Tokyo Weekend!

Woke up at 7:00am this morning since there was still the English Summer School today. Bought breakfast at a convenience store on the way, and again had lots of fun with the students. It’s interesting to see them slowly come out of their shell each day. Compared to yesterday, they were already a bit more confident, and more willing to try speaking English. There were still the occasional shy students, but they still spoke English! Just a little quiet, and still a bit too shy to make eye contact, but just hearing them speaking English and trying their best is already really great. You could tell the students were all a bit more tired and restless today though. Towards the end of the day during the speech prep segment, many student/ALT pairs had finished super early and were just doodling on their whiteboards (my student didn’t have breakfast so he was extra tired/couldn't focus, that’s ok though because he still read through his speech twice so good job!).

After the summer school ended at 12:00 I headed immediately to the station. I still only managed to catch the 12:48 train to Tokyo. It takes 2 hours and costs ¥1944 if I remember correctly, it’s not too bad for a trip to Tokyo! Plus it’s just a straight ride with no transfers which makes everything so much easier. Arrived in Tokyo at 14:48 and met up with my friend from NZ at the Tokyo character street! We used Moomin’s store as a meet up point! Walked around a little bit because it was her first time at the character street, then went back to the hotel they were staying at to drop off my bags and meet up with the other friend. We set off to Akihabara, and it was quite close! So we decided to do the 20 minute walk instead of taking the train. We were a bit hungry at this point so decided to have an early dinner at Watami! We ended up ordering a little bit too much though, good thing we had the whole evening at Akihabara to walk it all off! At Akihabara we took MANY sticker photos, browsed around the various weird little shops Akihabara is famous for (friends were looking for interesting souvenirs) and then stayed a long time at Don Quijote exploring every single floor. My friends were able to buy a lot of souvenirs here (mostly snacks and other cute little things) and I also bought some face masks because they were a pack of 50 for only ¥1000!

We took the train back to the hotel since we had a lot more stuff to carry (plus it was raining!). After all the walking/shopping we felt a bit peckish so we decided to have a mini late night dinner at one of those chain restaurants that are open practically 24 hours – we both got mini sized bowls of noodles, and I had the nicest udon ever! It was cold citrus udon – just so perfect for this hot weather! It was so refreshing and I hope I can find a place that serves it in Takasaki! After that it was back to the hotel where they started packing (trying to pack!) all their stuff before sleeping.