Day one of the very first ROCKS TOKYO — Tokyo’s long-awaited outdoor festival. Bitter cold, a convenience-store raincoat, and the wildest mosh I’d been in yet.

First proper home cooking in a while — nikujaga with spring onions and new potatoes. This time I actually simmered it down properly, and the flavor proved it.

Rode out to see Tokyo Skytree mid-construction — 368 meters that day, already taller than Tokyo Tower. Like a modern-day scene out of Always: Sunset on Third Street.

There’s something to capturing darkness in a photo, too. This is taken looking south from Yokohama Minato Mirai.

Something in today’s news caught my attention.

Back home in Nagoya, a long-overdue bowl of Sugakiya ramen. Everyone says chicken wings and miso nikomi udon, but this 290-yen bowl is the real Nagoya specialty.

Golden Week in Odaiba: Venus Fort’s outlet floor packed with tourists. Two hours in, I was completely knocked out and rode the Yurikamome home.