Fieldwork D and Tokyo Disney

On Wednesday, I got up at 9:30 am to do some homework before I went to school to meet up with the other ryuugakusei for Fieldwork D.

What is Fieldwork D? It’s a class where international students go to elementary/middle schools in the area and tell kids about themselves and their countries of origin. After meeting in the Eito-kan at 11 am, a group of us walked to an elementary school pretty far away. I never found out the name of the school, I guess I probably should’ve.

 When we arrived, one of the teachers there brought us inside to a conference room, where they quickly went over the plan for the day. We would meet with children, answer questions, and eat lunch with them. So we got a quick tour around the building. I’ve seen quite a few Japanese dramas while in the states, and yes, the schools really look that way. They got a kind of old-style charm while maintaining itself as a institution of modern learning. The doors slide shut, lots of long sinks, and no central heating/cooling. We were all sweating pretty bad.

So we got name-cards, and went into a classroom. There, we introduced ourselves and answered questions about what we liked to eat. Ryan was popular with the boys and Lindsey was popular with the girls. After the Q&A, we ate a lunch of ramen, some kind of pickled vegetable thing, and some poundcake. Milk and poundcake kicks ass. I sat with a bunch of little kids and one of the teachers there. The teacher told me they were kind of shy, and had to encourage them a bit to get talking. I told them stuff about Texas, about like cowboys and such. They asked me what kind of fruit I like and what color I liked, those kinds of questions.

After lunch we did answered questions like “what do you think of Japanese food?” and the like. The visit was about 2 hours long, and we got paid 2000 yen. While I disagree with being paid to do classwork, it IS money, so I just kept it. Before this day, I did not really like kids. But now, I think I just don’t like American kids. American kids are pretty bratty and spoiled, but Japanese kids rock.

After me, Aaron, Ryan, and Lindsey walked back to Obirin, we met up with Brandt and went to Tokyo Disneyland. We left the university at 3 pm, and didn’t make it to Tokyo Disneyland until 5 pm. Kind of late to begin, but the tickets we had were for June only, and this was the last free day we had that we had nothing planned.

Yuri had told us ahead of time they had Mexican food, and that got Brandt all excited. Upon arriving and finding out that Taco Rice qualifies at Mexican food in Japan, well, we were all not incredibly happy about it. But our disappointment quickly went away as we just ate some food at some fancy restaurant place that overlooks the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was not open at the time. I had a Chicken and Sausage Gumbo thing that looked more like a Chicken and Sausage Sauce thing, but it was pretty good.

The place looks like Disneyland, as well as I can remember Disneyland back in America. Since the last time I went to Disneyland was when I was in my early teens, I can’t really remember too much. My time spent at Disney theme parks were usually spent riding the simple rides and doing kiddy stuff. I was never really into roller-coasters, and some scared the crap out of me as a kid. But after riding some really crazy-ass roller-coasters at Six Flags when I was in high school, I knew I could ride them, but I usually refrained from them if I could. After eating, we did Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain(2 times), and the Haunted Mansion. A lot of the cool rides seem to have the word “Mountain” in them. For a weekday, there was a lot of people, but the wait time for rides was pretty short, 15-20 minutes at most. I have never been on these rides before, so it was certainly an experience. Perhaps the most interesting thing was that all the Disney characters in the rides and elsewhere spoke in Japanese. I grew up knowing them to speak a certain way, and hearing them speak in Japanese threw me off a bit.

The parade was cool, probably one of the things that reminded me the most of my past times at Disneyland back when I lived near Anaheim.

Left to right: Lindsey, Ryan, me, and Brandt.

So after the Haunted Mansion, me, Lindsey, Brandt and Aaron got onto the Teacup Ride. Probably the biggest mistake of the day on my part. While Aaron and Brandt were tired as hell and decided to make sure their cup didn’t spin, me and Linsdsey spun the hell out of our cup, and partway through, I decided that I would stop spinning the cup but Lindsey kept going despite my cries for mercy. The Japanese girl working there held the gate open and laughed at me as I stumbled out of the ride like a drunk. I was unable to eat after that and it made the trip home pretty shitty. But looking back at it, it was pretty funny.

The gang(minus Ryan and Ayumi, they kept running off and doing their own thing, those bastards). By this time my hair was all flat as it had absorbed all the humidity in the air and my sweat. We left when the park closed at 10 pm, but didn’t make it back to Fuchinobe until 1 am. I decided to not attempt the 2 hour walk home from the Fuch, and crashed at Aaron’s, a sweaty and tired mess. Aaron, Brandt, Lindsey, and I went to Ministop for drinks and snacks and then passed out while watching Anchorman. We woke up at 10 am then in the spirit of Disney, watched Disney’s Robin Hood, which is by far my favorite of the Disney movies. I went to 3rd period and then called it a day.

For the most part, Tokyo Disneyland is the same as Disneyland in California, minus the Curry Popcorn and few other things. It is very up to date, and if I didn’t know I was in Japan, I could’ve sworn I was in California. Wednesday was one of the longest days I’ve had since coming to Japan, but probably one of the most fun. I will definately miss Brandt and Lindsey when they have to return to Hawaii. Yuri and Ayumi will be leaving for Canada and Thailand as well.