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our first visitor from Japan

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Today we met with our first visitor from Japan; Miho-san from Mari's recent employer.

She's lived in the US and knows what it's like to have visitors who assume that you can drop everything and get to the airport to meet them. And she knows what it's like to be expected to guide visitors around your home city. So she's gone to great lengths to have as little impact on us as possible.

In fact, she only came to Toronto for three days, and spent much of the first day, today, at the Royal Ontario Museum and at the University of Toronto. We met at five o'clock for dinner at University & Queen, and I decided to take them to a Thai place that's opened up a few blocks to the west of there a block north of King. It was the second time in as many days that I'd tried to get into that place, and just as with the day before, it was no-go.

So I took everyone on a bit of a walking tour of west Queen street, pointing out the relics of the old rock-n-roll neighbourhood that had been there a generation ago. I showed them graffiti alley, and then took them to a simple restaurant that offers the best falafel I've found in the city. Mari and Miho-san loved the falafel, and Kenny enjoyed his chicken skewer almost as much as he enjoyed the rice.