Shibuya, Roppongi, Tokyo, Asakusa Tour

I think I finally was able to get a fairly good amount of sleep. I didn't have class until about 3rd period so I could get a late start today. One thing that I did notice about going to work this week was that all the trains I have taken had been a little late. That's extremely rare for Japan. NOTHING is late, and the trains are one of the most reliable transportation methods here. Like on Tuesday there was an "Accident" at the Den-en Chofu station. There were no express or limited express trains, but fortunately I was able to get to work on time, barely. And on Wednesday when I was going home, there was someone who was on the wrong train and left, but as he was leaving, got his backpack stuck as the doors were closing, so they had to hit the emergency stop button or the guy would dragged along the platform. So that's weird to see.
But today I think things went pretty smooth. I got to work a little early and was able to review what I was going to cover with the 12th grade girls for their elective class. I was subbing for the other teacher who is now in Australia for her younger sister's wedding. So they were surprised when I walked into the room. They were like "eeeehhhh" and I asked what was wrong. It sounded like they didn't want me to teach. We just went over a funny song and worksheet that went over it. It was to review what they had covered last semester on their presentation about travel.

We listened to the cd and then they started filling in the lyric sheet. That didn't last very long, and we went over some discrepancies on the lyric sheets. It turns out that in Japan and in England that they teach that there are only 5 continents. I've always learned that there were 7 continents. That's a difference in the education from overseas. That's always neat to learn.
Then we went over some past participles. That was fun and interesting. Not really, that was even confusing for me. Swim, Swam, Swum. Just by listening to it, I could tell you which would be more common, but I determined that the difference lies in who you talk to. They learn Brittish English here, so I'd have to go with that. It's kinda difficult to learn English from books that are written by Brits and to have a yank teach them oral communication. Since by all means, we are FAR different from each other. The problem with not having a standard of English which is universal.

The next class would prove to be a challenge since it was the 7th grade. They aren't ever an easy class to deal with and since we were going to cover clothes today. I had a feeling that it would become more difficult. I was just supposed to play a bingo game, read a book, and cover some vocab. Nothing too difficult, but the class has the opposite effect from the 9th graders, they talk too much. They can be at times, out of control, but they were pretty good today. Enough for me to finish the lesson and move on and get out of there alive.

I was planning to make an early exit from work today, which would probably be the first that I've taken since I started working at the school. Making and early exit meant that I was leaving just after my classes were finished, since I usually hang around till late at night even after all my classes have finished. But today I would visit some of my friends that I haven't seen in a long time.

I took the earliest train I could to Shibuya and meet at Hachiko, which is the statute of a dog that sits outside of the station. I arrived a tad bit early and just found a place to sit. I didn't realize the I was sitting next to someone that I'd be hanging out with for the next few hours. I saw someone that I recognized from GC and was completely shocked. Then the name came and things started to make sense. From all the stories using the name and the behavior, I started to get a clearer picture about the situation that has been going on in San Diego since I've left. RS came a little later and then we were just waiting there till RWd came. Which he didn't until after we left to go to a restaurant. When we arrived at the restaurant he had arrived to Shibuya. So I went to go pick him up at the station.

He had gotten lost coming from Akiharbara, because the station gate entrance is fairly weird. I would agree with him. If you go around that area, make sure that you remember where the train station is, or you'll get stuck there for a long time and with a bunch of geeks. But he made it and we went to the restaurant. The restaurant decided to separate our group which was a bummer. It was kind of stupid too, since I was sitting with RWd and not with the friends that I haven't seen in a long time. They ate dinner, and I just had a little dessert since right before I left work, I had lunch.

After that, we walked around Shibuya and went inside of Shibuya 109. A place where there are a lot of girl things and nothing for boys. I feel dirty just walking in there if there isn't a girl accompanying me. It's an interesting experience though.

From there, we decided that we would go to to Asakusa to see the big red lantern. We took the Ginza subway line from Shibuya to Asakusa, and went from one end of the line to the other. It took about 30 minutes to get there, and then we took pictures in front of the lantern. Then we went to the temple. I prayed and made some requests in the form of wishes. But of course it would only be wishes. I knew this next year would be a bad one for me, and I did some fortune things to prove it. I had told everyone ahead of time that I would end up getting a bad one.
Low and behold, I ended up getting a bad fortune. It was pretty bad too saying that I would have a shitty year. So what did I do, I decided that I would go and try it again, after tying it to the pole and having the gods take my bad fortune away. Not only did I get another bad fortune, IT WAS THE EXACT SAME ONE! I used a different canister and everything. It was funny, but very sad since I'm going to be cursed. So I tied it to the wall and said the third times the charm. It turned out to be, I got the best fortune. It was pretty good too and said that money would come my way. Strangely enough money did find its way to me, I had found some on the ground right away and then one of the other people in our group Sean gave me a 50 cent Korean coin. Completely worthless to me, but still money is money.

We then decided to go to Tokyo Tower in the Roppongi area. We were supposed to go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building in Shinjuku as we planned, but somehow we didn't go there at all. It turned out to be 820 yen to get up 150 meters into the first observatory deck. That's kind of expensive since we wouldn't be able to get up that high and that we all didn't have that much money on us. But up we went. Sean was deathly afraid of heights, which by appearance came as a shock. He's a big guy that you wouldn't want to mess with and it was surprising that he'd be afraid of anything.

It was fun, I was telling Japanese people what they were looking at. It's weird in a way since they didn't know even though they themselves were living in Tokyo at a time. But the viewing didn't last that long since Sean had to be at Tokyo station around 9pm so he could catch a Shinkansen down to Kyoto with his girlfriend.

So after we finished with Tokyo Tower, we went to Tokyo station. We waited at the Marunochi gate while his girlfriend was waiting on the complete opposite side of Tokyo Station. It took a little time to for her to get to where we were. But at this time, I realized that one of the people we were with was EXTREMELY crazy, for a smart guy. We all knew there was something particular about this guy, but I didn't know it was to this extent. Because after Sean left for the shinkansen, we decided to go BACK to Roppongi. I mean that was just a waste of money to go back and forth to a place that we just came from. We wouldn't be doing the same thing, but it was time comsuming and costly. But we went with it anyways because there was supposed to be some really good ramen place there.

It took a few minutes to locate, and it wasn't far from CP's house either. It was called Ichi Ran. They have quite an interesting setup because there are partitions separating every customer and you could not see the servers because they would be behind a barrier and had blinds to cover it. The concept was that you had to completely be focused on eating. You would get a questionairre about what you wanted to eat and they would tailor it exactly the way that you wanted it. It tasted extremely good. It was probably one of the best ramen I've ever eaten in my life, and I ordered another bowl.

We then decided to go home since it was around 10pm and I was stuffed like a turkey. The food was delicious, so I was happy about that. But at that time, many people were taking the trains to get back home. So it was pretty crowded. We had to leave Naka-Meguro station to get back in and buy a new ticket. But the other two followed even though they didn't have to, which costed them about another 2 bucks for no reason. They are strange.

We caught a local to Jiyugaoka station and then transfered to an express train to Yokohama Station on the Tokyu - Toyoko line. When we arrived to Yokohama station, I had showed RW where the Currency Exchange office was since it was a little bit difficult to find. Then I went over again to tell him how the Yokohama line worked so he wouldn't get lost to take the Shinkansen to Kyoto and Nara.

We waited on the platform to go home and the train was late. That make it 3 days in a row that the trains were late. That's sooooo weird. But we got home in time, I mean around 1am. So the next day I knew I wouldn't get enough sleep.