How I met T.

T. (@JY69 on Twitter) is my neighbor… However, in a town of 750,000 people it can sometimes be difficult to actually find and meet your neighbor. This curious fact provided a rather awkward backdrop for the quite pleasant and close relationship I had developed with my friend over the last few years. Standout memories of close encounters included a video I uploaded from a supermarket in Shimizu ward where T. regularly shops as well as dinner with my family (again caught on video) at the same gyoza joint where T. had previously made a video for YouTube. We would sometimes tweet about our seemingly near-encounters though in fact the chance to meet in person remained an elusive goal. This changed over the previous weekend when T. drove out my way to enjoy coffee and laughter with edtomorrow (Ted) as well as the fabulous YouTube duo of WarmothStrat (aka MULLY, Jim, “the big guy”, “the Black and Orange Shadow” or simply @mully1234 and his amazing wife Tomoko/TMK_85). I didn’t know T. would be at the restaurant (though I kinda wondered and certainly hoped she might) as I parked my bicycle and peeked inside (peek inside with me via the video below). To my everlasting delight T. is now a member of my Leo Buscaglia hug-collection club along with Ted, Oldenyouth, both MULLYs, Jenn (nihonjenn), Amanda (panditty) as well as a host of other in-Japan YouTube friends and many who have visited me from abroad and while traveling in Japan. I am indeed a lucky guy! The photo below is one of my favs from the past weekend of friendship and I look forward to collecting more such images in future with T. and other friends from the great green anthill of YouTube Japan (I have no idea what that anthill reference means yet I’m sticking with it). 🙂