Our school celebrated Thanksgiving on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Pre-school thru third grade recited little poems and songs for the parents, before eating a huge, potluck lunch. Our American military parents cooked turkeys (they are the only ones with ovens) and the other parents brought traditional Thanksgiving foods; corn, potatoes, salad, bread, yams, stuffing. It was interesting to sample the Japanese style "American" food. The best part of lunch was the dessert, I had a muffin type pastry with a delicious apple filling, I pretended it was the Japanese version of an apple pie =)
My students were pilgrims and recited the song "The Turkey on the Farm" to the tune of "Old Mc Donald Had a Farm." They got very nervous in front of their parents and would barely smile!
Parents getting ready to serve the food.
My class, working on their Thanksgiving crafts.
All of my students had their parents attend the luncheon, it was nice to see the parents enjoy time with their kids. After lunch, one of the high school teachers came in my room and told me that a bunch of my students were playing in the parking lot, as cars were driving around. I told her that all my students were with their parents. I walked outside to find my students playing in the parking lot, as their parents were standing there, talking. I called the students over and told them they needed to stand right next to their parents or come inside. The parents just looked at me and didn't say a word. I know they don't speak English but I thought playing in parking lots was a universal no-no. Sarah and I talked about how that confirms even more that the parents here rely on us to discipline their kids.
After lunch, the parents took their kids home so we could clean up and start our weekend. It was a nice day to start the long weekend!
Thanksgiving Day
Mr. Elofson picked us up at 6am, bright and early on Thanksgiving morning. We made it to the airport within 30 minutes and boarded without a problem.
Our plane was a pokemon airplane, complete with pokemon curtains and seat covers, something about that made it a bit untrusting! We had a 2 hour flight, a short flight compared to the 16 hour L.A.-Okinawa flight.
Here is our airplane after we arrived in Tokyo.
These TV's inside the plane gave us a view of what we were flying over. They stayed on our entire flight, from takeoff to landing, very cool!
Advertisement in the airport in Tokyo...not very cute!
Business men in black suits already...and we're only at the airport!
We landed in Hadena at 10 am and asked what subway line to take to our hotel, paid for our subway ticket and arrived in Shinagiawa 20 minutes later.
We exited the subway to find our hotel directly across the street from the subway station, talk about a great location! Our hotel was in this shopping center. The crowd was as expected, tons of black business suits, yet not pushy at all.
A large courtyard area complete with restaurants, bars and clothing shops led us to our hotel. The entire area was decorated with Christmas decorations and Christmas music was playing over speakers. The weather was crisp and the ambiance gave it an east coast vibe.
Our hotel itself was beautiful! 39 stories, complete with restaurants, a bowling alley, internet cafe, a shopping mall, bars, bakeries and an indoor swimming pool. Way more than I expected, considering I thought we got a good deal on our hotel/airfare package. The lobby was decorated with Christmas decorations and the staff was very friendly
Cases of umbrellas in front of the hotel.
Check-in time was not until 2 p.m, so we left our luggage at the hotel and checked out the surrounding area. We ended up eating lunch at T.G.I. Friday's. It tasted very normal. The guest relations desk at our hotel gave us directions/maps and wrote out what subway lines to take to Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Disney and Imperial Palace. They were exceptionally friendly and provided us with helpful information.
We discovered this Sony building right next to our hotel. We looked around in the store for a few minutes but needed a security pass to go upstairs. The Cannon building was across the street.
At 2:00, we finally got to check in, our room was small but perfect for what we needed.
View from our room.
We could even see the Tokyo Tower from our room!
Zooming in on my camera gave us an even better view.
Instead of a standard ice machine on our hotel floor, we had a tea/hot water machine. The vending machine next to it had beer in it =)
I caught a glimpse of a this guy dressed in full Japanese gear....made it even more realistic that I'm really in Japan!
We unpacked our bags, bundled up with lots of layers and headed to Tokyo Tower. I was excited to tell an American in the elevator happy Thanksgiving...he said "oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving." haha. The weather was cold but pretty much what we expected, 40's and 50's.
We got on the wrong subway line a few times but the workers at each station were always very helpful in guiding us in the right direction. We made it to Tokyo Tower right at dusk, as it was lit up. We went to the top observation deck but were disappointed it was inside, they do not have an outside viewing area. The panoramic view was still amazing. I was surprised that it was very empty both inside and outside of the tower, a complete change from the Eiffel Tower! Tokyo Tower is 330 meters tall, 10 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower. It's the world's tallest self-supporting steel tower and is used as a digital antenna.
Even Tokyo Tower is ready for Christmas!
Panoramic view of Tokyo.
Saw lots of Yoshinoya's while walking to and from the subway stations!
We made it back to our hotel on the subway, without getting lost. We were pleasantly surprised to find a band playing Christmas music in the courtyard.
We ate Thanksgiving dinner at an Italian restaurant in the courtyard. It was a long, tiring day.
Pasta and Japanese beer=unique but delicious Thanksgiving dinner.
I loved Tokyo, it's the fast paced, busy city life that I'm used to. It was nice to get away for a few days and see some new sights. I'm used to traveling often at home, so, I was really itching to get out of Okinawa and explore (which I definitely did).
That wraps up Tokyo, day 1, in a nutshell. I'll be posting day 2 (Tokyo Disney), day 3 (Mt. Fuji) and day 4 (Imperial Palace/shopping) soon.
After school this past Monday, Mr. Elofson told us that the registration/smog on our car was expiring so they got us a new car. We walked out to the parking lot to find a new Subaru! Much newer, nicer and bigger than Guppy. Automatic door lock, power windows and enough space to fit all our luggage, we are getting spoiled! I'm glad we had guppy first, now we can appreciate our Subaru more! It was a nice surprise after a tiring day.
Our car is the closer car. It's big (by Okinawan standards) but still has a yellow license plate, which means it's a small car so registration is cheaper. Bigger cars have different color license plates and pay higher registration fees.
Today is Friday, I am very thankful that the weekend is here. It was a long week, our flight was delayed in Tokyo for 30+ minutes and we didn't get home Sunday night until 1 am. I woke up at 6 am on Monday and stayed tired the entire week. My students continued to be hyper all week, I even had to threaten to take away their Christmas party (they really wouldn't act up enough to make that happen..I hope not). I'm looking forward to doing nothing but relaxing this weekend.
I had dinner at a Thai restaurant at American Village tonight, it was okay. Maybe I will try another new restaurant tomorrow, that's becoming one of my favorite weekend rituals =)
My apartment is decorated with a mini Christmas tree and Christmas lights. Next Saturday, we are having our staff Christmas party at a local hotel. Have I mentioned that I love the Christmas season?!
I'm eating mochi ice cream and watching Top Gun now, the weekend is off to a great start =)
XOXO
Kristen
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