In Which I Went to Tokyo for the Weekend
Last weekend was a holiday weekend! And the schools in Yaita started school a bit earlier than the rest of the prefecture, so we also had Tuesday and Wednesday off.
Let me start over though-
I started teaching an English class three times a week (but now I will only do two,) at Fujitsu Corporation last week. It is Monday, Tuesday and Fridays (but now I have dropped the Monday class.) It is from 18:00-20:00 on those days, about 8 km from my apartment in Yaita.
Monday and Tuesday were kind of painful classes. These are adults that I am teaching for these classes, and I feel that many of them know about the same as my fourth graders at my elementary schools. And, I was told that I should not respond to questions asked in Japanese... to which I agreed, but will not practice. Adults cannot learn the same way as children, their brains do not work the same... so I will not ignore questions asked to me in Japanese. Friday was a whole other matter though. We didn't even open the textbook for that class which was fantastic. There are higher levels of English in that class though, so it made things much easier.
One of the students is a clown though. He asked me out about 7 or 8 times. It was very amusing because his English isn't ...very good. It consisted of "Next Sunday, we go (insert random topic here,) TOGETHER?" And, two days ago when he walked into class he said "HELLO KORIN, I LOVE YOU." to me. I just told him "Thank you," and continued talking to another student. (Please note that this is all in jest. He is married, and very childish and goofy. We discussed in class Friday night that he is もっと大人になれ which I translated as "He still needs to grow up," although that is not directly correct. Every time he said something foolish, one of the other students would say "He still needs to grow up.")
Friday (October 5th) was the day that we had decided to go to Tokyo though, so right after the class I came home and Rachael took me and Gary to Yaita station. We thought we were going to miss the train, but had plenty of time to spare... It takes about 2:30 hours to get from here to Tokyo and the train that we got on arrived at 20:45. We met with Tran at Utsunomiya Station around 21:15 and got on a train to Tokyo from there. We were quite lucky to sit down the entire time. Returning to Yaita wasn't so lucky on Monday.
We stayed in a pretty cheap hostel called Khaosan in Asakusa. This year, I think that I have had enough of Asakusa... I will be fine if I don't go back there for years, I think. The hostel was super small and noisy. Needless to say I will not be staying there again. Saturday (Oct 6th) we roamed around in Asakusa for a while and then met up with Rose (another JoyTalk ALT in a different city) who was staying with us for one night.
Weird turd like thing on top of a building in Asakusa. It looked like it was painted on this building from where I was... Kinda neat.
Koi near the Kaminari Gate that were large, but still had their color. Not brown. Interesting...
Sky Tree...
Sky Tree again, close up. This picture is from Sunday though, not Saturday.
Market street leading to the temple in Asakusa.
We went to Shin Okubo (Korea Town) and had amazing Korean food for dinner. It was SO good, and thankfully Gary was with us because I don't know Korean food but he does since he lived there for a while. The host was very handsome but he was the only one that was. Haha.
I don't remember everything, but the soup on the top left was the best tasting thing ever. By far.
Then, Tran and I needed to go to the Korean idol shops. Gary and Rose were bored to say the least. We wasted a bit too much time in one of them, and bought too many things. I got some Shinhwa and Super Junior post cards, and Tran got some Leeteuk specific post cards (WHICH I SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT TOO. Boo.)
This is one of Tran's post cards... I will need to buy a set of those next time I go to Tokyo... haha.
.JPG)
Sunday, we met up with Erika in the morning for lunch and had okonomiyaki. We then walked from Shibuya to Harajuku and had crepes, and walked back to Shibuya. Next time we go to Tokyo, Erika invited us to stay with her which will be so nice compared to stupid hostels...
In the afternoon, we met with my friend Aska in Asakusa. (See, too much Asakusa!) She wanted to see the Sky Tree, so we walked around til we found it. It's ...really, really tall. We didn't go up because it is something like ￥3000 to go up, and we thought that we can have a really nice dinner for that price instead. We had Chinese food and then went to Baskin Robbins after.
Sunday night, we had to change hostels because we originally intended to go home on Sunday night. We just moved next door, but we stayed in dormitory style rooms this time. It wasn't that bad, but there was a Chinese girl out in the common room who was talking very loudly on her phone until about midnight. (There is a sign that says very clearly to be QUIET after 10pm, but I don't think she spoke any English at all... ><) We got an early start and left the hostel at 9 am (but put our stuff in rented lockers) and went back to Shibuya for lunch (Standing Sushi bar this time. So. Good.) and then walked to Harajuku again since we didn't really explore it the day before.
I tried really hard to get a Koki key chain or cell phone charm and failed miserably. I got TWO of Taguchi and one of Kamenashi. Boo. Koki is the only one in Kat Tun I don't have! I really want one of him.
It was exhausting being in Tokyo! No wonder I always slept like a rock when I lived there. Always in crowds and doing something. We had to go BACK to freaking Asakusa to pick up our stuff, and then to Ueno to head back to Tochigi. We had to stand almost the entire ride home, which was unfortunate.
Also, during this trip Gary absconded my Kindle. He complained of boredom on the train so I gave it to him to read something and he found "Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist!" on there. He started reading it and decided that he was going to keep my Kindle and keep reading. He kept it for most of the trip... :< I got it back after we got back to Yaita and found out that I can lend him the book through email for two weeks time, so that's what I did. So now I have my Kindle back haha.
I love Tokyo, I really do. But I was really happy to come home to boring old Yaita because I was so tired. Hostels aren't home, and unless I had some place to call home, like when I studied at Sophia, I will always be glad to come "home."
Also, it's a good thing that I don't live in Tokyo. I would never get anything done if I did. At least, not until I got over the wonder of living there again.
Oh and Tuesday and Wednesday were dedicated to recovery from the vacation. Haha.