Once again, this is something I forgot that I do. The following was written on April 11th. I just... didn't post it. Expect my write-up on the first couple weeks of class by next weekend!
The welcome/farewell party last night was certainly interesting for me. It was a lot more formal than the year-end party (calendar year end, that is, not school year; technically this was the school year end party). Mostly we ate while people were speaking. The party was about two hours long, and an hour and a half of that was speeches. I`m not exaggerating about that. We had the opening speeches from the MC and the principal, and then there was a few minutes of socializing/eating. Eating continued to happen throughout the night, because it was, like, a 6- or 8-course meal and we didn`t really have much of a choice if we wanted to actually eat anything. After the social bit, our four teachers who were retiring came to the stage. One of the current teachers gave a speech about each of them, after which each retiree gave their own speech. And let me tell you, these people could talk. I have no idea what they were saying, but they were saying quite a bit of whatever it was. After those eight speeches were done, we had another few minutes to socialize while they rearranged the chairs onstage. Then they called up the teachers who were transferring to other schools (there were 11, I think?) and each of them gave a speech. More socializing while the stage configuration changed again, and then all of the new teachers were called up. Thankfully, they only went through their names, and then one of them made a speech on behalf of the entire group.
You`ll all be shocked to find that I actually did some socializing during the socializing times. You`ll be even more shocked when I tell you that only some of it was in English. I wasn`t lucky enough to end up at a table with an English teacher, so I had a halting conversation with the (biology? math?) teacher beside me, mostly about food and mostly in Japanese. Then one of the PE teachers came over to visit him, and ended up conversing with me as well (also in Japanese), asking where I had been in Japan, and where I wanted to visit next. During one of the breaks I went to speak with the English teacher who transferred out, the bio teacher I used to chat with who also transferred out, and the new English teacher who transferred in. I got a bit of a surprise when I was approached out of the blue by our new math teacher. She`s studying English on her own, apparently, and wanted to say hi and ask if she could come and speak with me sometimes. Uh, obviously!
The rest of the week was pretty standard. I continued to mostly not do work, except for the brief meeting I had to discuss my conversation classes with the two JTEs I`ll be working with (I still haven`t really had a meeting with my first year teachers, but that`s par for the course, really; I think I`m just used to it now).
On Friday, though, we had our first day of school, which meant an assembly for the returning students in the morning, and the entrance ceremony for the incoming first years in the afternoon (it`s a big deal, apparently; everybody`s parents were there). It threw my JTEs for a loop when they asked me about entering high school in Canada.
"You don`t have anything like this in Canada?"
"...No. On our first day of school, we just.... kinda show up? And our homeroom is posted on the wall, and we go there?"
"But the new students who are there for the first time?"
"Yep. We still just show up."
Saturday was awesome. I went into Nagoya to see Jekyll & Hyde at the Aichi Prefectural Art Museum Theater and it was amazing. I knew all the songs and the basic plot already, being the utter nerd that I am, and I`m not terribly concerned with the nuances. The performers were great, especially the guy playing Jekyll and Hyde and the woman playing Lucy. The costumes were standard period musical fare; nice, but nothing crazy spectacular. The set and the lighting, though... I was floored. And they just kept doing new things with it. Every time I thought I had a handle on what they could do, they pulled something new. My favourite was the first time we saw Jekyll`s lab. Until this point, we`d seen him writing in his journal in his drawing room, so I expected we`d eventually see that desk covered in his potion equipment, but no. As he`s singing This is the Moment, he moves up to the second level of the set (because safety), his drawing room glides offstage, and from behind a scrim comes the lab. It`s this hulking split-level piece, with a worktable covered in potions at the bottom, and big mechanical...thing with two levers up the small staircase. On the back, mounted above all that, is a circular vent with a fan that is easily about 12 feet high. Then, still singing, he dismounts the main set stairs onto the lab set, goes up to the mechanical things and yanks on the levers. The desk lights up as though the liquids in the bottles and test tubes are luminescent themselves (like a particularly well-lit bar shelf), and the fan starts turning. Like I said, I was floored.
