Like I mentioned in my last post, I had a teacher’s trip coming up. You might remember last year how I posted about going to a soccer game. Well, this year we kept things a little more traditional and went to Tokyo.. Like all the other schools in Ibaraki ?. I really wish I was kidding but I’m not.. We met at the school in the morning and took a bus to Tokyo, stopping at the halfway point at a rest stop. And what a surprise when we park next to another elementary school that’s about ten minutes away from me in Mito. Also, on the way back, at the same rest stop, we my friend’s school! I swear that rest stop is just a giant reunion bathroom.
Once we got to Tokyo, we had a nice buffet lunch near Ueno station. All the food was Japanese style food so surprise surprise, I couldn’t eat a lot of it. And the food I did eat was really good. After lunch we went to Tokyo Sky Tree! We had a pass to the first observation deck where we could see almost everything It was about 350 meters up. The second observation deck (which you need to pay extra to go to) 450 meters high and the tippy top is 634 meters. Of course, leave it to the Japanese to put significance behind this. 634 or musashi (6-mu 3-sa 4-shi) is a the area it’s built in as well as a great warrior guy in the 1500-1600s. On a really clear day you can see Mt. Fuji (usually in the winter), Mt Hakone, Tsukuba (according to my teachers), Disneyland resort, and Yokohama. As well as the millions of schools in the area. There were more schools around Tokyo Skytree than I think in the north side of Mito. The schools looked update though and their pools (on the roof of the school) looked so clean… I was jealous since ours is so slimy on the bottom.
After Tokyo Skytree we headed to Shinagawa Aqua Park. It’s a bit smaller than the last aquarium I went to but this place was so cool! Although heads up, if you see this place on TV, it’s not as big as you think it is. Also, people are everywhere! It was difficult to move in some areas. But it was still cool, we saw jellyfish, stingrays, sharks, otters, you know, the typical stuff.
After wards we headed to Tokyo bay for a dinner cruise. It was similar to the dinner cruises at Navy Pier except this was a little more casual and no DJs. Again, it was buffet style. Even though the food was western style with a touch of asian, I still couldn’t eat anything. I could eat the roast beef and one noodle salad, and a dessert. At least the roast beef was good. The dinner cruise was 2 hours and in that time we saw Haneda international airport, Disney resort, Rainbow bride which connects mainland Tokyo to Odaiba and one other place that I don’t remember. Once the cruise was over, we boarded back on the bus and headed back to to Mito.
All in All, the trip was fun. I kinda felt like Selena Gomez in that one move where she’s running around Paris on that tour group. I wish I could have had more time at each place (1 hour isn’t really enough time) but luckily these places aren’t too far away so I can always go back. Also, if any of you plan on going to any of these places; do not go in July/August on a weekend. Unless you like being stuck in huge crowds then go for it but it was a mad house pretty much everywhere we went.
