Dear Tokyo

Week 14-15

Youngbae had mentioned a public speech he was giving on campus about the university system in South Korea and asked if we would go see him if we had the time. It was no secret that we were all obsessed with him and so we sacrificed our lunch period to go to the student cultural centre, a tiny room in the clerical building, to attend his speech.

We figured going in a group would bolster the size of his turnout but, as we arrived, we were hit with the low murmurs of a crowd of girls all fidgeting in their seats as Youngbae went about setting up the projector.

"What the heck," I said. We were instructed to grab some chairs and find room. I didn't think there was any left though. Just how many girls knew Youngbae? They were all Korean, too.

"He didn't even need us," Niko said.

Still, we listened to his talk and even though, afterwards, we waited until he was done with his adoring fans to go over and congratulate him, he still texted me later that night to reiterate how thankful he was that I had gone. I rubbed it in everyone's faces when I realised I was the only one he had messaged. With that, classes ended and winter break began.

*

Cat flew back to Barcelona to be with her family over the holidays, which left me, Niko and Edu to fend for ourselves on Christmas Eve. We made plans to try out a conveyor belt dessert place in Harajuku but, when we got there, we discovered that reservations were required during the busy holiday period so we wandered around the main streets, dipping in and out of clothing stores.

Harajuku was mainly filled with women's apparel and other cute things, unless we had the money to venture into the streetwear and designer area, so we took pity on Edu after a while and stopped at Max Brenner once it got dark. Max Brenner in Japan was an entirely different concept than in Australia. In Australia, the emphasis was on melted chocolate, meaning people usually went to share some fondue and hot chocolate. In Japan, their apparent signature dish was dessert pizza. They were small enough to be a single serving so we all ordered one each and plopped ourselves on the bench by the store.

It was only now that we were sitting that the exhaustion of a whole day of walking around caught up to us and we loitered there for a while, scrolling through our phones.

'You free tonight?' a text from Scott came through.

I looked around. We really weren't doing anything and I was pretty sure Niko leaning on my shoulder had become Niko using me as a pillow while she took a nap.

'Yeah. Why?'

'Gonna have some Korean BBQ for my birthday. Wanna come?'

'I'm down!'

I shook Niko awake. "Do you guys wanna head off? Scott asked me to go to Shin-Okubo for dinner. It's his birthday today."

"Yeah, I'm ready to call it a day," Niko yawned.

I scooped up our empty cartons and tossed them in the bin, wiping my hands clean. "Once we get to Shinjuku, I might just walk to save a little money." Plus, I was more familiar with walking. I had never gotten off at Shin-Okubo station and it was a little intimidating.

"You're going to walk to Shin-Okubo?" Edu asked.

"It's not that far."

"It's cold though."

"It's just ten minutes." But I couldn't deny the statement. Once we exited the building that Max Brenner was in, there was a bite to the air that clamped down on the tip of my nose. I sniffled. We headed to the train station, groaning when we saw how many people there were. It was almost as bad as rush hour in the mornings.