Seiritsu International Education

Principal Fukuda kindly leads us to Akihabara, Electronic Town, on one of Tokyo's super handy trains!

After a brief sideways heavy typhoon-like rain this morning, everyone arrived safely ready to go for Day 5. I heard the girls had made tempura with their home stay mom Mrs. Hanai the night before, or at least they got to dip things into the pan with her directions. (Mrs. Hanai said she will teach them the whole process from scratch when they have more time on the weekend.)

Again it was off to the language races with our Japanese lesson, the beginner's group learning handy shopping Japanese from Richard-Sensei and the intermediate group learning how to talk about the weather with Yano-Sensei. Since we're just getting the typhoon part of the year, also the really hot part of summer, weather chatting is in season and everyone says the same two sentences like robots!

Atsui ne! (It's hot, eh!)
So desu ne, Atsuuuuiii! (Yes, it sure isssss!)

With the next person, just repeat conversation.

Train map of central Tokyo city! The green line is the Yamanote-line that goes both ways. Akihabara is the big red square. Akabane is just north, you can see the price 210 yen for it. Traveling on trains is, just pay the distance you want to go!

Akihabara Station east exit!

After the Japanese lesson, everyone did email checks during the morning break, picked up bento lunches made by the school cook, and we were off the day's ensoku (outing). The Principal actually lead us on the train to Akihabara, Electronic Town, the district of Tokyo crammed with numerous buildings selling all sort of the lastest electronics, DVDs, CDs, plus anything and everything related to Japanese anime (animation) and manga (comics).

Jessica strikes a samurai pose!

Akihabara has really become a mecca for all these things, and I heard today foreigners make up almost one third of the people who visit the area! (90% of foreigners in Japan are Asians, many here to study in engineering or sciences at university.) Customers buy three main things; digital cameras, anything electronic, and anything deriving from the anime/manga fantasy world.

No, it's not real bottled sweat, it's just a popular sport's drink you can buy everywhere!

The term Akiba has been coined to mean a person who loves everything Akihabara has to offer, to the point all their income is spent on items from here, including costumes of the favorite anime/manga characters (referred to as cosplay).

A whole Sega building!

Young women in trendy maid's costumes hand out flyers for stores on the street, while salesmen rap in Japanese through megaphones about great and cheap their latest products are! Cosplay anyone?

(Useful tip; getting travellers checks cashed is best done at large bank branches near main train stations or at a large post office, as the smaller banks and post offices don't handle foreign currency.)

Our electronic purchases done, we assembled to head back to school for karate!

Upon return to the school, we participated in a practice with the co-ed karate club, which included junior high school students and graduates from the school also present to offer more people for us to workout with.

Bowing in seiza, running around to warm-up, playing ?'karate tag?' with a partner, stretching, punches, kicks, kata and sparring drills were the order of the day.

Marvin dodging a roundhouse kick!

Jessica performing kata under the watchful eyes of Shun Tanaka, a graduate and many times kata champion!

The atmosphere was kept relaxed and welcoming, which Jessica, Angeline and Marvin may not have expected (all being karate athletes back home), perhaps thinking the more common drill-sergent karate instructor style was most prevalent in Japan like in other countries. But actually there are different ways to teach karate, and a fun, but serious method allows the athletes to be relaxed, move faster and think of a more wide variety of skills to be used then a rigid approach.

The group!

We ended with group pictures and hand-shakes, sharing final words in each other's language, and then time having flown by, the Japan Experience students were off to their home stays for dinner. We were happy to see Justine, Jessica and Angeline confidently using the bus on their own now to get to and from school, while Marvin was lucky because Mr. Fukuda took him to some fun spot in the city for dinner with his family.

You have 3 seconds, quick, get to another spot!

Although somewhat tired from heat & jet lag, which sort of kicks in a few days after arrival for most foreigners from far off lands and totally different time zones), for sure it was another successful day. Tomorrow, the tea ceremony, and a chance to be on national Japanese TV!