About

I love Tokyo/eating out/travel/movies/music/architecture and related features.

I’m Japanese.  Was born in Osaka, Japan.  Have lived in Kobe, Japan and Brookline, Massachusetts, USA but in Tokyo for most of my life.  I currently reside in Hakusan, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.

Ayako is my real name.  Mathies is an anagram of my former family name.

Countries and regions I have visited

Month/year of first visit

 The United States (August, 1976)
 Canada (April, 1977)
 Puerto Rico (January, 1978)
 The U.S. Virgin Islands (January, 1978)
 Mexico (January, 1978)
 Hong Kong (July, 1982)
 Thailand (July, 1988)
 France (January, 1992)
 England (January, 1993)
 Belgium (August, 1993)
 Norway (July, 1994)
 Denmark (July, 1994)
 Sweden (August, 1994)
 Scotland (July, 1995)
 Taiwan (October, 1995)
 Korea (March, 1996)
 Italy (September, 1996)
 Germany (January, 1997)
 Singapore (May, 1998)
 Bhutan (September, 1998)
 Indonesia (September, 1999)
 Vietnam (December, 1999)
 Spain (October, 2000)
 Laos (December, 2001)
 Cambodia (December, 2001)
 Portugal (October, 2002)
 The Vatican City (October, 2003)
 Finland (October, 2004)
 China (July, 2007)
 Turkey (July, 2008)
 The Czech Republic (October, 2009)
 Brazil (November, 2009)
 Argentina (November, 2009)
 Morocco (July, 2010)
 Austria (May, 2011)
 Hungary (September, 2011)
 The Netherlands (April, 2012)
 Lithuania (August, 2012)
 Latvia (August, 2012)
 Estonia (August, 2012)
 Russia (April, 2013)
 Switzerland (August, 2013)
 Malaysia (December, 2013)
 Monaco (February, 2014)
 Macau (March, 2014)
 Poland (August, 2014)
 The Philippines (December, 2014)
 Ireland (April, 2015)
 Romania (June, 2015)
 Bulgaria (August, 2015)
 Brunei (September, 2015)
 New Caledonia (December, 2015)
 Croatia (April, 2016)
 Montenegro (May, 2016)
 Iceland (August, 2016)
 Myanmar (November, 2016)
 Malta (April, 2017)
 Luxembourg (August, 2017)
 New Zealand (December, 2017)