Season one of this dating challenge wrapped earlier this year in March after about 13 months of working my way through the alphabet. It was mostly fun and hopefully resulted in me being a better husband by suggesting we go to some places that I’d never usually want to go to.

It would probably have been more enjoyable if my wife wasn’t in the dark as it’d have been good fun to discuss possibilities for each letter. 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.

Thinking up ideas was often more interesting than reality which was occasionally stressful in trying to gently suggest that we could go to a certain place! This kind of venture is certainly not one which can be rushed, and indeed there were a fair few times when I just had to give up on ideas and plans as my wife wasn’t in the mood or whatever.

Naturally there are always going to be better and more interesting things to do for each letter but reality is a different matter altogether and it really just is not possible to do the dream options for each letter. Going to places in our local ward or heading up north on the Tobu Tojo line often took preference.

The series started quite strongly with some new and interesting places before I began to rely on food options for some letters. It would have been quite easy to do an A-Z of dining out experiences so I decided that should be limited to only ten…..which was probably still too many! Ultimately we ended up having eight restaurant experiences.

My favourite letters were probably those for C and G as both were new and exciting places which took up a sizable chunk of the day. The majority of them were all good in their own way as this venture was really not always about visiting glamorous places and doing exciting things but just getting out there and exploring locations we wouldn’t normally go to.

It was always good from a blogging point of view to do dates which would get their own individual posts such as what we did for A, B, C, D, G, M, P and U. Naturally, it would’ve been quite nice to have such unique experiences for each letter but sometimes that’s just not possible and you have to rely on a quick lunch date at a local restaurant or whatever.

There will be a second season, and indeed it is already underway but it may take a bit longer to do as my motivation is admittedly a little lower now after doing 26 dates in alphabetical order which is not as easy as it seems. Indeed we did do some other interesting things since beginning the challenge but they sadly did not come at the right time to qualify for entry into the A-Z.

Whilst we keenly wait for the follow-up series to premiere next year, there will be a season zero of sorts to fill the void which is an A-Z compilation of places and things we’ve done together since first becoming partners over a decade ago. This may be more interesting as of course it wasn’t done in alphabetical order so makes things easier.

The 26 letters of the alphabet were divided into the following five blog posts which you can see below, along with the complete A-Z choices I made for each letter.

Click here to read ‘Alphabet Dating In Japan With My Wife Who Was Completely Unaware Of The Task At Hand! (S01E01: A-E)’

A is for Art museum (March 2021). More details here.

B is for Botanical Gardens and Buddha (April 2021). More details here.

C is for Capybara Cafe (April 2021). More details here.

D is for Dagashiya Game Museum (June 2021). More details here.

E is for Eating out (June 2021)

Click here to read ‘Alphabet Dating In Japan With My Wife Who Was Completely Unaware Of The Task At Hand! (S01E02: F-J)’

F is for Friday`s (June 2021)

G is for G-Cans (August 2021). More details here.

H is for Hikarigaoka (September 2021)

I is for IKEA (September 2021)

J is for James Bond (October 2021)

Click here to read ‘Alphabet Dating In Japan With My Wife Who Was Completely Unaware Of The Task At Hand! (S01E03: K-O)’

K is for Kaiten-zushi (October 2021)

L is for LaLaport (October 2021)

M is for Mizukokaizuka Park (November 2021). More details here.

N is for Nakano (December 2021). More details here.

O is for Oji (December 2021)

Click here to read ‘Alphabet Dating In Japan With My Wife Who Was Completely Unaware Of The Task At Hand! (S01E04: M-T)’

P is for Harry Potter Bright Christmas in Marunouchi and Pizza (December 2021)

Q is for Don Quixote (January 2022)

R is for Ramen (January 2022)

S is for Shiki (January 2022)

T is for Thai Food (January 2022)

Click here to read ‘Alphabet Dating In Japan With My Wife Who Was Completely Unaware Of The Task At Hand! (S01E05: U-Z)’

U is for Ukima Park (January 2022). More details here

V is for Vietnamese food (February 2022)

W is for Wakoshi (February 2022)

X is for Xialongbao (February 2022)

Y is for Yoyogi Park (March 2022)

Z is for Zoo (March 2022)

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’