Week 1

The first week of class was pretty intense. We are in class everyday for about 4-5 hours. Still being jet lagged, I spent my afternoons after class sleeping, and then doing homework in the evenings. The classroom is in a townhouse style space in which the bedrooms are converted into classrooms. The space is very clean, neat, and comes with great A/C, a must have in humid Tokyo!

One day at the end of class, we practiced calligraphy. It was fun but challenging. I went through probably 30 sheets of paper.

So far, Shibuya is my favorite place in Tokyo. It is a very hip area, with a lot of young people, a ton of good stores for shopping, and great clubs for dancing.

Shibuya 109 is a popular department store that holds 109 women's clothing, accessories, and perfume stores under one building. 109 is known to be one of Britney Spears's favorite places to shop. It is about 9 stories high. The energy inside this building is very high with hordes of young girls going up and down the escalators, shopping till they drop.

We had lunch in Shibuya at a cool sushi shop. Food and drink move around the room on a conveyor belt and as everything moves past your seat, you simply take whatever food/drink you want to have. It is an exciting way to eat food in a restaurant and also highly efficient. Tea is free but the 7 plate minimum meal cost about 750 yen....pretty cheap for Tokyo!

My goal for the day in Shibuya was to get a picture of one of the Japanese dolls. It is a popular fashion in this area for girls to dress up like baby dolls. Luckily, as we were heading back to the bus stop to head home for the day, we spotted one right behind us. Once she realized we were trying to take a picture of her, she kindly stopped her conversation with a friend and struck a pose for me. She must be used to the attention.


Friday we had a class trip to Asakusa where we had to interview three people and ask them basic questions about themselves; where they live, what they do for a living, what their hobbies are, etc. It wasn't too hard and we finished that assignment fairly quickly. The rest of the time we spent exploring Senso-ji temple. There were a lot of things to do; burning incense, reading your fortune, praying, and other religious rituals. Although it was raining pretty hard, the art and architecture at Senso-ji was breathtaking.

Below is a photo of the Japanese people performing the ritual of cleansing the hands and drinking the water which is supposed to ward off evil spirits.


I got to visit a lot of amazing places this week and hope to have even more exciting and new experiences in the weeks to come.