When I got back to Tokyo from Okinawa last month, it dawned on me how little time I have left in Japan. The days are flying by at a distressing pace and I feel weepy, panicked and emotional when I think about the fact I have just under three weeks to say goodbye to this beautiful country.

Naturally I have started doing what any sane person in my position would do. I have started eating. Of course I have been eating for the past seventeen months, and a substantial amount at that, but not in the same way. Before I was eating supermarket sushi, homemade chahan out of leftovers in the fridge and bento boxes from 7-Eleven in my lunch break. Meanwhile I’ve been living in a city with the best restaurants in the world, with chefs who dedicate their lives to crafting just one particular dish and who then sell it for a tenner at lunch time. I’ve been doing it all wrong. I’ve been wasting precious time.

My work schedule is kind of annoying. I work from one until ten p.m. with a break too short to squeeze in any Michelin Stars in the middle. In the past, I’d eat breakfast at eleven and pick up whatever I felt like when I got hungry in the afternoon. Now I’ve had to completely restructure my day. What was previously a leisurely morning has turned into a strict routine. If I’m up at seven thirty, I can finish breakfast by eight so I’ll be hungry enough for lunch at eleven thirty. I need to be in the restaurant by then if I want to enjoy my meal and get to work with time to spare. I’ll be hungry again around five and that’s when I usually relent and eat my 7-Eleven bento box. There’s no time for anything else really.

These past three weeks I’ve been eating like I’ve never eaten before. In a back alley of Shinjuku, I queued for thirty minutes for Michelin Star porcini mushroom, truffle-infused clam ramen served by a swat team of chefs in black t-shirts, masks and baseball caps. For dinner I had a huge bowl of bún bò huế, a steaming bowl of citrusy Vietnamese noodles at this place round the corner from my apartment. It was tangy and warm and spicy and amazing.

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Last week, I ate matcha flavoured ramen on the seventh floor of a shopping centre attached to Shinjuku Station. It was thick, frothy, green and delicious. The man next to me at the counter was eating wagyu beef dan dan noodles. The spice and the sesame wafted towards me as I waited for my ramen to arrive. The next day I went back and ordered exactly that. I cradled my stomach as I fell asleep that night. I was bloated and painfully full but I didn’t have time to stop.

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I’m giving away my crockery, my cutlery, the blender I only used once. “I don’t need any of it,” I tell the apprehensive recipients. “I can’t do any more cooking. I’ve only got a month.” I’m going to the ATM almost as often as I’m brushing my teeth. Last Friday I went for drinks and forgot to eat dinner. I woke up hungover and hungry, annoyed at myself for wasting a meal I’d never get back.

I’ve been asking all my students: If you only had one meal left in Tokyo, where would it be? Lin, the Chinese accountant, sent me to a tonkatsu place in Takadanobaba. I ate crispy, juicy, panko-covered pork cutlet on a bed of cabbage drenched in yuzu dressing. I got free refills of miso soup so I sat there for an hour, slurping and slowly picking my way through the deliciousness. Tetsuya, the kendo instructor, directed me towards a rich, oily bowl of tonkotsu ramen around the corner from work. Mai, the second-year university student, told me about the tiny udon place a ten minute walk away, serving the best sanuki udon in Tokyo.

I went there on a Wednesday. There was a queue of rumbling stomachs outside and I waited for forty minutes in the scorching sun before I got my bowl of carbonara udon. There were other more conventional dishes on the menu, but this one was supposedly the one to get. The dish consisted of your classic thick and chewy udon noodles topped with a raw egg, parmesan cheese, black pepper and a fat slice of tempura bacon. Oh my god, was it good. I’ve been going every Wednesday since.

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Yesterday was my day-off and I cycled my bike through Korea Town and towards Shinjuku into another back-alley I’ve come to know so well. I went to Ramen Hayashida for the supposed best chicken ramen around. The broth was sweet and delicious and the boiled egg a natural neon orange. I lay in the sun all afternoon uncomfortably full and in the evening I walked back the way I came for Korean BBQ with my friend Takeo. We fried pork fat and chunks of indistinguishable meat on a grill at the table and got drunk on whiskey highballs. Now I’m hungover and tired but I need to get out of bed soon because dinner’s not going to eat itself.