Tokyo

Lets see, what all did I do during the rest of Tokyo orientation... Well, there were a lot of speeches (my favorite was the one talking about how we need to teach our students to speak English like we’d teach them to swim, you can’t swim until you’ve been pushed into the water. Just don’t make it too deep or they might drown *laughs* So I will be trying not to asphyxiate my students with a new language) and workshops. I learned some things and my common sense was reaffirmed in others.

Monday night I tried out the JR rail with some of the other Vancouverites and we hit Akiba (Akihabara, or geek central). A lot of the stores were closed but we found a 6-story shop with only up escalators for the top levels and a stairway down from the top outside the building. We also saw a maid handing out pamphlets for her café, so I have officially experienced real-life Moe.

Tuesday after workshops my roommates (awesome girls, I really like my fellow 1st-year Vancouver JETs), several of the boys, and I trotted off to the Vancouver Embassy welcome event via a guided subway trip. It was less than expected. They couldn’t do anything for us right there since it’s all online so they just speeched at us for a while and then gave us nibblies. After that was the awesome part: one of Chantelle’s friends from Uni works at the embassy now and he walked Chantelle, Silvia, Kalen and I over to Mori tower in the Roppongi hills. It’s an art gallery but there is a magnificent view of the Tokyo skyline (and Tokyo tower) from the 52nd floor. We had a drink in the Sky Aquarium bar which was pretty cool and watched all the lovely lights. It was beyond breath-taking. It was just... the highlight of my Tokyo trip, really. My heart gets sort-of fluttery thinking of how beautiful it was. I got a postcard to go with my photos in case they aren’t as awesome.