(Day +59) Silver Week in Tokyo

This is a late post but I had a little bit of time so I decided to put this up. When I didn't have tethering, I started a journal on Microsoft Word to kill some time. Here's the entry that I made after coming back from Silver Week.

I’ve run out of things to do at my base school.

Just last night. My supervisor e-mailed me that I would be at the base school both today and tomorrow, instead of one of my elementary schools. This was because of some event and they thought it’d be easier to have me at the elementary school on the 6^th and 7^th of October, so that’s what I’m going to do. This wouldn’t be much of an issue if I was scheduled for classes, since I haven’t seen my students in a while, but…

…for the next 3 visits to my base school (Today, Tomorrow, and Monday) I am not going to be scheduled for any classes because the students are testing. -_______-

I tried killing time by making a budget spreadsheet, but I don’t know all the variables yet so I couldn’t complete it. I think that this spreadsheet will help me save money now that I’m not using the $2,500 USD that I brought from home anymore – that all disappeared into thin air from Silver Week in Tokyo, which by the way was tons of fun.

Silver Week in Tokyo

Friday, Sept. 18

·        Arrived to Tokyo in the Evening – Checked into the hotel with Kevin and met up with Ashley for Chuhais and Ramen for dinner in the Asakusa area.

Saturday, Sept. 19

·        Tokyo Game Show – met up with Jon from I.C.U. for TGS. Stayed there until the evening. Super crowded, a bit hot, and spent tons of money.

·        Met Amy and Kevin in the Evening – After TGS, I charged my phone at the hotel, where they held my luggage, and then met Amy and Kevin at Kami-Itabashi station, where we walked to Amy’s house.

Sunday, Sept. 20

·        Ueno with Scarlett – I met up with Scarlett for lunch in Ueno, then walked around Ueno Park where we went to a temple and I got my fortune, walked around a lake, and also found a sort-of flea market type thing. Saw some cool chopsticks, didn’t buy anything. We played the new Luigi’s Mansion game at a game center.

·        Shabushabu Dinner in Shibuya – Scarlett, Amy, and I met in Shibuya’s Starbucks where we talked, then ate dinner at a Shabu-shabu place that was actually quite inexpensive. We definitely overate and I had to try and finish the rest of the meat. It had good Ramune Icecream. Kevin met up with us towards the end of dinner, but he had to wait outside.

Monday, Sept. 21

·        Ramen Lunch in Nakano – I went to Nakano to have lunch with Shigeru at 1:30PM, but he was late, playing Pachinko. I arrived early so I explored Nakano Broadway, then waited at Starbucks. Later, at about 2:00PM ~ 2:30PM, Kevin met up with me since he was free to have lunch. Shigeru finished playing Pachinko, so we all ate lunch together and had a beer at an Izakaya afterwards. He had a “Hoppy Beer,” which was Soju + a non-alcoholic beer – I’ve never heard of it before.

·        Super Mario Brothers 30^th Anniversary Concert: Amy, Kevin, and I met up prior to line up early. I bought the tickets ahead of time. We had a glass of white wine and a snack (Waffle/Churrito) before the concert. The concert was amazing – the band was composed of a drummer, bongo player, pianist, violinist, trumpet player, saxophone player, electric guitar player, bassist, etc. and had an extremely jazzy feel to it. The lights and the booming music was much more than I expected. Shigeru Miyamoto (Creator of Mario) was there, and ___ Kondo (Composer of Zelda and Mario songs) played us a piano solo encore. We tried buying souvineers afterwards, but more than half the merchandise was sold out – I bought a Kuribo and a Super Mario Brothers coaster.

Tuesday, Sept. 22

·        Mt. Takao Hike – Hiked with Kevin, and Thanwa to the summit of Mt. Takao. It was beyond crowded, but the weather was nice. Amy decided to stay home since she was exhausted from her weekend. The summit was crowded too. It was a fun hike though.

·        Visit to I.C.U. – Amy met up with us at Musashi-sakai station to visit the ICU campus that we all studied at 2 years ago. Amy and I walked to the Honkan, which was locked because it was a holiday, and the Gakki, which was also closed for the same reason. We got into Dialogue House, but the Tomitas weren’t there anymore. At dialogue house, we ran into some of the new UCEAP kids. They weren’t that great. From there we went to Bakayama and relaxed until Kevin messaged us to meet up. We went to Global House (Kevin’s dorm) and met some exchange students there as well.

·        Tare Katsu and Nomikai in Kichijoji – following ICU we went to kichijoji – the place we used to frequent when we were studying abroad. We had dinner at our favorite restaurant with Kevin, Amy, Masaru, Elena myself. We meant to meet up with Go, but it was short notice and difficult to plan, and the restaurant was full so we met up afterwards. We bought Taiyaki at another place that we loved, which sold really good sakusaku Kyarumeru Taiyaki. After we met up with Go, we went to Hanbei – the place that we were meeting for the Nomikai. We met up with Koki and his girlfriend, as well as Thanwa and Alex (Ace) and all enjoyed a Nomikai before having to take the last train home.

Wednesday, Sept. 23

·        Snake Café in Harajuku – Held snakes with Kevin and Ashley.