My first year teachers (two out of three, anyway) came up to me today and basically said, "We`ll have a meeting when we can, but we want to have fun communicating in English, so you`re in charge and we`ll just do what you say." O...kay. Wow. Like, no pressure or anything, right? My first class in on Thursday, so we`ll see how things go. I`m just going to do my self-introduction stuff, though, which I`ve done before so at least it`s familiar material.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Shaking Things Up
Well, we`re gearing up for a new school year (finally). April 1st was officially the start of the new year, so all of the new teachers started that day. There were a bunch of meetings, all of which were in Japanese, that I wasn`t expected to attend, so I spent the entire day in the teachers` room, virtually alone. The exciting part of the day came at lunch time, when all of the teachers were in the room (thankfully). The new teacher who sits across from me had introduced herself (and I already forget her name), and was settling in with some of the other teachers, when all of a sudden a bunch of people`s cell phones start beeping and whirring like mad. Some of the phones continue to scream bloody murder, while others start with a "5...4...3...2...1...0." The new teacher and I are looking around, and then we look at each other with confused expressions and shrug at each other like, "What the heck?!" ...And then we look up and realize that all the cables on the ceiling are swinging, and the ground seems to kind of be moving under our feet, and we went, "Oooooh. Gotcha." And thus was my first earthquake experience in Japan!
In Japan, or at least at my school and I assume the rest of Japan, the teachers move grades with the students. So all of the teachers who taught first year are now teaching second year, the second year teachers are teaching third year, and the third year teachers are with the new first years, with some exceptions. My supervisor taught all third year classes last year, but we`ll be teaching second and third year conversation classes together. I don`t teach standard second year English, but there was enough interest for two conversation classes, so the second of those will be taught with my favourite of my first year teachers from last year. The bulk of my teaching, the first year classes, will be with one former third year teacher, one new teacher, and my least favourite of my teachers from last year (not that she`s a bad teacher, because she`s not, but she`s fairly rigid, and seems to have expectations of me that she doesn`t actually tell me about until I failed to meet them). The former third year teacher, Shimozu-sensei, approached me Monday morning, and the following conversation happened:
S: So Mel, I`d like to know what your team teaching lessons are like. Like, what kind of textbook you would like to use.
M: Okay, sure! *gets last year`s textbook* I used the same textbook as the JTEs for their grammar lessons. So in my lessons, we would start with the more difficult vocabulary for that part, and read the passage, either together or in pairs, depending on the level of the class. Then we would go over the two sets of comprehension questions, and then I would plan an activity based on the material for that lesson.
S: So you like using the same textbook.
M: I think so, yes. It makes it easier to judge the level the students are supposed to be at, and I can see what grammar they`re learning and are expected to already know.
S: So you don`t want to use another textbook?
M: I could, but it might make things more difficult.
S: But what about other activities?
M: Well, like I said, I plan my own activites based on the textbook, plus I do activities without the textbook for special occasions like Halloween, Christmas, etc.
S: So, we`re going to discuss this and we will let you know. We will probably ask you to do things you don`t want to do, so please be kind to us.
....So this conversation, combined with the facial expressions I was reading, was basically, "I`m asking you for the sake of politeness, but we don`t want to do what you want to do, so we`re just going to take your opinion and toss it." Which I`m fine with, really, so long as they actually communicate what they want from me. Honestly. The lack of communication is the thing that bothers me most anywhere, but especially here. So many of the world`s problems could be solved with proper communication! (Or tea. Or duct tape. One of the three, depending on the problem at hand.)
On a happier note, the new teacher who sits across from me speaks some English! Her grammar needs some work, and she doesn`t have a ton of vocabulary, but she`s still easy enough to understand. And she wants to improve, so I told her she`s welcome to talk with me anytime. She seems super nice, so that`s a plus too. I was sad when the previous teacher left, because even though we didn`t talk much, we had kind of a comraderie since she also attended our ladies` lunch days, but I`m pleased with this new person. Even if I can`t remember her name. (I`ll get it eventually.)
