Roppongi Hills and Yokohama

Great weekend, starting all the way back on Friday. It was a public holiday, meaning in the morning the trains were DESERTED -- we actually got a seat on the first train! I only had Japanese class, since my professor had canceled my anthropology class to stay home with his kids (who didn't have school). After Japanese, I got lunch with some friend and hung out before the SISEC meeting, which was packed as usual. After the meeting we picked up some stipends from CIEE (dinner/bottled water stipend for May, and commuter pass stipend for the next three months) -- pay day! A big group of us then headed out towards Roppongi Hills. We took the subway there (my first time), and walked through a park with really cute playground equipment that also had a slide made out of metal rollers. Of course I had to go down it, even though it had just been raining -- I had hoped my friend who went first would have mostly dried it off, but such was not the case. It was worth it.

Garden at Roppongi Hills

Next, a rather damp me and the rest of us made it to Roppongi Hills, which was amazing. Roppongi is an area that can get somewhat sketchy at night, but Roppongi Hills is a giant complex complete with high-end shops, a movie theater, performance space, park, TV studio, etc. Google it. We did some shopping, walked around inside and outside, and a few of us walked a Chinese yo-yo performance -- there were lots of kids watching, and I took lots of pictures of both the kids and the performance. He was really good. After the performance, the group headed home, but I went back to campus to meet some other friends to go out for dinner. We went over to Shin-Okubo, which apparently is where a lot of Koreans live, and spent about an hour walking around trying to find a place for 20 of us to have dinner. Everywhere was really crowded since it was a holiday, and we had not made a reservation. We ended up splitting into two groups, which made it easier to find a place. I ended up having a delicious Korean dinner -- my first time with authentic Korean food I believe -- and it was a lot of fun. More friends showed up later so we kind of took up the whole restaurant. The tables were in the low-lying style where we sat on tatami mats, which is always an adventure for me, but I made it work. We were there for a few hours and finally left when the restaurant owner basically told us that they were closing, so we needed to pay and go home. It was a lot of fun.

Chinatown in Yokohama

Saturday morning a group of us headed out to Yokohama to do a picture scavenger hunt/walking tour with SISEC. I was in a group with the other Wellesley student who is on my program, so we took a lot of "Wellesley pictures." Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population, so there was a lot to see. We spent about four hours walking around different areas and taking pictures. We ate lunch in Chinatown, walked around there some, and then headed down to the port before making it back over to Landmark Tower, which is a 70ish story building with a great view of the city. The scavenger hunt was really entertaining -- before lunch we didn't really take many pictures, but once we ate we got a little more serious about it. Some of the items were to hug a stranger, take a picture with a group of tourists, and take a pictures with a group of guys (each guy was 50 points). So, we creeped out a group of Americans and ended up in a big group hug, swooped in on a group of men waiting outside a hotel after a wedding, and three guys from DC -- I was trying to talk to them more about the US, but the group kept moving. We also made a pyramid of people (I was at the bottom...), took a picture with someone's pet bunny, and attempted to spell out "SISEC" in the grass -- we attracted a few curious glances, to say the least. It was great.

SISEC Pyramid!

The group of 70+ SISEC members met back at Landmark Tower around 5:30pm, and we decided to eat before heading to the top of the tower, so we could see the view at night. I ate at an okonomiyaki place which was absolutely delicious. Next was the tower -- the elevator moves at 750 meters / minute, so we were at the 69th floor (273 meters up in the air) in a matter of seconds. It was a beautiful view, although some of the Japanese students were telling us about how there are normally a bunch more lights (as I have discussed before). Still, it was really cool to see, and the city lights seemed to go on forever. It was great.

Wellesley <3 at the top of Landmark Tower

Friends at the top of Landmark Tower

After the tower, a group of CIEE students headed off to Shibuya to find some place to hang out, and I was originally going to join them but then decided to head home to sleep, because I have a long week ahead of me. I found out on Thursday night that I got a spot on the bus to go volunteer in Tohoku from May 2nd to May 7th. I will be going up to Hanamaki in the Iwate prefecture (which is as far north from Fukushima as Tokyo is south of it), and will be doing relief work for four days. I leave at 10pm on Monday night, spend the night on the bus, and then start work on Tuesday morning, so Tuesday will be a really long day. I believe our first priority will be to clean up the school to get it ready to open again, and then we will move on to cleaning up some houses. We will get more information once we get up there. I have been mentioning from the beginning of this blog how I have wanted to do relief work, so I'm really glad this opportunity worked out. Since Tuesday-Thursday is a holiday in Japan, I only have to miss one day of class to do four days of work. It should be a great experience, but both emotionally and physically very challenging. As I have mentioned before, being in Tokyo it is easy to forget about the destruction up north, but for the next five days that will certainly be at the forefront.  I am going to chronicle my experience as much as possible, but since we will be working with refugees there are various privacy laws to keep in mind. At any rate, I should have cell phone service and will be updating my parents and sister while I am up there, so check in with them if you are worried!