museum date

after a short work day today, i headed into roppongi, to the national art center (check number 15 off my to do in oh nine!). i was meeting Noki at 3:30 at nogizaka station. my train arrived at exactly 3:30 and as i came out of the ticket gates and found the direction of exit 6, he spotted me and smiled. he was a little shorter than i anticipated (168, as i found out later), but well dressed (i'm a sucker for pinstripe pants) with cool glasses, a red scarf wrapped and tucked inside his jacket, and a black hat. and he was way cuter than the photo he sent.

that's right, this date was the result of shameless mixi flirting, weeks of texting, and maybe a 2am phone call when i ended up walking 10km home one night back in december.

after a semi-awkward "nice to meet you" (ha!) we headed off to the art center. some exhibits you had to pay for, but i don't think either of us wanted to pay to see anything so we just checked out all the free exhibits. the biggest exhibition room had lots of japanese calligraphy and paintings scattered throughout. i'm always impressed by huge kanji artwork, or japanese poems (?) on huge scrolls, and there were some really cool paintings too. i didn't take any photos because i wasn't sure if it was allowed.

there was also a cute little library on the 3rd floor which was free to use (hello study spot!!) a cafe and restaurant that looked like they were built onto pillars that come out of the main floor and and reach up to the second and third floors. and of course, we checked out the museum gift shop. i saw a lot of fun "gift" things, but was fairly captivated by the geometric mobiles hanging just outside the gift shop entrance.

i was a little shy about getting my camera out to take a photo, but Noki held my bag while i did, and then broke out his camera after i was finished! he took even more than me, which made me relieved that i wasn't taking too many. i took my camera out again when i realized that he was taking the kind of photos i had wanted to take but didn't because i thought maybe he'd think i was weird for taking so many photos. but they *were* pretty cool...

after that we got back on the train and headed to ueno. he said he'd only been there a few times, so we walked around and i showed him ameyoko, which is a bizarre place when you think about how it's just shoved in under the train tracks, tucked one street
away from a huge street and selling perfume next to gyoza next to hats and bags with a scattering of sushi places and other quick fix eateries.

we ducked into an izakaya and enjoyed chatting for about 3 or 4 hours over a couple drinks. there were only a few silences and we left talking about concerts (there's a coldplay concert coming up but he probably has to work, but we might look into going to see jason mraz. i would be so excited!)

i hate getting so optimistic now, only to be more disappointed later, but i couldn't help grinning like an idiot the whole way home.