Today Shimozu-sensei came up to me again, and told me the teachers talked about their lessons with me. They want the students to feel comfortable with English, and to see English as a fun thing, and as a useable tool rather than something strictly in the textbook (I completely agree). So apparently they want my lessons to be maybe a few textbook things, but mostly games and songs. I am... totally okay with this. This requires so much less work on my part. It`s often difficult to figure out the timing of textbook lessons, because you don`t know how quickly or slowly students will be able to complete a given exercise. I would sit at my desk for 10 minutes sometimes, just trying to figure out how much time each section of a lesson would take, so that I had time to go through everything they needed to be taught. Games are so much easier to time!
Tonight is our welcome/leaving party in honour of all the teachers who have changed for this coming year. Should be lots of fun! Except for the part where it`s random seating again (like the holiday party), and there are still very few English-speaking teachers. I just have to hope I get lucky enough to sit with one of them again! But the food will be beyond fabulous again, I know, because it`s at the same place, so at the very least I have that to look forward to!
In Japan, or at least at my school and I assume the rest of Japan, the teachers move grades with the students. So all of the teachers who taught first year are now teaching second year, the second year teachers are teaching third year, and the third year teachers are with the new first years, with some exceptions. My supervisor taught all third year classes last year, but we`ll be teaching second and third year conversation classes together. I don`t teach standard second year English, but there was enough interest for two conversation classes, so the second of those will be taught with my favourite of my first year teachers from last year. The bulk of my teaching, the first year classes, will be with one former third year teacher, one new teacher, and my least favourite of my teachers from last year (not that she`s a bad teacher, because she`s not, but she`s fairly rigid, and seems to have expectations of me that she doesn`t actually tell me about until I failed to meet them). The former third year teacher, Shimozu-sensei, approached me Monday morning, and the following conversation happened:
S: So Mel, I`d like to know what your team teaching lessons are like. Like, what kind of textbook you would like to use.
M: Okay, sure! *gets last year`s textbook* I used the same textbook as the JTEs for their grammar lessons. So in my lessons, we would start with the more difficult vocabulary for that part, and read the passage, either together or in pairs, depending on the level of the class. Then we would go over the two sets of comprehension questions, and then I would plan an activity based on the material for that lesson.
S: So you like using the same textbook.
M: I think so, yes. It makes it easier to judge the level the students are supposed to be at, and I can see what grammar they`re learning and are expected to already know.
S: So you don`t want to use another textbook?
M: I could, but it might make things more difficult.
S: But what about other activities?
M: Well, like I said, I plan my own activites based on the textbook, plus I do activities without the textbook for special occasions like Halloween, Christmas, etc.
S: So, we`re going to discuss this and we will let you know. We will probably ask you to do things you don`t want to do, so please be kind to us.
....So this conversation, combined with the facial expressions I was reading, was basically, "I`m asking you for the sake of politeness, but we don`t want to do what you want to do, so we`re just going to take your opinion and toss it." Which I`m fine with, really, so long as they actually communicate what they want from me. Honestly. The lack of communication is the thing that bothers me most anywhere, but especially here. So many of the world`s problems could be solved with proper communication! (Or tea. Or duct tape. One of the three, depending on the problem at hand.)
On a happier note, the new teacher who sits across from me speaks some English! Her grammar needs some work, and she doesn`t have a ton of vocabulary, but she`s still easy enough to understand. And she wants to improve, so I told her she`s welcome to talk with me anytime. She seems super nice, so that`s a plus too. I was sad when the previous teacher left, because even though we didn`t talk much, we had kind of a comraderie since she also attended our ladies` lunch days, but I`m pleased with this new person. Even if I can`t remember her name. (I`ll get it eventually.)
Today Shimozu-sensei came up to me again, and told me the teachers talked about their lessons with me. They want the students to feel comfortable with English, and to see English as a fun thing, and as a useable tool rather than something strictly in the textbook (I completely agree). So apparently they want my lessons to be maybe a few textbook things, but mostly games and songs. I am... totally okay with this. This requires so much less work on my part. It`s often difficult to figure out the timing of textbook lessons, because you don`t know how quickly or slowly students will be able to complete a given exercise. I would sit at my desk for 10 minutes sometimes, just trying to figure out how much time each section of a lesson would take, so that I had time to go through everything they needed to be taught. Games are so much easier to time!
Tonight is our welcome/leaving party in honour of all the teachers who have changed for this coming year. Should be lots of fun! Except for the part where it`s random seating again (like the holiday party), and there are still very few English-speaking teachers. I just have to hope I get lucky enough to sit with one of them again! But the food will be beyond fabulous again, I know, because it`s at the same place, so at the very least I have that to look forward to!
Friday, April 1, 2016
Another Tokyo Adventure
So it`s been three weeks. Again, I kinda forgot that this was something I do. I think partly it`s because I`ve been reading, and partly because I`ve hit a wall of ennui due to the utter lack of work I`ve had for a month now. Everyone who knows me knows I don`t do well with boredom.
Almost literally nothing has happened to me since my last update (again, see my lack of work). But I guess I can tell you about my trip to Tokyo? I mean, most of it was focused on Disney again, because I`m me and I really don`t go to Tokyo for anything else, but I can still tell stories.
So I got into Tokyo at 6AM on March 16th, thanks to the glory (torture) that is the overnight bus, and made my way to Disneyland without incident, despite having to change trains at Tokyo Station (AKA Hell on Earth). I met up with Ros, and we stood in line for a little less than an hour, waiting to get into the park. We`ve never done actual restaurants at Disneyland before, so we`d decided that was something we wanted to do this trip. We headed over to the Crystal Palace and had a lovely breakfast wherein Ros was startled by five different Winnie the Pooh characters as they came around to our table from behind her. Did I laugh every time? Yes, yes I did. I`m such a caring friend.
When we finished breakfast, people were lining the streets for the first run of the event parade for Frozen Fantasy (the reason we were there - I still don`t love the movie as a whole, but it`s pretty, and Let it Go is a fun song to sing at the top of your lungs while flinging your arms about dramatically, which is something I already did so it justifies it). The park wasn`t terribly busy, though, being a Wednesday of a non-holiday week, so at half an hour before parade time we got bench seats right outside the restaurant. It was a big deal, and so luxurious-feeling! I held our spots while Ros went to get Fastpasses for Space Mountain.
We managed to get done everything we wanted to, but a lot of our day was just spent wandering around. We got a lot of Fastpasses, and other things didn`t have particularly long lines, so we just sort of strolled, ducking into shops and people-watching. There were some really interesting pseudo-costumes (often known as "bounding", but that`s a lecture for another day)! Ros also managed to get us some priority seats for the stage show One Man`s Dream II: The Magic Lives On.
It`s your typical "characters on stage, with lots of dancer extras (most of whom are white, and that`s actually kind of really jarring)" thing, but it was really well done. Plus the fact that we managed to get tickets was kind of awesome, because priority seats are given out via a lottery system that I can`t really explain.
Thursday was my lazy day. I got to sleep in (thank god, because I didn`t really sleep on the overnight bus, and then going all day at Disneyland... I was exhausted!), and then just spend some time wandering around wherever I wanted. I`ll be honest: Tokyo doesn`t thrill me, as a whole. It was huge and exciting the first time I was there, six years ago, but since then it`s lost a lot of its awesome factor for me (I don`t think it helped that I went to Hong Kong). So I went and got my train ticket for Sunday, and then wandered (AKA got lost in) Tokyo Station City, had some lunch, and then headed over to Ueno Park with my book to sit in the sunshine for a couple hours. Turned out a couple of the park`s cherry blossom trees were blooming early, so I got to see those before I found a nice bench to park myself on.
In the evening, I headed into Yokohama for the first time ever to meet with Ros for supper. Yokohama has a really large Chinatown, and I`ve been craving Chinese food for months. That craving hasn`t entirely gone away, because I want the sugar, MSG-infested, highly Americanized Chinese food, and what they have there is, like, legit Chinese food, but they still had sweet and sour pork, so that was alright. Then we wandered around the harbour area so that I could see some of it, got brownie sundaes courtesy of the local Hard Rock Cafe, and called it a night.
Friday I got the chance to meet up with my friend Hitomi, who was one of my housemates for a while when I lived in Florida. We met up in Asakusa, where the Kinryu no Mai (Golden Dragon Dance) was happening at Senso-ji. This was actually a new experience for both of us, since being somewhat local means Hitomi doesn`t often do the big tourist things. This was also her first temple visit of the year, so we made sure she did the obligatory fortune telling and such as we watched the giant dragon-on-a-stick parade around and dance. It was really neat!
We stopped for lunch at a really famous ramen restaurant, and I was surprised at how much I liked it! I`m usually rather indifferent to ramen, but this stuff was really good! Then we took a stroll around Hibiya Park before heading to our reservation for afternoon tea at The Peninsula Tokyo. Hitomi had never done afternoon tea before; I`ve had it a few places, but The Peninsula Hong Kong was my favourite, so I knew the one in Tokyo would be high quality. I was right! The service was sakura (cherry blossom) themed (like everything else in Japan at the moment), but not overly so.
The savory plate had a poppy seed waffle cone filled with green pea butter (this was actually my favourite savory item), egg and shrimp salad on a sakura bun, smoked salmon and cream cheese in a wrap, and I honestly have no idea what the tiny triple-decker sandwich was, but it was pretty good. The scone plate featured both plain and strawberry scones, with dishes of Devonshire cream and raspberry-mint jam for spreading. I didn`t think I would like the jam much, but it was actually delicious! The dessert plate featured two kinds of cake (raspberry mousse and strawberry sakura, both of which were typical Japanese cakes), a strawberry tart, and a strawberry sakura madeleine that I probably could have eaten an entire pan of on my own. We ate at a leisurely pace, so we each ended up having a different kind of tea with each plate. I started out with the chocolate mint tea, moved to a rose hibiscus (which was much stronger and more hibiscus-y than I`d anticipated, unfortunately), and finished with some kind of vanilla tea that was really smooth.
Saturday involved getting up at the crack of stupid to head out to DisneySea (worth it, always). As soon as we were through the gates when the park opened, we waited in the half hour line for Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania (which were for, like, 5:20-6:20 that night, and it was only 8:45AM!). It started spitting while we were waiting to get into the park, and it just kept going, often a bit harder, for most of the day. By the time we were out of the Fastpass line, we discovered that you can actually fit, like, four fully-grown humans under a standard umbrella when you`re not worried about silly things like personal space (welcome to Japan). We went back and forth across the park I don`t even know how many times that day, checking the times on various rides. Despite the fact that, at one point, the standby line for Toy Story was 4 hours long, all the popular rides were still at least an hour and a half wait, with most of them sitting around the two hour mark. After hitting up the Arabian Coast for our beloved Nap Ride (it`s not actually called that; that`s what we call it. It`s like `small world` but telling the story of Sinbad, and it`s very relaxing) and the carousel (which Aladdin was riding while we were waiting in line, and it was forty different kinds of exciting), we were able to get a Fastpass for something else, so we grabbed one for Tower of Terror and then went and stood in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth for two hours. It was relatively warm, and definitely dry, so we were happy to wait. Plus it`s not like we had much of a choice at that point. We had a nice lunch of barbecue pork sandwiches at the Cape Cod Cook-Off, by which point my jeans were soaked from ankle to knee and my shoes were sloshing with every step. It was gross and cold, but there was good food so I only complained a little. We grabbed a Fastpass for StormRider, which was the only thing I was adamant that we needed to do that day, because they`re closing it permanently and I`ll never get to ride it again, and then... I dunno, did some shopping? Whatever. Not important. We circled back to do all of our Fastpasses (once we returned to Toy Story, we still had to wait at least a half hour in line before we got on the ride), and then we had dinner reservations at Magellan's, which is one of the two fancy restaurants in the park. It was so good! It was a four course meal, with hors d'oeuvres, a soup or salad, a main course, and a dessert.
I would definitely go there again, but there are so many other places to try!
Sunday was my last day in Tokyo, with my train departing in the late afternoon, so I coerced Ros and Hitomi to come with me for lunch to the Kawaii Monster Cafe. I'd been wanting to go to this place for quite a while, because bright colours and cute things, so it was awesome to have willing company! The food was pretty good (though Ros's sandwich took forever to come to the table), the atmosphere is awesome, and there's entertainment, too! ...Ros and I ended up being part of the entertainment, which was unexpected, but a lot of fun. We're just standing there, watching the Merry-Go-Round stage like everyone else, and then one of the hosts comes over to us and reaches out her hands to us, and we're like, "O...kay?" So then we get pulled up onto the stage, and they're like, "We're going to dance together!" So we're taught this basic dance that's vaguely reminiscent of the Thriller hand motions, and we go round and round on the stage, doing this. I felt a bit ridiculous, especially since my outfit was a clear statement of "Yes, I'm out for lunch, but then I'm going to sit on a train for three hours," so I wasn't exactly at my best to be stared at by everyone in the restaurant like that.
And then we hung out around Harajuku and Shibuya until it was time for me to head off. End of vacation!
Almost literally nothing has happened to me since my last update (again, see my lack of work). But I guess I can tell you about my trip to Tokyo? I mean, most of it was focused on Disney again, because I`m me and I really don`t go to Tokyo for anything else, but I can still tell stories.
So I got into Tokyo at 6AM on March 16th, thanks to the glory (torture) that is the overnight bus, and made my way to Disneyland without incident, despite having to change trains at Tokyo Station (AKA Hell on Earth). I met up with Ros, and we stood in line for a little less than an hour, waiting to get into the park. We`ve never done actual restaurants at Disneyland before, so we`d decided that was something we wanted to do this trip. We headed over to the Crystal Palace and had a lovely breakfast wherein Ros was startled by five different Winnie the Pooh characters as they came around to our table from behind her. Did I laugh every time? Yes, yes I did. I`m such a caring friend.
When we finished breakfast, people were lining the streets for the first run of the event parade for Frozen Fantasy (the reason we were there - I still don`t love the movie as a whole, but it`s pretty, and Let it Go is a fun song to sing at the top of your lungs while flinging your arms about dramatically, which is something I already did so it justifies it). The park wasn`t terribly busy, though, being a Wednesday of a non-holiday week, so at half an hour before parade time we got bench seats right outside the restaurant. It was a big deal, and so luxurious-feeling! I held our spots while Ros went to get Fastpasses for Space Mountain.
We managed to get done everything we wanted to, but a lot of our day was just spent wandering around. We got a lot of Fastpasses, and other things didn`t have particularly long lines, so we just sort of strolled, ducking into shops and people-watching. There were some really interesting pseudo-costumes (often known as "bounding", but that`s a lecture for another day)! Ros also managed to get us some priority seats for the stage show One Man`s Dream II: The Magic Lives On.
It`s your typical "characters on stage, with lots of dancer extras (most of whom are white, and that`s actually kind of really jarring)" thing, but it was really well done. Plus the fact that we managed to get tickets was kind of awesome, because priority seats are given out via a lottery system that I can`t really explain.
Thursday was my lazy day. I got to sleep in (thank god, because I didn`t really sleep on the overnight bus, and then going all day at Disneyland... I was exhausted!), and then just spend some time wandering around wherever I wanted. I`ll be honest: Tokyo doesn`t thrill me, as a whole. It was huge and exciting the first time I was there, six years ago, but since then it`s lost a lot of its awesome factor for me (I don`t think it helped that I went to Hong Kong). So I went and got my train ticket for Sunday, and then wandered (AKA got lost in) Tokyo Station City, had some lunch, and then headed over to Ueno Park with my book to sit in the sunshine for a couple hours. Turned out a couple of the park`s cherry blossom trees were blooming early, so I got to see those before I found a nice bench to park myself on.
