Transform to Tokyo

Hey everyone (or even anyone), just wanted to give some brief descriptions of things I have been doing recently (or just interesting things) as I promised…

School Festival: This was aaaaages ago, sorry. In Japan, schools hold what in Japanese is called a `bunkasai` which I think is roughly a school festival. I`ll need pictures and things to explain fully (which I hope to upload sometimes) but basically all of the homeroom (form) classes run a stall/classroom as well as all of the clubs in the school doing things too. The stalls are either food or games and some of the societies and clubs do things related to their club, art galleries, manga sales, ping pong playing, baseball throwing, drama, cheer-leading demonstrations, martial art demonstrations etc. It lasted for two days and then there were more performances in the huge theatre 3 minutes walk away from school, Hokutopia. It was pretty fun and we didn`t have to do much, so even better!

Local Festival: This was pretty crazy. It was a `matsuri` as they are called in Japan and we were kind of staff there. All we had to do is move equipment on and off a small stage though. We were like the roadie`s grunts, the lowest of low. It was a fun festival though. The highlight was pushing a giant Neko Bus (a character from popular Japanese anime, My Neighbour Totoro) filled with Japanese children through a town…kind of random, but yeah, I`ll try and get some pictures up soon if I can!

Jazz/Art Appreciation Day: At Hokutopia the students all got to skive a few hours to go and watch a big jazz band play loads of songs and talk about the history of Jazz. Good thing was we got to skive too…(was pretty cool too!)

Ate Horse meat: exactly what it says on the tin…except I got this in a restaurant (well, an Izakaya) and it is great!

Visited Yokohama: Me and Mike had some time off so we went on a jolly to Yokohama. Visited all the main things, Landmark Tower, Minato Mirai 21 (a futuristic harbour district) and China Town. It was a fun night out!

School Halloween Party: We planned and run the school Halloween party last Friday and it went alright. Kind of chaotic for me but I think it went alright. We didn`t get to play all the games we planned because of the severe time limit but it was fun for us and hopefully the kids too (I don`t know!)

Our friend`s Halloween Party: There was actually a typhoon close to Tokyo on this night (last Saturday night) so the weather was dire all day. We went through Tokyo dressed as a vampire and Pikachu (no doubt I`ll get loads of pictures of Mike as Pikachu up soon!) and on the trains and things in the rain. The party itself was pretty multicultural, as a lot of things us and our friends do are. Afterwards we went to Dave`s house and drank more and slept until late…and then went home.

Ate at a Korean Barbeque: Tonight! It was pretty good. I got to eat kimchi and even some diaphragm. All Korean food seems to be pretty spicy、but really nice!

Maybe I will remember more interesting things I have done later on! Sorry!