Going to the Beach!

This was the second day of my holidays and I was determined to go to the beach. We are in the midst of summer and the humidity is a bad as it gets. 

 I didn't get up until about 130pm. First idea was to go to Enoshima beach but the decision was made to go instead to Chigasaki. 

 The way to get there is the same way that I go to Fujisawa, except instead of getting off there, we take the train for a further two stops. 

 Getting to Shin-sugita, the Club Sega was calling me. Thankfully I resisted to not spend all the yen in my wallet, instead only (wasting) one 100 yen coin on the evil UFO catcher machine. 

 We arrived at Chigasaki station around 415pm. Gf wanted to take the bus to the beach but I thought it would be better to walk seeing it was only about 20 minutes from the station. Gf won, we took the bus.

 There weren't all that many people on the beach. It was late, but I have to say the water was the perfect warmth. I wanted to stay in the water for a long time. 

 Unfortunately the lifeguards (I have no idea why they have them) blew their whistles to get everyone out of the water as it was time for them to go home. 

 I couldn't believe this. This only leads me to believe Japanese are the most boring people on earth, happy to do what everyone else does. For some reason this includes leaving all their rubbish on the beach. I don't understand why they do this. 

 If you look anywhere else, there are no bins around the city but you will never hardly ever see any litter anywhere. Don't get me started on their crazy garbage rules for the home.

  This is about the time we went home. If you look in the distance behind the buildings you can see Mt Fuji. Well I think it is.

Azuki

I can always rely on gf to bring some sweets when you comes around. 

 The way to a man's heart is with Azuki, and she knows it. The little wooden box will come in handy as a key box or something. Attractive and useful! The box I mean.

Kawasaki Two Time

I was in no hurry to go to Kawasaki today.

I had three, count them, one, two, three kids classes to do today. I wasn't really keen to do them, but it looks like it sounded worse than it actually was.

First up was the Mini Kids class.

There were thankfully only two little bundles of joy to deal with. They were full of beans (or at least Miso soup), being a handful for their tired mothers who are in the classroom to encourage them.

Next up I had a higher A level class with three girls. One of them was really loud and very outspoken. The second girl was quiet but had a good grasp of the lesson. The last girl was very quiet and shy, but they all went through the lesson without any problems.

Finally, I had a B level kids class. This is the ideal level that I prefer. The only thing is that there were seven children in the room.

At first I thought I was going to be over my head if they all ran riot, but they all had a blast. They bounced all their active energy of each other which made the teaching actually easier on me. Dang, if only I could remember all their names!

Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I decided to seek out a UFO catcher amusement arcade.

I know, I know, this is a BIG mistake, but i just can't help myself. I lost 800 yen (or was that 1000 yen?) trying to win a cute Rilakkuma bear that was temptingly hanging over the edge of the drop shute.

Feeling again defeated, at the Keikyu supermarket in Tomioka I bought not just one, but two blocks of Crunky to make me feel better. Does it make me feel better? You bet it does.

It gave me the chance to use my new points card too for the first time. It's going to be a while before I get my "free" shopping voucher though.

Roppongi One Time

I hadn't been here before so next on the itiniery would be Roppongi. 

 To tell you the truth, the place at least during the day doesn't leave me inspired much. Compared to Shibuya, there is no comparison. Everything Shibuya is, Roppongi isn't. At least this is my impression in daytime. 

 Again we got our free iced coffees from Macca's. Gotta love free drink vouchers! 

 I couldn't resist the Don Quixote store. In there we found "rodeo" exercise machines that were actually turned on. More fool you, you Don Quixote staff! 

 No, I couldn't resist the temptation and jumped on this bucking bronco of technology. The gf has a funny video on her mobile. When I finally work out how to get it off her phone I will post it! 

 Two other teenage japanese girls saw me on it and must've thought it would be great to go for a ride as well. You go girls! 

 From there, we made our way to Roppongi Hills. The weather was not looking so good, but all we had was gf's summer cloth umbrella that I was carrying all day in my pocket. Not so good for rain though.

