So…I didn’t visit any ancient sanctuaries, hot springs, mountains or red light districts on this trip, but did have a few great dinners with some good friends. This was a short trip to Japan with Shinjuku being my home base.

My first day out I took a special express train from the enormous Shinjuku train station to Hashimoto station where I met up with my good friends Yuichiro Kanagawa, Yasufumi Mizuguchi and Ryo Saito. I have known Yuichiro and Saito for many years and I had the pleasure to hike up Mt. Fuji with them 1 ½ years ago. We walked off to a local izakaya (Japanese tavern) and had a chance to talk about old times and chomp down on some delicious local dishes.

After a day flight to Komatsu and back for some meetings we hit another local izakaya but with different group of friends…Nishigaki, Shirakawa, Tokumaru and Watanabe in Hashimoto again. Tetsuya Tokumaru choose Hashimoto area for me because it’s a train station that is direct to Shinjuku without any train changes (easy for foreigner).

This was another lovely Japan trip with sunny days, great food and good friends.