Universal Studios Japan 2

This morning I had some trouble getting to the Shin-Yokohama station. I had a ticket good for any train to Shin-Yokohama given to me by the school. But as I got to Totsuka station, the subway didn't take it. Turns out the ticket was good for only JR lines. SOOO... since I only accounted for the time that it would take me to go from Totsuka to Shin-Yokohama by subway, I was glad that I left early.

I hopped onto the Tokaido line to Yokohama Station, then the Tokyu-Toyoko line to Kikuna then back to the Yokohama line to Shin-Yokohama. It was the really really long way, but I left early enough that I was the first person to arrive at the meeting point. Which was good. It was only my second time riding on the Nozomi Shinkansen, which is the faster train in the world. We got to Shin-Kobe Station in about 2 hours. Then we took a bus to a restaurant where we ate Kobe Beef - Sukiyaki style.

Lunch was quite interesting, and kinda stressful. Of course I had to sit at the table with Ms. Takagi. That always raises the stress level to everyone sitting around her. But in this case, it was more stressful than usual because she wasn't happy with the quality of the food. The lady making the beef for her was tense and under immense pressure since Ms. Takagi only expects the best, and well she wasn't given the best. So she had told the tour guide to change the person who was doing the beef cooking. That's essentially like firing her from her position and filling it in with someone who was much younger and was able to make it taste good. She was kinda disappointed that I didn't eat the sukiyaki with the raw egg as it's supposed to be eaten, but she gladly took my egg and got a new plate for me. The beef was kinda under cooked, but cooked enough to not affect me too much.

After the lunch, we jumped back onto the bus and headed to Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, which was about a 40 minute drive, but ended up being about an hour because of traffic. Which only gave us 3 hours at the park before closing. Kind of a bummer since it was so rushed.
At U.S.J. I was with the male teachers. It's interesting how the teachers divide themselves up. The male teachers seem to always break apart from the women, which would probably be better in image, even though some of them are married to each other. The men went off to ride on Spiderman: the ride, first. We got into line faster than most of the other teachers. I was really recommending that ride to everyone. We were a group of 5 male teachers. Mr. Koyaya, Nozakichi, Katoda, Shimada, and me. We happened to run into the headmaster of the school while being in line. Kind of an awkward situation to say the least. We also saw another group of teachers, first year teachers, getting into line too. But the ride was awesome.
The next stop was snoopy land... because one of the teachers has an extreme liking to the character, which I believe is kind of weird for a male at the age of 25. But, hey, who am I to judge that. That in my opinion ate up the time to go ride on the rides.

The next thing we were off to was Back to the Future, which was back in the direction where we started. It was the first time I rode on Back to the Future, and it took too long in line. We were there first, yet the female group of teachers ended up going in before us. The ride is similar to the Spiderman ride, but Spiderman is much better I think. Back to the Future wasn't as realistic as the first ride was, but at the time, it was pretty good. It doesn't really get that many people in and out, which kind of makes things slower.

Then I took a picture next to the delorean, with both groups of teachers although it's dark and you really can't see anything.

From there, we just went shopping for gifts because there was no more time. Kinda crappy that in two times going to U.S.J. I only went to 4 attractions, which is what some of the teachers did in one trip. But it was cool, I think it was a good time to spend with the teachers. Since some of the teachers I've never talked to before. That's always really good.

Then it was back to the bus and onto dinner. We went to dinner at a nice fancy French restaurant. It sits near the top of Mt. Rokko, which appears to be the highest point in Kobe. You get a spectacular view of the city, which really is breathtaking. I'll show you a picture on my website to be provided next week. The dinner was interesting, since I'm not a usual of French food. It was good no less. Then we had a gift exchange with all the teachers. Ms. Fujita got my gift. She seemed to like it at first, but I'm not sure what she thought of it. In return, I not a nice private label make-up pouch and nice black gloves to go with it. Of course, they were for a female, and the teacher wasn't wrong to pick a gift for a lady since she had about 80% chance of giving it to one, but just like me, I got it.

But the big gift of the night was who was the head master's gift to. It was to Ms. Tanemura, who received a nice brand new handy cam camcorder compliments of the Principal. I'm sure the rest of the teachers was envious because we kept looking at the nice gift she got. It was really cool. Nice even though I won't be needing my gifts. It was also the first time I tasted Japanese beer, definately will be the last too. I also had various kinds of wine since I know I'd never get the chance to drink it normally.

I also got a really good lesson in Japanese provided by an English teacher. Ms. Katoda is really a great teacher, she was able to make it so simple that I would understand and put it in terms that made perfect sense to me. She did a better job than all of the teachers have that I've talked to. It's a shame I haven't talked to her more since I could have learned this about 6 months ago, but at least I know now. She told me that the most important thing about speaking Japanese is the particles, and how they are separated. It doesn't matter about location, which it does in English. The particles separate the subjects, objects, and distinguishes the verb. With that in mind, it wouldn't matter the order, although it wouldn't sound natural, it would still be correct.
The wa, and ga particles tell you the subject. The ni and he particles tell you the object, and the wo particle tells you the verb.

But putting it all together in that way is a little tough, but it makes sense to me at least. Because once you learn the basic structure everything falls into place. In English its Subject + Verb + Object. And typical Japanese is Subject + Object + Verb, but the subject could be omitted.
After that, we left the restaurant about 11pm or so, since the restaurant was closed to only our group. After that we went to an area in Kobe that had a Big Echo Karoke Box that would fit all the teachers in the room. We didn't end up going back to the Kobe Merikan Oriental Hotel till around 2am. I wasn't forced to sing anything although I was prepared to. Many teachers at this point were beyond normal. The Alcohol was flowing. But I did enjoy the time since I was sitting with the English teachers who are always great to talk to. They are the most interesting group of females in the room, but I only say that since they are usually the only people I talk to. One of the English teachers, Ms. Tanemura, sang the song that I have listed below. She did a great job and now it's stuck in my head. But I like the song, so it's cool. Then we went back to the hotel, I was the one telling the taxi driver to go to the hotel. I was happy to hear that the English teachers that I was with that my Japanese was improving. It's been tough, but I really do believe them that my Japanese is improving. I also think it's good that I'm also conversing more with the people who I haven't even spoken to.