I like April, I always have. It's my birthday in 19 days, and this is usually the month where spring decides to appear in earnest in Sweden.
In Tokyo, it's much the same. Shigatsu is the month of hana-mi, the national obsession with sakura blossoms, and although I've already seen my fair share of sunshine and warmth, it feels more and more like winter is done for the year.
Since my parents took off on Friday, I've spent a lot of time indoors. I caught a cold around Thursday and by Friday I was feeling pretty messed up, so I thought I'd surrender my weekend to rest. A true enough paradigm, granted, but one that proved a bit difficult to stick to.
On Saturday, Nathalie and I had agreed to meet Kyouhei and his friend in Shibuya.
With no specific activity planned, it wasn't long before we ended up in a batting cage in Shinjuku-gyoemmae (I think, I'm still unsure where we went). I understand that this was mostly Nathalie's initiative.
It was great. I used to play baseball – some fifteen years ago – so naturally I had no difficulty securing at least nine or ten simulated homeruns against my ball-chucking robot opponent. I kind of wish we had batting cages in Sweden, even if we don't have baseball.
When everyone was finished with the bat-swinging, we were again left with nothing to do on a less than sunny day. Brief consultation of a map revealed a skating rink nearby, and why wouldn't we want to do a bit of skating, right there and then?
So, a pair of rented size 44 skates later, I found myself on the ice for the first time in about twelve years, doing surprisingly well. I didn't fall, I didn't die, I didn't even freeze that bad.
After a good few laps around the rink, we decided to call it quits.
I spent all of Sunday indoors. Like, literally, I did not leave the house once. I watched some Firefly, made some soup, got some sleep. It was awesome. I said I'd make the best of my last days here in Tokyo, I wasn't kidding.
Disney's Swedes On Ice.
With extra smile, please.
This is what we've been doing in school this week. Hard times.
2 kommentarer:
Ingen baseball i Sverige? You lie. Vi får gå på en match när du är tillbaka, se Sundbyberg mot min gamla hemstad Karlskoga t.ex. Ta med grill, öl, etc.
Jo, jag vet. Jag spelade ju som sagt själv, Skarpnäck ftw!
Men gud ja, det låter som en självklar idé. Sommar och allt. I'm there.
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