Tokyo’s Muslim

I went to dinner at my favourite Kebab place yesterday with local Tokyo socialite/photographer (and awesome dude) Christopher Jue.  I had originally planned on making small talk, when I ran into my friend Syed Hatoyama.  The three of us started talking when a stylish girl walked into the store.  She seemed to know Syed, and I started poking him about their relationship; he was visibly shaken and told me in a quiet voice that her boyfriend was in the store.  The big guy had a sense of humor and we exchanged pleasantries before I got back to talking to Chris.

The weird thing happened about 15 minutes later.  I had forgotten to remove Taluva from my backpack, and I suddenly realized there were just enough people to play the game.  I pulled out the box and yelled “Hey dude, wanna play?” in Japanese to the two strangers (and Syed as well).  Oddly enough, they concurred (as long as they could play as a team) and off we went.

Turns out the girl was a Japanese champion at Karate, and the guy was a math major / Karate blackbelt himself.  He was a quick learner too; he won the game handily on his first go at it. We traded emails and I told him to come by anytime.

I don’t know why I’m even blogging this, except for the fact that this was the first time I had such a spontaneous event in Tokyo and this socializing through board gaming thing actually worked.  (For those who aren’t in the know, I brought board games to Tokyo with me because a few of the guests at my house parties seemed to have a hard time talking to the other guests; light gaming seemed to be a good ice breaker to me.)  I’m going to try this more often, maybe at the local Starbucks or something.

I’m cooking Butter Chicken today at the Tokyo Hackerspace. For your entertainment, here is the recipe & information if you want to try it yourself.

Butter Chicken Recipe