About 2 weeks overdue - pics from Aureole and Q's time in Tokyo. There are heaps more but I seriously am running out of room on my site and have to start a major cull and redesign very shortly. Been saying that for ages but it's getting serious now. Anyways, it was great to have them here, and I was a little teary and lonely after they left. Waiting for the next guests to come through from the ol- home country. Not sure who'll be next. But I hope it's soon. It's always great fun too show old friends this wonderful city.

Anyway, the fella in the bottom pic with us at lunch is the very lovely and talented artist, Darin Bendall - please check out his site and his art, it rocks. He and wifey Kat live about 10 minutes bike ride from my place, and they love Inokashira Koen as much as I do. We spent late Friday night on the bridge in the park drinking beer and declaring our love and thankfulness for the park with solemn, amusing declarations. Then 2 drunk J-dudes came by and shared their fireworks with us and got louder and more raucous and cheeky as the evening went on. I love hanging out in the park with Kat and Darin, they are both fluent Japanese speakers so we end up having really interesting times with the locals who are usually quite flabbergasted and amused that Kat knows even the most obscure and complex kanji and vocab. I usually only catch about a third of the banter, but it's enough to get the gist and it's almost always quite hilarious.