Tarto in Japan

Last week-end, I had the pleasure to welcome Romain, a very good friend from Aix-en-Provence (south of France, famous for its "calissons", the local pastry specialty) and a very lucky guy! Indeed he was offered a 2-week trip to Tokyo by his aunt, for the sole purpose of watching over his cousin who, obviously, couldn't go alone to such a notoriously dangerous country as Japan. Who knows, she might get hit by a bicycle.

Of course, he couldn't reasonably stay two weeks in Tokyo for free without visiting me! So he came on friday afternoon for two nights and considering how little time we had, we had to do as many things as possible! But since he speaks fluent Japanese and had been in Tokyo for a week, there was no integration or jetlag problem and we could fully enjoy those (almost) two days.

So right after he arrived, we went to the center to have a drink with a friend of mine, then we spent the evening talking, and we ended up at an arcade, since we both are video games amateurs. I taught him who was the boss at Taiko no tatsujin, then he did the same at Virtua tennis. Romain is also a Virtua fighter amateur:

Unfortunately, even for a player like him, the Japanese level is still a step above. I'm starting to think it's written in the genes...

Then on saturday, we had a friend's surprise birthday party. In Japan, parties start much earlier than in France, since few people (at least few people that I know!) drive to go to parties, so everybody has to catch the last train. So it is not uncommon to begin around 6PM-7PM, and saturday it was even worse, as we gathered at 3 to start preparing food and stuff! That may seem scary but after a couple months, you definitely get used to it.

French powaaaaa:

Everyone's getting ready for the surprise:

The puzzle that comes directly from hell, it's been weeks and nobody has yet been able to solve it:

Yeah I know, we look pretty dumb!

What the hell is he saying?

A party in Japan? Well it's like everywhere else, we eat, we drink and we laugh:

Mmmm nice cake:

Well to be honest, it can't be compared to a good French cake but compared to what is usually available in Japan, it was pretty good!

Huge coincidence...we all went to the same shop to get the birthday gifts:

But trust me, it's not like Nagoya lacks shops!

Here's a group pic to finish: