Almost ten years ago my partner Lynda and I spent a month exploring Japan. We arrived on Boxing Day and spent the first six days in Tokyo and it’s surrounds. On New Years Eve we were confronted with the absolute antithesis to what you would expect from the world’s most densely populated city. This is what I wrote at the time accompanied with a couple of photos.

New Year’s Eve in Tokyo was another bizarre experience for one reason only..nothing happened!  We went on the internet to find out where the best spot would be to watch the fireworks given that’s what the world’s big cities do right?

Internet says go down near the bay to Tsukishima, a big city within a city if you like. No one around. Almost everything closed but a burger chain called Mo Burger. I swear we thought we were in a zombie movie!

Literally what was normally a street filled with half a million people was down to a dozen! After Mo’s I was still hungry so we went to a 7/11 and I bought an éclair but instead of pastry it was surrounded in sponge and filled with cream.

It felt heavy, so given the pig I am, I had made my mind up that this may well be the most disgusting cream filled dessert of all time, so I may as well have a crack! Fact was it was so heavy because there was a bloody banana concealed inside! Goddamn it.

All this time we are assuming that the fireworks will have its roots in the Skytree ala Sydney Harbour Bridge or Eureka Tower, therefore we wanted a view but didn’t want to be in with the hordes.

I’ve always hated NYE, the crowds and the drunken idiots. It’s prescribed, manufactured fun as far as I’m concerned. Mind you I’m probably still bitter from the early days when I was one of those drunken idiots and no girls would pash me at midnight!

So we then hopped back on the subway and headed north towards stations closer to the Skytree. Still no one around! Finally we bit the bullet and went directly to what we thought would be the epicentre, The Skytree. Nothing.

I’d had enough by this stage and burst into a 7/11 just under the Skytree demanding to know where the fireworks were! The poor unsuspecting clerks stopped in their tracks as this hairy beast says in a commanding voice (still not loud in western terms) “Excuse me, are there fireworks at the Skytree tonight?” and gestured with arms up and around signifying something akin to a mushroom cloud.

For all I know they probably heard, “Me and my old lady are going to blow up the Skytree tonight!” in a voice so loud by Japanese standards that it blew their perfectly shiny straight hair back from their faces!

I apologised if I frightened them then we went back to the hotel and watched some of the craziest TV in the world. Japanese TV has an obsession with celebrity and game shows that humiliate celebrities. You could watch TV across all channels for an hour, not know one thing about what you’ve seen including ads, but I guarantee it’s hard to look away!

Postscript to this story is that the Japanese don’t outwardly celebrate New Years Eve or Xmas. It’s called “Omisoka”, just quiet family time which is what we should have done instead of forcing New Years Eve upon ourselves. Had we perhaps found that out earlier it may have saved us a journey, a fruitless but memorable one at that.