My first raw vegan party

Yes, there are raw vegans in Tokyo! After a few unsuccessful attempts to make it to a raw vegan picnic group in Yoyogi-koen, this same gang threw a birthday party/restaurant opening last Friday night.

OMG, a live food restaurant in Tokyo! Can you see how excited I am!

There was a raw vegan joint, Live Café, in Yoyogi-uehera but it closed down a few months ago. When I first went raw, I dragged the kangaroo all the way there but it was closed. There was a notice in Japanese and it seemed there was some kind of emergency so they weren’t open on a Friday night.

Anyway, I was so happy to meet other raw vegans. For the first time, I ate someone else’s raw food. Not made by me. And it was f-ing delicious.

The owners of this new raw restaurant Manna are a pair of sisters, Andi and Angi, from the US who also have their own line of vegan chocolate (the chocolate mousse at the raw buffet was rawsome). They’ve lived in Tokyo for 3 years and have been into the live food lifestyle for several years already.

The party was a mixed bag of people — vegans, vegetarians, some who dabble in raw, raw vegans, omnis…I met two raw vegan Japanese and I had to speak in nihongo because they were a bit shy to chat in English. There was a Canadian guy who hangs out with a vegan running group on Saturdays and I’m thinking of joining them because the meeting point is very near to my apartment. A British lady who was new to raw waxed lyrical about the changes to her body in just one month. It was fantastic to talk about raw celebrities to people who actually know who they are!

Gosh look at all the exclamation marks in this post. I wouldn’t say I’ve made any best friends but it feels good to be in a group of folks who don’t think I’m weird. We swapped tips about being raw — they told me US-made dehydrators don’t need a transformer in Japan. I know, so geeky, but I loved talking about raw to REAL people in the flesh and not online.

Honestly there were times I felt down about being so “weird“. It’s one of those things that I know it’s so right for me but thoughts like these went through my mind: “Why do I make myself eat this way?”, “I wish people will stop looking at me like I’m a hippie/lunatic/health-fanatic”, “Would people write me off if they knew I was ‘hard-core’ vegan? (I mean other vegetarians think raw veganism is weird too)”, ” I feel great but it’s so hard socially” etc.

It’s just the beginning for me to reach out to more like-minded individuals and it feels good to finally make this step. I don’t know where it would go but it’s comforting to know there are at least a handful of us in Tokyo…

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