  Roppongi Hills is the (slightly) more upmarket version of Roppongi, meaning there are more expensive shops here. We went to Midtown and looked at clothes that even at half price discount was sure to be a markup for 500%. 

 Here, there is a nice food store with a lot of international food. We found all the cheeses I have been craving from back home, but they were too expensive to buy here. 

 On the other hand, there are a LOT of shops here giving food samples. SO, at every opportunity I tasted the food to sample with the standard reply of, "We'll come back and get some later". *evil laugh* 

 On arriving back to Yotsuya we were still both hungry, so we went to Pizza Salvatore for what was originally one Capricciosa pizza, becoming another with salami and eggplant. Both were tasty and not too bad for japanese-italian pizzas.

  I have to tell you about a new treat I have discovered in Japan. 

 It's called Azuki or red bean. They have them in jelly, icecream and as filling for doughnuts. 

 It's strange a vegetable as a sweet, but if anyone can do it, the Japanese can. Here, Yoko and I are showing our love for this Azuki iceblock. Mmm.. 

 Before going to bed I watched Astroboy on Youtube. Gf got a little excited when I found the japanese version intro music to both Astroboy and Yamato (Starblazers in English). She knows all the words. That is strangely cool in a weird way.

Shibuya Skool

The great thing about staying in Tokyo is that doing my sub class in Shibuya is going to be a cinch. Instead of the hour or so of train from Tomioka, it will only take a measly 20 minutes to get there.

The strangest thing when I arrive at these new schools is that the staff act like they are not expecting me at all. Who are you? Don't you know who I am? I'm the sub teacher here to save the day! Hmm, or something like that.

Anywhoo.. the day went ok. I had two kids classes to teach and they were really good. Well, the first one was amazing. Kids old enough to know enough English but docile enough to actually do what I ask them to do.

The older children in the later class are a bit too cool for school, but still not a bad lesson if I say so myself.

By the end of the day I was feeling satisfied with how it all went. I was up for staying in Shibuya, but gf prefered to stay in. So, basically we ducked into Yoshinoya (japanese fast food) for surprisingly quick served and tasty beef and rice. Mmmm..

Friday Night Tokyo

After work I made the unusual step of going from Yokohama to Tokyo. Why? Because now before (and after) the summer vacation I am subbing quite a few kids classes.

Sub day at Yokohama was the usual slow slog (that I like after my day off) but the last three lessons were taken up so I wasn't totally idle. I went straight from there to the gf's.

I went to Tokyo tonight because tomorrow I will be in Shibuya to be substitute teacher to two kids classes. Yay.. kids classes bring it on!

Landmark Tower Yokohama

On today, my day off, we headed off to Yokohama with a mission.. to go up Japan's tallest building, yes, (queue *suspenseful music*), the Landmark Tower!

  I have a HEAP of free coffee drink vouchers for McDonalds, so we went there first to get our free (iced) coffees. Now, I still don't consider this cheating and eating here because no, I didn't order a burger and hey, a free coffee's a free coffee right? So my McDonalds boycott is still in progress ok? 

 We also decided badly to get an icecream dessert from Cold Stone Creamery. I had a coffee icecream in a chocolate wafer, which also had peanut butter mixed in as well. 

 It was sickly sweet. Instead of feeling satisfied, I just felt sick and bloated. I wanted to tell all the other suckers to get out of that overrated line and go upstairs to the better gelato store. 

 We walked along Yamashita Park, past Hikawa Maru and Chinatown.

   

At first we were going to go up the tower during the day thinking we would be able to see Mt Fuji. They said that it would not be visible, so we went later on at night. 

 The lift is super fast going up 750m/minute. I don't know about you, but I like the idea of "getting off" on the 69th floor. 

 The view was quite nice, but the glass was a little fogged up from condensation. You can get a really nice look from here. 

 On coming back to earth we made our way to the Club Sega and yes, UFO catchers. Like before, I pumped in more yen than I should have and walked out of there a little down and empty-handed. The Snoopy was mine, godammit!!! 

 We got a bento at the Family Mart and decided to walk from the Minato Mirai complex to Yokohama station. It took longer than expected, but we eventually walked the right way and made our way back to Tomioka.