Happoen, dinner and drinks

Tuesday was a warm day of about 30 degrees and clear skies so that day I decided that after lunch I wanted to go to Happoen Garden in Shirokanedai. Happoen Garden is a traditional Japanese garden that I found in a tourist brochure. When we stepped out of Shirokanedai's tube station we couldn't believe that was Tokyo. It was spacious and quiet and green :o

Happoen Garden was so worth the trip. It was incredibly beautiful all of it. I just wanted to stay there, stay and relax. Even the shrine there felt like a real one, not like those big commercial stuff they have in the city that have been somewhat converted into tourist attractions. After walking through all of Happoen Garden, which wasn't very big, we decided to go to the big park we had seen on the map on our way to Happoen. Turned out to be a disappointment, no way I'll pay 1100 yen to enter a park just because it's connected to a museum... But anyway it turned out to be quite a nice walk anyway and I did manage to get a slight tan that doesn't seem to be falling off :o Imagine that! ;) Yesterday my friend Andreas, whom I hadn't met in three years, had invited me to dinner in Ebisu. His treat. He first thought of going to a restaurant he knew of, but then changed his mind and we went to a restaurant that his friends had talked about. I can see why they had talked about it. You sat in armchairs while eating on a glass table. There was a shark tank and the candlabre in the ceiling had real candles and real fire. Except for the main dish and the desert I let him decide everything. It was his money after all and I really don't know anything about drinks. But for appetizer I got to taste oysters for the first time! Same consistency as mussles, only bigger, and it tastes exactly like sea water xD Champagne along with the dinner consisting of Japanese beef - lovely, but once again designer food, fancy food :P And for desert; limoncello and tiramizu :D When we talked he found out that I yet hadn't been to any bars in Tokyo so ofc he also brought me to his favourite bar in the neighbourhood while he was at it xD There we had one white absinthe each, 55% the strongest I've tried yet. That was pretty fun xD I liked the interior of that place. On the shelves with bottles there were signs. Some (most) said 'Absinthe' but there was one shelf with the sign 'Dangerous bottles' on xD Some of the bottles on that shelf had skulls on them and one bottle was even shaped as a skull xD Awesome!

When I went to bed yesterday I hoped to not be too tired when I woke up today, and no I wasn't too tired but I still had no desire of getting up. It's summer here! I want to have my vacation now! Now! :P

So... the best conversation of the night:

"Interesting with stairs up to a bar."
"Keeps you from getting in if you're too drunk."
"Keeps you from getting out too."
"Well, that's a later problem!"