A good way to test the strength of a friendship is to challenge yourself to walk from one edge of a city to the other. If you get lost, if you get hungry, if you need to pee, if you’re cold – how do you react? Do you bite each others head off and proceed to give each other the silent treatment for the rest of the day, or do you seamlessly pull it all together without a hiccup?
Forget whatever ‘they’ say. This is the true test of a friendship.
But if you require further explanation on the concept, let me tell you a story.
One day, two girls woke up in a foreign city on a grey and frosty winters morning. They rose, dressed, ate, put on another pair of socks and a few more jumpers, went outside, went back in and put another jumper on, and then set off for the day. Navigating old-school style without a phone or internet, they made it to Osaka-Jo (Osaka Castle) without a bump. Walking the walls of the castle, the selfied and they panoramed, until they were forcibly persuaded by a elderly Japanese man to walk around a small pond to reach what he told them, albeit in very very broken English, to be the best angle to take a photo. After he offered to take a photo of them ‘kissing the castle’ similar to how people hold up the Eiffel Tower or sit on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, they decided it was probably time to leave.
Absorbed in conversation, and following their noses for food, they ended up on the other side of town. A good 6km walk away. There they stumbled upon the Umeda Sky Building. One of the top twenty buildings in the world, it boasts 360 degree views over Osaka and has a glassed-in escalator between the top of the two buildings. After leaving their stomachs at the bottom of the building, the girls rode the elevator back and forth, soaking up the stunning views of the sun setting over Osaka – a city sprawling for miles.
After picking up their stomachs at the bottom, they decided they needed a feed. Stumbling across a little hole in the wall, they feasted on fresh sushi and stared at the extravagant ramen in the bowls of the people sitting around them, vouching to return for dinner before they headed out to a comedy show and some drinks later that night.
Before I waffle on for days, the moral of the story is that these two girls passed the friendship test. They navigated a city without Internet and without an issue.
They shall go down in history. Remember the names of the two best best friends in the world. Hannah and Emma.
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