Daiba power!

So, today I woke up late and went off to Daiba, a really neat city within Tokyo with lots of history and new technology! It used to be an island obstruction built by the shogunate to keep out foreign ships. Now it has really awesome buildings and neat things to see. I had to take three different train lines on the way there: the Tozai line to Monzen-nakacho, the Oedo Line to Shiodome, and then the monorail to Daiba.

Here's a view of the the area next to Daiba. Unfortunately I realized halfway there that I left my camera battery at home, which meant my camera was just a hunk of metal and plastic with no worth to anyone that I had to drag around! I couldn't return home to get it. Oh well, Google images can attempt to show you the beauty. Click for full size!

The only way into the city was by monorail or car, so obviously I took the monorail. It was shakier than a regular train, which was scary on the epic but gorgeous bridge.

I was pretty upset that I left my camera battery at home, because the views all around the area from the bridge and before it were amazing. You could even see Tokyo Tower from right before the bridge! Without my camera, I honestly felt lost for a little while; I kept reaching into my bag for it and then realizing it was useless. Eventually I decided to grin and bear the situation, because it would mean I'd finally learn the worth of an experience even if I couldn't document it for the rest of the world to see, or for my own personal memories. Sometimes it's nice not to always be behind a camera lens, although that's my preferred position. :)

The main reason I went to Daiba, also known as Odaiba, was to see (and photograph, gah) the Fuji TV headquarters because that building's architecture really knocks my socks off. I had seen it from the highway one day when my school was taking a field trip, and I tried to take a picture but failed. But anyway, it's a neat place. I went up to the 25th floor (the sphere thing) and looked out the windows. Gorgeous view! There were tons of Japanese game shows going on in that building and I even saw some of them.

Right outside the building, there was a concert going on, with singers in hilarious clothes doing campy dance moves. A ton of kids were watching and cheering, and it was being recorded, probably live for tv. The song was really happy and the dances were so funny, so I had a great time watching it. Then one of the performers did a rap and I wished I could have videotaped it. Oh well, good memory.

I went to the Decks mall (6 floors of serious shopping) to eat lunch: gyoza and a really good ice cream sundae make from milk from Hokkaido cows. :) Here's a Google image of Decks.

In the Decks mall, there was a Sega amusement park for videogame lovers. I know some people who would have loved to go in there. :) It was called Joypolis and costs about as much as a regular theme park ($25-30) so I didn't go in. I only had a few hours in Odaiba before I had to return home.

Then I walked around and even saw a mini Statue of Liberty! Cool beans. By then I was getting a little tired, so I got on the monorail and headed back.

I stopped on the way home and bought cream cheese, capers, bread, and a present for someone back home. Those things, except for the present, were for dinner that I made for my host family tonight. I used the smoked salmon that my family gave to my host family (and my host family didn't know what to do with) and made smoked salmon sandwiches. I don't know if they liked them but I thought they were pretty good.

After that, I gave English lesson to the Koki-kun again, and it was a lot of fun. I feel like he made some progress! Too bad English is so hard. My host mom thinks it's easier than Spanish but I heartily disagree. We all agree that Chinese is the hardest, though. Anyway, I taught Koki-kun how to make plurals of words like box, class, dictionary, and leaf. I had forgotten how hard those were to learn when I was little! BoxES, classES, dictionarIES, and leaVES. Then we had some conversations that went like this:
"I like apples."
"Why?"
"Because they are delicious."
"Oh, I see."
"I don't like swimming."
"Why not?"
"Because I get tired."
"Oh, I see."
It was fun. :)  He was a great student, picking up pronunciation and grammar rules pretty fast. I was delighted when he asked me how to memorize a big list of vocab his teachers had given him to memorize over the summer break. I showed him my kanji flashcards and taught him how to make flashcards, and how you can study them easily on the train, or study one bundle on Monday, one on Tuesday, etc. until you learn them all.  He responded to most of my questions in Japanese so I had to prod him to speak English more. And I didn't have the heart to speak to him only in English, because I remember hating that when my Spanish teachers would speak to me only in Spanish and I'd understand almost none of what they were saying. I think it's better to use both at the beginning of language instruction, unless you're dealing with a 5-year-old or younger child who can pick up languages like candy and eat them.

We also practiced counting conversations, which went a lot like this:
"How many pens do you need?"
"I need eight pens."
"How many bags do you see?"
"I see four bags."
This probably sounds too easy to some English native speakers but it was a fairly difficult concept. It seems every more difficult when you consider how drastically the word order changes from Japanese to English.

Anyway, again it's 2am and I have yet to go to sleep. Time for BED BED BED. Tomorrow I'm going to Ikebukuro with Lori, my Taiwanese friend from the 2006 Hoby World Leadership Congress!! It's been so long since I've seen her and I'm so happy she can speak Japanese with me now (I don't know if she spoke it before, but I sure didn't).