Birthday

Good afternoon or as they say in Japan; こんばんは,

It's that time of the year again, My birthday! Well it was recently you know me; terrible at writing posts on time.

This year I celebrated my 19th Birthday. As usual, or at least for the last 5 years, my birthday is during the exam period. Best luck ever, most years I actually have an exam or two on my day, so in comparison you could say that this year was a breeze. Even though for once it was relatively hot due to being in Japan rather than the UK, I would still not go as far as saying that.

As a result, for which has become tradition for me I have several birthdays before,on the day, and after. It almost becomes a birthday fortnight. As you know last year I had a Camping festival, this year I scaled it back a bit, although the quantity increased. This year I had 3 haha;

With my mum before - Day out In Tokyo
The actual day - Lazy pamper day and Dinner out
Party with friends after - Yoyogi Park

Day out in Tokyo

My mum was actually away on a business trip for my birthday so we celebrated the weekend prior. Seeing as it was coming towards the end of our stay in Japan, we decided to do a bit more exploring of Tokyo. Its a huge place, there is always things to see. This time we decided to go more as ladies of leisure rather than the frantic tourist. There was no rush out the door to get the earliest train, which was great if just for the fact that I LOVE my sleep.

Once we made our way into Tokyo we navigated ourselves to Tokyo Sky tree. Top tip for anyone that is visiting Japan or has a foreign passport: You can jump the huge queue to get up the tree. I felt kind of bad to begin with, but no matter how great the view is it's not worth 2+ hours wait. I say that but, I would recommend going, although it really is a weather permitting activity, If its cloudy its a waste of money. And remember you can always try the government office which is free.

There are 3 floors, the top you have to pay extra for, which is kind of annoying but I can understand. It also means that when you do get there it is a lot quieter than the other two floors. Another secret most people don't notice is to pay particular notice to the lifts.

We then went to the other side of Tokyo for some retail therapy and some architecture spotting in place called Omotesando. While I have been in Japan I bought a book of Modern architecture all over the country so I thought it was about time we visited some. We did a little shopping but nothing major, it was just nice to have a girly day in the city. We ended up getting back to Utsunomiya on the last train rather late.

Yoyogi Park

As I said my birthday is in the middle of exams so its sometimes quite challenging to organise my friends to celebrate my birthday. This year was particularly difficult due to it being the last year of A-Levels and I live quite a distance from everyone else. So much so that I had kinda given up. Luckily some of the friends I have in Tokyo weren't going to let that happen.

My birthdays is the middle of May which means there is always a week exam free due to May Half term, so one of my friends arranged for us all to meet in a park near Shibuya. It was nice to have someone else organise my birthday, not something I had experienced before but it was hassle free for me, all I had to do was turn up. Great!

We were really lucky that we had really good weather, my shoulders were a tad rosey at the end of the day. It was so nice to see everyone, that came, even the people that I hadn't met before. It was such a great day and everyone was so lovely, one of the guys I had never really met before made birthday panacotta. Super sweet, not the taste the texture. We chilled out, ate food, had a lot of laughs. So it was a great day, and i'm so thankful to everyone that came.