"As you get older, three things happen:
The first is your memory goes,
and I can't remember the other two."
Norman Wisdom
Traveler's Dining PUSHUP nearby Akihabara station.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
Yup,
I was thrown a belated surprise birthday dinner last night. What
supposed to be just a normal dinner among the four of us ended up as a
surprise for both Mokkun and myself. The initial idea was to have dinner
together to celebrate our second year at our company. Due to our
working and personal tight schedules, the four of us – Samitha, Mokkun,
Ayana and me, rarely get the chance to gather and have a meal together
lately.
The private room in the
restaurant, besides the table and counter seats.
A bright red carpet decorates the wall in the room.
At first glance, we thought
this is a treasure hunt map or something. It turned out to be the drinks
menu.
There is a special discount
for people whose name is similar to those written on the board. It
changes every week.
For
one whole day, we exchanged messages in Line, trying to coordinate our
finishing times and and also reserving the restaurant. Samitha and Ayana
did the booking, and sent us the link of the place. Traveler's Dining PUSHUP
is an unique restaurant where diners get to enjoy various foods and
drinks from over 30 countries. This restaurant is just a five-minute
walk from Akihabara station, where our company is located.
Unfortunately,
Ayana had some trouble at work and would be late for the dinner. So,
there three of us went there first, and Ayana joined us about half an
hour later. It was great to be able to catch up with each other after so
long. It is not that we do not see each other at all, but to have the
four of us gathering together at the same time is something we had not
done it for long, long time. I can't even recall when was the last time, but I think it was many, many months back.
First drink is always beer.
Mine was Victoria Bitter from Down Under. Surprisingly, it was
good!
Potato salad and cheese as starters.
Raw ham mixed vegetables and tomato salad.
Raw ham and mozzarella cheese tomato pizza.
Taco rice with half boiled egg.
Salmon with cream sauce pasta.
Avocado roll with potato salad.
Fried spring roll with taco chicken filling.
Umeshu #1 (out of 15 types lol!) and cassis orange.
Kampai among the four of us.
Time
really flies as it has been one year since we entered GWC. Recalling
our first day of work, it was like small little kid on their first day
at work. Then it was the job training course which last almost two
months. As for me, I was involved in a project for half a year, which
included a two-month business trip around Japan, which was partially
kind of vacation for me *hehe* It was fun to reminisce those times, and
also many juicy gossips and stories of people in the company.
However,
as usual, for someone who suffers from "shotemelo" disease like me, I
was always the last person to recall all those moments haha! Just in
case you wonder what does shotemelo, which will not come out even if you
Google it, mean, it refers to short-term memory lost hahaha!
The birthday platter for the two boys.
A closer look at the lovely platter.
Just
when we thought of calling for the bill, the lights in the restaurant
suddenly went off. I thought some electric power outage had happened.
But in more than six years living in Japan, that has never happened
before. As we were wondering what was actually happening, a familiar
music rolled in. It was the birthday song. Initially, we thought they
were celebrating the birthday for some other customers dining there.
After all, my birthday had passed. Then, out of nowhere, one of the
staff walked to our table, with a plate of ice cream cake, with two
candles and some firecrackers on it.
Right
at that moment, only I realized that it was indeed a surprise. The
dinner was to celebrate my belated birthday and also Mokkun's birthday,
which fall on the coming Sunday. Mokkun was caught by surprise as well
and only then, both of us found out that the two – Samitha and ayana
have been planning this the whole day in another Line group message.
See, I was still in shock state haha!
The two birthday boys. Our birthdays are just separated by six days.
A group photo with the birthday platter.
A lovely birthday message was left on the bill. That was sweet.
As
the two of us blew the candles away, the staff scattered pink sakura
petals made of paper around our table. It was indeed something which I
never experience before. Nevertheless, I appreciate the surprise dinner a
lot and many thanks to my colleagues, especially Samitha and Ayana for
planning this.
As you would notice, my name on the plate is written as "karubi", the Japanese pronuciation for Galbi.
Apparently, when they made the restaurant booking, they requested the
staff to write that over the phone. However, the staff didn't really get
it.
Just as we left the restaurant, we took our trademark group shot lol!
So, in the end, they gave up and told them, "Yes, yes, the meat karubi!"
