Soba shop which was visited by Ichikawa Ebizo and late wife Kobayashi Mao will be closing down due to covid-19

Kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizo posted a new blog on June 6th and revealed that the soba shop which he and late wife, Kobayashi Mao (who passed away in 2017) would often visit is closing down due to loss of business due to the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Ichikawa said that the place was filled with memories, from going to the restaurant on New Year’s Eve to eat soba and how shocked when he heard from his mother and he was a bit shocked.

He said the owner was very kind and always cared about Mao.

Ichikawa then wrote, “Corona, I will lose the place full of memories.  I hate you”.

Ichikawa opened his blog “ABKAI” back in 2013 and has posted over 50,000 blog posts and won blogger of the year in 2018.  Ichikawa’s late wife, freelance announcer Kobayashi Mao (34) won the same award back in 2016.

Kobayashi at the time was documenting her life with breast cancer and how it reached stage four and spread to her bones and lungs and how she was dealing with cancer.  “Kokoro” became one of the most popular blogs in Japan (even inspiring people outside of Japan, being selected by BBC as BBC’s “100 Women of 2016”) until her death in June 2017.

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