This really happened on Friday, June 16, 2006

This day time was taken up entirely with two presentations, one of which had to do with the status of women in Japan and one about the master teacher program which I signed up for thinking it was something else on the website a lifetime ago. Then we had a briefing about our upcoming prefecture tour. I took extensive notes about these, but will not include them here.

The master teacher program was sort of a wasted lecture for me in some ways, although the speaker was very entertaining. It was primarily geared towards science education. However, in the true JFMF spirit of networking, I got talking to a guy from California I had been seated at breakfast with earlier in the day (see, it did work) about an international networking project he is doing as a history teacher. He is connecting, via webcams, teleconferencing or whatever it is that this is called now, with history teachers from different European countries (I need to ask him which ones) to share what their perspective on WWII is. This makes an awful lot of sense to me, especially given the fact that WWII is still such an aspect of the collective consciousness here in Japan. It is mentioned to us one way or another in nearly every public presentation we receive as a group. More on this later, I think.

After this presentation, we met in another room in the hotel conference for briefing on our prefecture visit to Ishikawa, Kanazawa and Komatsu City. This was a basic run through of our schedule for the next few days. One sort of minor stressor is that I have accumulated some stuff on this trip and needed to leave a bag in the hotel with this extra stuff in it while we are on the other side of the country for a week. But I didn’t yet have one of those bags.

After the briefing, I changed clothes again - so many costume changes with so few outfits, and headed out to the shopping district to visit the famous Oriental Bazaar for a few gifts. This was another underground trip with very handy directions provided by JFMF and it was easy to find. It was in a fairly trendy area called Shibuya-ku. I did end up getting some stuff there – saw a couple of my comrades there, and the prices were good, much better than the money changers outside the Shinto shrine. Then I decided to find a place to eat. I walked around a bit and found a restaurant from The Lonely Planet, but it was sort of pricey and was a kind of French fancy sandwich place, not what I was after. I walked back towards the conveyor belt sushi place and passed a Mc Donalds, in front of which was a nearly elderly American woman. It was her dog that caught my attention though; it was some sort of little very furry curly haired tiny breed of a dog with a sparkly light blue New York Yankees shirt on it. The woman was staying with her daughter’s family for three years in Japan, and she just loved it, she said. Her daughter came out at one point to see if I was dangerous or something, but after I basically passed muster (she was probably worried about her old mother speaking to strangers all over Tokyo) I moved along, took a pedestrian bridge across the street and went into the conveyor belt sushi place.

I was ushered to a spot at the counter where the sushi was going by and saw Xaiofan from my group who was there with two Japanese friends she knew who lived in Tokyo. Despite all my group ditching, I was glad to see her, and she waved in a friendly fashion and shouted over the heads of the people nearby to greet me. She pointed out the colored plates on the wall with the prices next to them and let me know that the price of the sushi was based on the color plates. The sushi makers stood in the center of the counter and as they made the sushi, they put it up on the conveyor belt. You just stack the used plates on top of each other in front of you as you finished one. Tea came with the meal and you served yourself from a spigot built into the countertop. An American student with two Japanese friends was there who verified my pronunciation of “May I take a picture?” in Japanese, so I got a couple. Like most places in Japan, if not all, you pay at the till, and here, it was someone’s job to total up your plates when you were ready to get up from your seat, and hand you the bill. I had maybe 4 plates of sushi – I have been more than willing to eat raw stuff here if it salmon or tuna as the fish is truly outstanding. I really am enjoying the fish. This came to less than 100yen, or less than $10. Couldn’t beat the price.

After this, I sort of wandered around this trendy district nearby and people watched. It seemed to be largely populated by 20ish kids in great post punk outfits and hairstyles. It looks like getting a tattoo on this trip will be right out since they are still associated with the Yakuza or Japanese Mafia. Too bad (?) Then, I checked out a used clothing store that had great prices, but I decided I might be getting too old for that sort of thing, although some neckties were starting to look pretty good. Then I thought, where would I wear a necktie? I might be too chicken to start getting stylish. Maybe.