I DID this piece in Shibuya City so maybe I can claim I am working from Japan, if you can call it work.

You see , together with my wife Marissa, son JM, and grand daughter Livi, we have been here since last Saturday and return to Manila this weekend, a treat for us by our kids except that my eldest daughter Janis fell sick and could not join us yesterday, Monday.

But life goes on and we will enjoy this break from work which will be highlighted by a trip to the Tokyo Disneyland with Livi today, Wednesday with me assigned as her chaperone in lieu of her Tita Janis. I sure hope Livi opts for the kiddie rides that her lolo, she calls me “Papa”, can also take.

Actually, this is our second trip to this country as in 2019, we also visited Osaka and Kyoto, with Janis and Jemi , of course with Livi and the missus too, but without JM.

Tokyo is one of the biggest and is the most populous city in the world, and so far, we have been to Sumida where the Tokyo Skytree tower is located, then to Asakusa to see Senso-ji Temple, also to Tsukiji , famous for its seafood market and street food, and Akihabara, Japan’s anime and electronics capital.

We tried some of the games there, the claw games in particular where you try to scoop a prize and drop it into a hole to win it, JM describes it as addictive and seeing people there play with intensity and would not stop until they win, I will agree with JM.

Good thing he is relatively good as we won a few prizes but still, the ” shit, I missed it” outnumbered the “I did it” for sure.

Just last night, we enjoyed crossing and recrossing the famed Shibuya Crossing where thousands of people seemingly come from every direction, same site as the statue of Japan’s famous dog Hachiko, who just turned 100 years old.

It is just right too that the last event I saw in Manila before leaving was the PVL at Philsports with Chery Tiggo escaping with a hard earned victory over Nxled, coached by Japanese
Takayuki Minowa, husband of arguably the best Filipina female volleyball player , Jaja Santiago, who has been playing here in Japan as an import since 2018.

And here I am in Japan but I do not think our paths will cross, anyway, I decided to look up how Jaja is doing here and definitely, she is literally looked up to as an import, literally and figuratively.

She has led her team of 5 years, Ageo Medics where she met Takayuki, to a Japan V. Cup crown in 2021 plus a 3rd place finish in the Japan V. League. Jaja also got the league’s Best Middle Blocker award recently.

This year, she decided to go out of her comfort zone as she described it and moved to JT Marvelous, the team on top of the standibgs now with 8 straight wins with Jaja and co-import Andrea Drews playing major roles.

Jaja in a recent game made 8 blocks to go with her 16 points and an ace to lead her team, when her team and Denso Airybees, where another Filipina player Jia de Guzman from Creamline plays, Jaja’s team won and Denso is way below in the standings with its 2-4 record.

But then Jaja and Jia’s seeing action here simply shows what our athletes are capable of , given the opportunity. Jaja in particular has bern mentioned as possibly moving towards a change in her citizenship which will be a step towards realizing her biggest dream of playing in the Olympic Games, something she mentioned to me in an interview a long time ago.

And even as she certainly is a big loss for the Philippines, her move to Japan is the way to reach her full potentials in her chosen sport, for an athlete to get better, he or she needs to play against better athletes and learn from the experience.

Japan is a world power in both men’s and women’s volleyball and in that same interview I had with her, she said our commercial league here would only be at the collegiate level in Japan .

I wish her and Jia luck .

Next piece, I will share more of our family experience here in Japan, abd who knows, I might suddenly bump into Maria Ozawa, good thing my wife does not know her, my son I am sure knows her.