The days that followed after MSX World 2005 proved to be a lot busier than I thought. I had several meetings with many people related to the MSX Revival, at sometimes highly impressive locations, such as the 45th floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel. I briefly met Mrs. Noriko Kitane, who was the publisher of MSX Fan in the mid 1990s and now is active at Enterbrain. I had an extremely hot, yet equally relaxing, bath in the Oedo Onsen, I spent a night playing MSX games on the One Chip MSX with Mr. Yokoi (who proved to be quite excellent at Space Manbow and Irem's Kung-fu Acho), Pen, Astushi and Tsujikawa. I ate the strangest dishes (although I was careful enough not to get lured into ordering Natto), drank the strangest drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and ended up in a traditional festival called 'Kanda festival', Kanda being the area between Jimbocho and Akihabara. I visited Yoyogi park once again, and amazed myself at the Imperial Gardens close to my hotel. Every now and then I headed back to Akihabara, to check if any new MSX Software had arrived. At Super Potato one of the employees had started to recognize me and at a certain day he proudly showed a few MSX games that had just come in. In every single bookstore I visited (and I visited a LOT), I bumped into often impressive piles of MSX Magazines. Some even had the older editions on sale as well. My 14 days in Japan were over much sooner than I would want them to. After a last-night diner with Bernard Lamers in an Okinawa style restaurant, the time had come to head back home. On my way back to Tokyo Narita, taking the Keio line from Oshiage to Aoto and then straight to Narita Airport, I already started to feel homesick. For Tokyo. Yup, my mind has already been made up: as soon as another MSX event has been announced to take place in this wonderful city, I'll pack my bags and head to the land of the rising sun again...
Please check the Japan 2005 (MSX World 2005) photoshoot as well.
