July 19, 2016
JET teacher Teresa's Writes about our ID trips!
Hey, everyone! It’s Teresa back to update you on the past two Seiritsu excursions.
The first trip was on July 7th: the international department spent the day learning about the Edo period in the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which surprisingly shares an uncanny resemblance to a Star Wars Imperial Walker.
Inside the museum, you will immediately see a bridge that is an exact scale model of the Nihonbashi Bridge, once known as the main entrance into the capital known as Edo, but is now currently Tokyo! I have to admit that it was impressive to see the scale model in the museum.
My favorite part about the museum though was the model figurines. There are many displays of these figurines depicting life in the Edo period. Even though they look like toys, they are more expensive than most toys. The tour guide told us that each little figurine cost a shockingly 5,000 yen! I don’t doubt that because they are all extremely detailed.
The second trip was on July 12th: the team once again packed up to go to Kamakura! I love Kamakura for many reasons, but the biggest reason is probably because my fiancé and I went to our first date there♡. I was very excited and happy to return.
Train delays slightly set us back, but everyone was a trooper. We pretty much ran up the hill to see the Great Buddha or the 大仏 [budai]. It was my third time seeing the Great Buddha, but goodness, the status is still huge!
After, we went forward to see the Hasedera Temple (長谷寺), the temple where I bought my love charm. I’m pretty sure the love charm didn’t do anything in my relationship with my fiancé, but it’s still cute to think it did.
Before lunch, we walked to the beach. We took our shoes off to walk on the sand and to feel the waves. Granted, it was about 30 degrees Celsius, but the 30° sand still felt amazing!
We finished the trip up with burgers and a round at Hachimangu Shrine.
If you have time, go enjoy the beautiful beach and grab a couple of charms (you never know; they may work!) at the many shrines in Kamakura!
Teresa Fong
JET Assistant Language Teacher