Turkey Time: A Busy Last Two Days

I was planning on going to Tokyo to visit my friend Pat who'd recently returned to Japan, but I quickly realized that with everything I had to do, a train ride would be impossible. What with packing, and shipping off boxes and meeting with students one last time, there was just no time (my apologies, Pat).

Yesterday, after taking care of some bills, Mieko and Tomoko met me at AEON to take me to lunch - they surprised me by inviting Megumi along - I hadn't seen Megumi in the last month or two, so it was great that she could come along. We went to this excellent Japanese restaurant that, as it turns out, was quite close to my apartment (Would that I had known!). Here are the four of us - you can see the confusion that occurs when two cameras are taking timed pictures at the same time: no one knows where to look:

Here's a shot of my meal - vegetarian, with the exception of a soft boiled egg that was served with a small salad. Lots of roots (lotus and burdock) and veggies and miso soup:

After lunch, I met Anthony, Yasuko and Dayne - they had lunch while I had coffee and dessert. Then I had a little time to stop in at AEON before meeting Emiko and Masae for dinner at a conveyer belt sushi shop - my first experience at one. It was loads of fun. Then we went to a coffee shop that one of my students, Saki, had suggested before. This place was great, so we took great photos there:

I think if Masae was a writer, this would be her book jacket photo (Although, admittedly, it did look sharper when I first viewed it on my camera in a smaller frame):

Now I am safely set up in my small hotel room. I took a nap and a bath and now feel much better. Here I am in the yukata the hotel provided for me. They also provided me with a hair dryer (the blue/green in the foreground of the below picture), and thank goodness for that! My hair is so unmanageable if I'm unable to use a dryer: