Tama Zoo and 1 love Bob.

Sorry for the slight lapse in blogging but the Japanese school system enjoys inflicting frequent exams upon the students. Anyway, last weekend had a free trip to the zoo! I was asked to help out with a school trip for some Japanese kids learning English, from about 3 to 7 years old. In return I got a free trip to the zoo, and since my brief was basically 1. make sure the kids don’t eaten by lions (although they did try and climb over the fence into the tiger enclosure, which if it had been bothered could have probably jumped out of the enclosure anyway), 2. make sure the kids don’t eat the lions, 3. take pictures of the kids, it was definitely worth it. Also the Japanese kids are so cute and surprisingly well behaved, although perhaps that was because there were some big scary foreigners talking to them in English.

And those hats ARE cool.

After an action packed Saturday at the zoo it was of course time to relax a bit on Sunday by going, of course, to the Jamaican festival that was taking place in Yoyogi park near Shibuya in central Tokyo. The sun was once again shining and the weather was sweet and it was a really fun festival to go to even. It was of course Japanified somewhat and whilst there wasn’t any marijuana in sight (drugs are a big no no in Japan and they even kicked the Beatles out during their tour for possession) there were of course plenty of drunk Japanese staggering around. There is also something rather strange about seeing Japanese Rastafarians wandering around with dreadlocks half way down their back. There was basically a large market area selling different food and genuine Jamaican memorabilia and a main stage. The stage was more a shrine to Bob Marley though and at least half the music played was his, although I do have to say he never came up with anything quite like ‘Ziggy Wiggy Love’ (I’m pretty sure that’s what it was called) and ‘Girigiri, gorogoro, guragura, gorogoro’ or at least something very much like that. If you try and sing that to the tune Big Ben makes when it sounds the hour you will get the idea and the song was in fact about classes at school where they use this tune as the school bell to signal the start and end of class. Don’t ask me why. Ya man…

Not so Golden Week

Just a quick message to let you know where I’ve been for the last week. It was golden week here in Japan which is basically a week of national holidays celebrating various things such as the Emperor and children. Of course my university is anti imperialist and so we had a day less holiday than everyone else. Not that I really managed to get out anyway, it’s been raining non stop for the whole week and I’ve been writing a book review for one of my assignments. I really don’t know if I wrote what was required since I’m pretty certain my last book review went something along the lines of ‘I liked the book. The dog is happy and liked his stik. I want to read the book again’. Or something like that anyway. Zoo tomorrow!

Dining High

To celebrate his birthday my course mate from Cardiff decided he wanted to go for a meal in the Park Hyatt hotel.  I wanted to go here because it was one of the stars of the film Lost in Translation which is probably where you will have heard of it if anywhere. Of course if it’s nice enough to star in a film about a rich actor suffering from culture shock in Tokyo then it’s bound to b e a little pricey, which is okay if it’s just to go for one drink to say you’ve been there and taken in the view. Which is exactly what did happen after my course mate was flatly told that yes, £60 for a meal is just a tad bit too much for a student budget. A single drink though was still rather a lot with the cheapest starting at a cheapskates price of ¥2000 and continuing…and continuing up to ¥67,000. I’ll let you do the painful currency conversion but for perspective my monthly rent is a mere ¥40,000. Can you  guess which drink I went for?

We had our drink (s for those with grants) in the American style bar which is the one that features heavily in the film and you know what, it looks smaller in real life, and not quite as glamorous when a bunch of foreign students turn up causing a ruckus. The view was just as high as the price of the drinks though and did make it worth going.

This night didn’t end with quite so much class as we missed the last train home and had to spend the night in a karaoke box (one of the cheaper way to stay off the streets in central Tokyo at night) until the first train the next day.

This night out was followed three days later by a meal at a tabehoudai & nomihoudai restaurant or all you can eat and drink within the time limit, which is of course to be seen as a challenge rather than just the length of time the meal will last. Needless to say I didn’t have to eat the next day. Although this was technically a pastoral visit from our university professor we once again ended up in a karaoke box (there is definitely a pattern emerging here) where he sang/grunted the part of Ken from Aqua’s Barbie Girl surprisingly well…

Of course this was too much of a distraction for us to actually leave and catch the last train home so once again it was an all night karaoke session with cheap drinks purchased from the local 7/11, although really they are 24/7, and smuggled in via bags and under various umbrellas that we had.  Although on the way home on the train we were pretty much exhausted we were lucky and were able to see Mt Fuji the clearest it’s been so far. Snow capped peak and all. It seems that early morning is the best time to see it from Tokyo. I think I’d like to see it from the right side of dawn next time.