No – we didn’t make a side trip to Italy. But, just as we’ve been to Oktoberfests in Tokyo (in both October and May) so we found an Italian festival. Presented by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Japan, it was held in Roppongi. The info said the Roppongi Arena, so off went. We’ve been to Roppongi a few times and never noticed an arena, but hey, we’ve haven’t been everywhere.
Turns out the issue was that we were thinking ‘arena’ like Canadians. You know, a place for hockey games and concerts. Here, it looked like this…
A big open space with a stage and a big canopy – a place to gather. As you can see there was pizza, Aperol Spritz and prosecco to be had!
And….
That’s about CAD67,000.00 for the motorbike.
Fancy Italian cars. (No prices – if you had to ask…..)
There was a bespoke yacht broker with their own wine garden, Italian cruise ship companies. Coffee makers, complete with hands on instruction in how to make coffee with a Moka Pot and, of course, food and wine.
I amused myself talking to the food venders in three languages – been awhile since I’ve used my restaurant Italian! The food vendors would talk to me in Italian and the Japanese customers in Japanese and it all worked out.
I’m sure there is a festival from some country every weekend in Tokyo., all it takes is some looking to find them. When we first visited the Roppongi Hills area in 2009 it had just opened and everything looked raw and new. The landscaping has matured and it is a fully functioning city within the city now.
It was later this night that the fire alarm rang and we had to evacuate the hotel (see previous post) so it was quite a day. We eventually had an email from the hotel saying at an unattended cooking pot caused all the commotion.
Where I'm At 