Last weeked, R. and I had tickets to go to the Tokyo International Anime Fair. Why did we have tickets to go? That’s a good question. It turns out that the President of Mushi Productions is a relative of Risa’s father, and he passed on two tickets to the show. So we decided to go. We didn’t have too much time there, but it was interesting. I would like to go back when I have more time. We checked out a few of the studios, I was interested in the China productions booth. They had a large booth, but not too many visitors. The big anime players were very popular, but I don’t really know too much about anime, so it I didn’t really know what was what. Risa and I had an appointment later in the afternoon so we didn’t hang around for too long.

There were lots of foreigners there. They seemed to be pretty into anime. Maybe I won’t go next year. Maybe I will. Hard to say.

After the anime fair, we headed out to Ueno park for a hanami party with our friends. Not much of a party really, only the four of us, but it is the time for cherry blossoms. Unfortunately, it is unseasonably cold. I was freezing. There were plenty of people out at Ueno park though, never let it be said that the Japanese are put off by a bit of cold. The party next to us actually seemed to be workers from construction, because they had industrial strength lighting (which the park cops had them turn off three times,) three generators, electric grills, all sorts of stuff.

Mibe and his girlfriend cooked up some great food, and there was plenty of drink to go around. That didn’t stave off the cold though. Anyway, I’m glad that Risa and I got out for a hanami at least once this year – right now the cherries are at full bloom, and I doubt we’ll get out again even though it warmed up. I might go for a walk tomorrow in the nearby park though. That might be fun.

I’ll probably just clean though.