in Tokyo. She would have told me, but I didn’t update my schedule nor did I write it in my diary. All I know is that I cried a lot when she left and missed her almost immediately. I felt like I’d gained another sister and I really didn’t want her to leave. However, on the other hand, the red marks on her hips were still raw and, although we’d ruled out any kind of bites or heat rash, I was relieved she was returning to the UK where she felt more comfortable getting treatment. I asked her to keep me in the loop, tell me when she’d landed and when she’d seen a doctor, and I let her know that we were in fact returning to the UK in May, so it wouldn’t be long until we could hang out again.
It was only a week, and although time flew as we were having fun, we fit so much into those seven days I couldn’t quite believe it hadn’t been longer. Our Kanto adventures had been so much fun that I have been counting down the moments until we are reunited and can do it all over again in Kansai. Thanks Eli for all the laughs and wonderful experiences – you’re welcome back any time!
