(Clicking on the photo will show the next photo)
Hitomi and I first met on December 8th, 1999 on the morning that I was
to fly back to America after four months of travelling in China, Korea,
and Japan. I went to Shinjuku Starbucks for one last coffee, and I ended
up sitting next to Hitomi. I was studying my Japanese while Hitomi was
studying her English, so I struck up a conversation. We chatted for a bit
before Hitomi had to run off to classes, but we exchanged email addresses.
I think that we sent each other one or two emails during the next few months,
and when I went back to Japan in the spring, I was looking over the list of
email addresses of friends in Japan and I remembered Hitomi's. I sent her
a short email asking if she would like to get together and have a cup of
coffee, and a bit later she called me up. I was just thinking of meeting
a friend and practicing my Japanese, but we ended up having a lot of fun
talking together. We went to Shibuya (a trendy district in Tokyo) afterwards,
and then went to Tsukiji (the fish market area) to have some sushi for
lunch. Things went really well, and we made a date to go to Ginza for some
fancy tempura. We ended up seeing each other every day that week, and I
postponed my trip to Kyoto as long as I could. Hitomi came down to visit me
in Kyoto as soon as she could, and we spent the next six weeks commuting
between Kyoto and Tokyo (about 500km apart).
Meeting Hitomi