DAY 354: Whispers were going back and forth between Hiroshi and Liz. They wanted to take me out for dinner for my last night in Japan, but they wanted the location to be a surprise.

Maybe it's sushi. Maybe it's yakitori. Or maybe it's something cool that I don't even know about.

I saw them come to a consensus. "We're going to give you a taste of home," was Liz's only clue.

McDonald's? Starbucks? Oh wait, are we going to that Denny's down the road? Surely it can't be Denny's. Right?

LUNCHTIME WAS A FAMILIAR TASTE when Hiroshi took me out to the nearby Osaki New Centre, a complex of shops and restaurants catering to the business lunchtime crowd. "What time do people go to lunch in the States?" Hiroshi asked me.

"Around one," I answered." Or twelve, or two; it really depends on the person and the company."

"At twelve they all march in big groups here."

We followed the dark-suited platoon to the restaurants and sat at a tonkatsu place, serving breaded and fried cuts of chicken, beef and shrimp with a side of miso soup and rice.

Although I've had tonkatsu back in the States, I cut it off the list of possible dinner places figuring we wouldn't have it twice in the same day.

THAT FINAL AFTERNOON IN TOKYO I simply ran errands. I finalized my flight with Tandin at Hit Travel, who had suggested I fly to Bangkok and then arrange my onward flights from there since it would be cheaper. He too was envious of my travels and gave me the spare 200 Indian rupees in his wallet (for beer). I went back to the Indian embassy and picked up my passport with a brand spanking new Indian visa inside.

Hiroshi, Liz and I regrouped back at the Gotunda JR station for my farewell dinner at the secret location they had decided on that morning. I was exciting to see where that was, but it turned out that the "taste from home" plan had been scrapped because the place was booked solid -- it was an oyster bar in the fashion of New York's famous Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station.

Instead we went out to a recommended fancy restaurant serving nabe, the "hot pot" dish where a brothy stew is prepared for you in the center of your table -- we opted for the fish one. Nabe was nothing new, but there was still a surprise that night, and it came in the form of the sashimi appetizer (picture above).

"It's horse," Liz informed me.

That's right, horse meat -- but raw nonetheless. It resembled fine cuts of lean beef at the butcher chop.

"And that's whale," she continued. "You can't get that anywhere else, except for maybe Norway."

Raw horse and raw whale. Yup, it was a long way from Denny's. Both kinds of sashimi were excellent -- horse, like beef served really really rare (right from your grocer's freezer); whale like a cross between tuna and yellowtail sashimi. Both went well with soy sauce and crushed ginger.

"The first time I had it, [I gagged,]" Liz told me, eating a piece of Mr. Ed's cousin. She had come a long way in her culinary courage since her arrival in Japan five years ago; she didn't even really mind the fish heads staring back at her from the ingredients plate of the nabe or in the bowls in front of us. (Usually she has the heads cut off at the fish market.) Either that or she was just tipsy off the sake -- I don't remember how many shots there were after that first farewell toast.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Liz and Hiroshi saw me off at the train platform when I made way to get to the express train to Narita International Airport.

"Thanks for everything," I said, shaking Hiroshi's hand.

"Thanks Liz," I said after giving her a big goodbye hug -- but she knew as much as I did that it was only a goodbye in the physical world and most likely before the end of the day we'd be back in contact in the virtual world of The Blog.

"I'll just speak to you on The Blog," she said with a smirk.

The doors shut and the train slowly moved away from the station. My last memory of Liz and Hiroshi was them waving goodbye from behind the glass.

And so ended my stay in Japan, a country I hadn't planned on visiting when I started the trip the year before. I really have to thank Hiroshi and especially Liz for the invitation, hospitality, advice and of course, the horse meat.

If you enjoy this daily travel blog, please post a comment! Give me suggestions, send me on missions, let me know how things are going back home in the USA. Knowing that I have an audience will only force me to make this blog more entertaining as the days go by. Don´t forget to bookmark it and let a friend know!