Second night in Tokyo
Its late here and I'm sleepy, even though I took an unscheduled nap this afternoon.
So, after a long day of orientation-type meetings and panel discussions, I met up with about 2 dozen fellow "Gunmanians" for an evening of karaoke and all-you-can-drink festivities. It seemed like a great plan...until we got 1/3 of the way across Tokyo and the skies opened up on us. We'd heard that a typhoon was scheduled to hit us tomorrow, but none of us was prepared for a cloud burst on the way out tonight. Everyone we passed on the street seemed to know what to expect, so we were the only 25 people in the entire city without umbrellas (though I think our blatantly loud English set us apart from the Japanese more than our wet clothes). It was a great night though, wet jeans and all. Everyone is extremely outgoing and personable, and I feel like these are some of the most interesting, diverse folks that I've met in a while. This week's orientation is entirely comprised of countries whose national language is English (the US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, Ireland..and one or two more that I've forgotten) but we have as many commonalities as we do differences.
..okay, enough of my "we are the world" talk. I am having a wonderful time though and I can't wait to move on to my final destination...yay Kiryu!
Hopefully the typhoon won't be so debilitating that I'm unable to venture back out into Shinjuku tomorrow for a final meeting with the JASCers...do your anti-rain dance for me.
the main conference room where most of our orientation events are held
one of the karaoke places that we found along our way through Shinjuku
So, after a long day of orientation-type meetings and panel discussions, I met up with about 2 dozen fellow "Gunmanians" for an evening of karaoke and all-you-can-drink festivities. It seemed like a great plan...until we got 1/3 of the way across Tokyo and the skies opened up on us. We'd heard that a typhoon was scheduled to hit us tomorrow, but none of us was prepared for a cloud burst on the way out tonight. Everyone we passed on the street seemed to know what to expect, so we were the only 25 people in the entire city without umbrellas (though I think our blatantly loud English set us apart from the Japanese more than our wet clothes). It was a great night though, wet jeans and all. Everyone is extremely outgoing and personable, and I feel like these are some of the most interesting, diverse folks that I've met in a while. This week's orientation is entirely comprised of countries whose national language is English (the US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, Ireland..and one or two more that I've forgotten) but we have as many commonalities as we do differences.
..okay, enough of my "we are the world" talk. I am having a wonderful time though and I can't wait to move on to my final destination...yay Kiryu!
Hopefully the typhoon won't be so debilitating that I'm unable to venture back out into Shinjuku tomorrow for a final meeting with the JASCers...do your anti-rain dance for me.
the main conference room where most of our orientation events are held
one of the karaoke places that we found along our way through Shinjuku
posted by Kris at
1:15 AM
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