Oops. Never published this. From my internship in Yokohama two summers ago!!
We had a tour guide activity with our students a few weeks ago. We paired them up in groups of two, and assigned them a place around the Tokyo/Shibuya area. They had to prepare 5-minutes of English tour guide explanation about one of more places. It went so well! Our students really worked hard and did a lot of research on their places! It was so great!
We started out by meeting at Hachiko, the CLASSIC meeting place in Shibuya. Hachiko is a bronze statue of a dog with a story. Two of our students told us this story in their English! (I was so proud!! I read the story of Hachiko in Japanese in 300 so it was cool to see my students talking about it in English). Hachi was an akita dog bought by a teacher who lived in Tokyo many years ago. Every day in the morning, Hachi would walk his own to the train station (Shibuya station) And every evening Hachi would come back to the station and wait for his owner to come home.
But one day, his owner died at work. He never came home. But Hachi waited at the station everyday for nine years, until his death, for his beloved owner to return.
It's a really sad, heart-warming story. They built a statue to honor Hachi, and it's the place to meet in Shibuya.
We walked over to the Electricity museum. Sounds exciting, I know, but it was really a BLAST! They had lots of interesting displays, as well as fun games you could play. There was one place where you had to jog in place really fast to try to charge a battery in like 60 seconds or something? But that was fun. They also had an AI dog that was super cute haha. He said Japanese kotowaza and danced and stuff. lol
Next we headed over to Meiji Jingu, stopping bu Yoyagi stadium and Muscle Theatre on the way. Haha. I guess they have a muscle musical? I don't really know what that entails. Lol.
Meiji Jingu is GORGEOUS, of course! It's a really big and famous shrine in Tokyo. There are a gazillion trees that were hand planted by the people when the temple was built. It is really a lovely place. Lots of trees, quiet, away from the city. The buildings are lovely, too. We learned a lot about the shrine from one student, and another shared with us the story behind the Tanabata festival, which had just recently finished.
THe story is about two stars: Orihime and Hikeboshi. Orihime was a weaving princess, and Hikeboshi was a herder. The two worked very hard. They fell in love, but, like most couples, stopped working because they loved being together so much! THe kind of the sky didn't like that the weren't working anymore, so he banished them to far ends of the galaxy. But then, the stars were so sad they cried and cried all day and didn't work at all either! So the king told them if the worked hard all year long, they could see each other for one night each year.
The two stars are Vega and Altera (I think). And once a year, sometime in July, the stars meet in the milky way. This is when the tanabata festival takes place! People write their wishes on slips of paper and tie them to bamboo trees. It really is a lovely holiday.
Lastly, we headed over to HARAJUKU, the fashion center of Tokyo. We had a great presentation about the history and the shops, and ended the tour guide. All the boys went to a tabehoudai place (all you can eat!) and the girls explored harajuku and got crepes.
Crepes in Japan are AMAZING. No. Srsly. Amazing. Mine had a PIECE OF CHEESECAKE IN IT. Yes, a whole piece of cheesecake. Fantastic? Yes, yes it was.
Afterwards, Becca and I met up with Yoshi and my roommate from BYU, Erika! Erika is in Japan for the summer with an internship with CNN in Tokyo. Isn't that AWESOME??! She interviewed Ken Watanabe (? The last samurai guy?) and LEONARDO DICAPRIO. Yeah. She's freaking the best.
We wandered around, ate some food, wandered some more, enjoyed cool air and each others company. We went to a music store and I PLAYED BASS YESS OMG. I missed it SOOOOO much!! There was a Japanese lady who came up and was watching me. Then she started talking to Yoshi (In Japanese) asking questions about me, and Yoshi turned to me and asked me in English! I was like, HELLO? I can speak Japanese too, you know!! :P haha It was funny. Because I just tried to listen to her and answer in Japanese, but she still never talked directly to me. Haha. It was very Japanese. I laughed.
Anyway, I had some time to kill before meeting up with Joy, and Yoshi went home cause he was worried about missing the last train (:p it wasn't even late, AND it was a Friday night! I think he was just terrified at the prospect of being with me ;D) So I sat around Hachiko again. While there, I was accosted by a Japanese man who wanted to practice his English. It's funny. I'm accosted often in Japan :p But it was fun, he had really good English, all things considered, and it was nice to have someone to talk to.
0 comments:
Post a Comment