When I heard this idea on the radio a few years ago I thought it might be something that I could try as a way of motivating myself to go to some places with my wife that I’m usually not too interested in. I did think of suggesting it to her and then taking it in turns to come up with things to do for each letter but I thought she would dismiss it as a silly idea straight away so decided to keep it secret.

The rules are quite simple. Do something for each letter going in alphabetical order. It would be quite easy to do an A-Z of dining out experiences so I decided that should be limited to only ten…..which is probably still too many! It was fun thinking up ideas for each letter but reality is a different matter altogether! Of course there are always going to be better and more interesting things to do for each letter but this is what we did for part one of this series…

A is for Art museum (March 2021)

We kicked things off by heading on up to Kita Urawa Station to visit the Museum of Modern Art Saitama (MOMAS) which was a place far more interesting (for me!) on the outside than it was indoors. The main reason I wanted to go was to see a prototype of a Nakagin Capsule in the garden next to the museum. More details here.

B is for Botanical Gardens and Buddha (April 2021)

Although we had been to see the big buddha statue (Japan’s third largest) before, we had never seen the botanical gardens which are just a stones throw away. I was also hoping to do something active by way of baseball but sadly the batting cage I used to frequent had disappeared. More details here.

C is for Capybara Cafe (April 2021)

The many animal cafes in and around Tokyo can often be hit-or-miss but as animal lovers it is quite hard to resist sampling such places. When I heard of Capybara Land PUIPUI, my instant thought was that my wife would love this and I was right! These large living rodents are healing animals with their relaxed attitude, and this animal cafe-of-sorts had something of a calm and soothing atmosphere about it. More details here.

D is for Dagashiya Game Museum (June 2021)

I didn’t really want to use Japanese words for this A-Z challenge but I’d come across this place by chance on a cycle ride and thought it could be an interesting trip down memory lane for her. It proved to be a far more popular idea than I’d hoped for as we returned to the place a month or two later with her nephew. More details here.

E is for Eating out (June 2021)

One of the more lame uses of a letter but one can’t wait around too long to do a more interesting ‘E’ as that could take ages and I was keen to rattle through this challenge. Ultimately, eating out at one of Tokyo`s most popular ramen restaurants was the date. This ever-popular place always has a long queue outside it but when we saw just a few people outside it as we passed by, we made a spontaneous decision to get in line. It was worth it!

Click here to read ‘The A-Z Of Tokyo Fox Celebrating 15 Years of Blogging (Part 1)’

Click here to read ‘The A-Z Of Tokyo Fox Celebrating 15 Years of Blogging (Part 2)’

Click here to read ‘The Complete A-Z Of Filming Locations On Tokyo Fox’