Friday I got the chance to meet up with my friend Hitomi, who was one of my housemates for a while when I lived in Florida. We met up in Asakusa, where the Kinryu no Mai (Golden Dragon Dance) was happening at Senso-ji. This was actually a new experience for both of us, since being somewhat local means Hitomi doesn`t often do the big tourist things. This was also her first temple visit of the year, so we made sure she did the obligatory fortune telling and such as we watched the giant dragon-on-a-stick parade around and dance. It was really neat!
We stopped for lunch at a really famous ramen restaurant, and I was surprised at how much I liked it! I`m usually rather indifferent to ramen, but this stuff was really good! Then we took a stroll around Hibiya Park before heading to our reservation for afternoon tea at The Peninsula Tokyo. Hitomi had never done afternoon tea before; I`ve had it a few places, but The Peninsula Hong Kong was my favourite, so I knew the one in Tokyo would be high quality. I was right! The service was sakura (cherry blossom) themed (like everything else in Japan at the moment), but not overly so.
Saturday involved getting up at the crack of stupid to head out to DisneySea (worth it, always). As soon as we were through the gates when the park opened, we waited in the half hour line for Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania (which were for, like, 5:20-6:20 that night, and it was only 8:45AM!). It started spitting while we were waiting to get into the park, and it just kept going, often a bit harder, for most of the day. By the time we were out of the Fastpass line, we discovered that you can actually fit, like, four fully-grown humans under a standard umbrella when you`re not worried about silly things like personal space (welcome to Japan). We went back and forth across the park I don`t even know how many times that day, checking the times on various rides. Despite the fact that, at one point, the standby line for Toy Story was 4 hours long, all the popular rides were still at least an hour and a half wait, with most of them sitting around the two hour mark. After hitting up the Arabian Coast for our beloved Nap Ride (it`s not actually called that; that`s what we call it. It`s like `small world` but telling the story of Sinbad, and it`s very relaxing) and the carousel (which Aladdin was riding while we were waiting in line, and it was forty different kinds of exciting), we were able to get a Fastpass for something else, so we grabbed one for Tower of Terror and then went and stood in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth for two hours. It was relatively warm, and definitely dry, so we were happy to wait. Plus it`s not like we had much of a choice at that point. We had a nice lunch of barbecue pork sandwiches at the Cape Cod Cook-Off, by which point my jeans were soaked from ankle to knee and my shoes were sloshing with every step. It was gross and cold, but there was good food so I only complained a little. We grabbed a Fastpass for StormRider, which was the only thing I was adamant that we needed to do that day, because they`re closing it permanently and I`ll never get to ride it again, and then... I dunno, did some shopping? Whatever. Not important. We circled back to do all of our Fastpasses (once we returned to Toy Story, we still had to wait at least a half hour in line before we got on the ride), and then we had dinner reservations at Magellan's, which is one of the two fancy restaurants in the park. It was so good! It was a four course meal, with hors d'oeuvres, a soup or salad, a main course, and a dessert.
Sunday was my last day in Tokyo, with my train departing in the late afternoon, so I coerced Ros and Hitomi to come with me for lunch to the Kawaii Monster Cafe. I'd been wanting to go to this place for quite a while, because bright colours and cute things, so it was awesome to have willing company! The food was pretty good (though Ros's sandwich took forever to come to the table), the atmosphere is awesome, and there's entertainment, too! ...Ros and I ended up being part of the entertainment, which was unexpected, but a lot of fun. We're just standing there, watching the Merry-Go-Round stage like everyone else, and then one of the hosts comes over to us and reaches out her hands to us, and we're like, "O...kay?" So then we get pulled up onto the stage, and they're like, "We're going to dance together!" So we're taught this basic dance that's vaguely reminiscent of the Thriller hand motions, and we go round and round on the stage, doing this. I felt a bit ridiculous, especially since my outfit was a clear statement of "Yes, I'm out for lunch, but then I'm going to sit on a train for three hours," so I wasn't exactly at my best to be stared at by everyone in the restaurant like that.
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