Last Day at Gaba

Five months ago I wasn't sure if I should take the job at Gaba. I was scared in case all the rumours I'd heard were true, I was scared of being shut out by my colleagues and bosses because of my age, I was afraid that no one would book my lessons and I'd run out of money and have to go home early.

But I loved it.

My last day today was so sad. I didn't want to leave the building because I knew I would have finished there.

There weren't any tears, but my eyes were definitely misty at several points during the day. In fact, this weekend was very emotional, as I had lessons with all my favourite students who I've been teaching for five months or so. With some, I've seen them over 20 times.

On Friday, I went to karaoke with some colleagues, and that was a lot of fun. But then of course it was sad to say goodbye to them even more than the others.

I bought a card for everyone at Gaba's Omotesando school to say thank you for everything, and left lots of business cards there, so I hope I'll be able to keep in touch with people there.

And I've been to the same Subway in Omotesando every day for lunch for the last five months, and the people there waved to me every time I went in, and we even chatted sometimes. So I gave them a card too, thanking them for baring with my Japanese and all the sandwiches they made for me.

But I will miss my students so much. Some of them only booked my lessons, and I would see them regularly twice or three times a week. I met so many interesting people, like an Asahi TV news cameraman, and a developer for Sony, even a man who has skydived over 100 times for fun.

I checked my evaluations from students online, and in my entire time at Gaba I received 44 five-star evaluations, 18 four-star, 4 three-star and no two or one-stars. So I'm pleased with that. I feel that my time there was a success.

During our last lesson today, one student, who became one of my favourite people to chat to, because she had such a bubbly personality and a very friendly nature, gave me a present and a letter written in English on my last day.

I gave Cadbury Dairy Milks (my favourite British chocolate) out to all the students who I really enjoyed meeting as a thank you for trusting a 19 year old to help them learn, and for being such good, hard-working students.

If I had gone straight home after work, I might have been quite sad, but I went to Roppongi with one of my housemates, because her dance teacher was taking part in a karaoke and dance party there. It was really interesting and I had a lot of fun. Towards the end, everyone except me was dancing and a Filipino girl ran up to me and pulled me onto the dancefloor. So I even danced a little!

If you are wondering about whether to take a job with Gaba or not, I definitely recommend taking it. The flexibility is unrivaled and, although the pay isn't as high as other places, it is fairly unchallenging, enjoyable work. And the best part is you get to meet new interesting people every day and learn a lot from them.

British Pubs

British pubs are all over the world, and no matter how un-British they might be, they are still very popular with locals and expats.

This evening I had the chance to go to one with a colleague from Gaba, as a sort of farewell because my last day there is Sunday.

We went to one called 'Hub' (a big chain in Japan) in Ebisu (恵比寿), near Gaba's headquarters.

The first thing we did was order drinks and food. My first fish and chips of the trip! They were okay, not as greasy and fatty as you expect from real British chips but they were good all the same.

Despite following obvious stereotypes for the design, it actually looked quite authentic. And because people are allowed to smoke in there (which is now illegal in the UK), it had the older style atmosphere, which was surprisingly nice!

One of my drinks...
I was surprised that there were only four other foreigners there, the rest were all Japanese, and it got very busy at about 7pm, after people finished work.
For Y100, you could select a song from this computer. There are only English songs, and there was a really good selection. I think there were over 5,000 songs!
Because I've become a karaoke-fiend, I arranged to meet a few colleagues for karaoke on Friday afternoon. I think it's strange to go in the afternoon, it should be an evening thing, but apparently it's significantly cheaper if you go on an off-peak period.

I liked the British pub. I expected it to be full of cliches and stereotypes, and perhaps it was, but I was too blinded by the handpumps, barstools and wooden floors to notice.

Housemates Leaving

Well today was the day.

My Thai housemate, who has become one of my best friends over the last three months, has left.

In the morning, she and I went to Shinjuku, as she had to collect her deposit from Sakura House and return her keys. Normally, Sakura House staff come to inspect the room and do everything else there, but because she shared a room and her roommate is leaving on Saturday, she had to go to them.

We donated some money to the Chinese Sichuan earthquake, which happened a few weeks ago, and chatted in that wonderful blend of Japanese and English (Japanglish? Engrish?) to the collector.

Then we went to the Sakura House office, which is about 10 minutes walk from Shinjuku station, if you take the right exit, which of course we didn't.

There were no problems at the office, except they had made a small mistake with their calculations of rent, and she owed a little more money than expected.

Then we went shopping in the Keio department store and bought some cosmetics for her friends. We had just as much fun as normal, trying to ignore the fact that we were heading to the airport that afternoon. She bought me lunch in a restaurant too, which was very kind of her.

After that, we knew we had to head back home and get her bags ready. So she waved goodbye to Shinjuku, and we took the subway back to the guesthouse.

She said goodbye to her room, and to everything there, and she, her roommate, our French housemate and I all left for Narita Airport (成田空港).

We took the Keisei line (京成線), which I took when I went to collect my family from Narita, and swore I'd never take again because I had to transfer four times. But we found a Limited Express train (特急) from Aoto station, which took us there directly with no problems. It costs Y950 one way from Oshiage station (押上駅).

We were all very tired (my Thai housemate didn't sleep at all last night!) so the hour-long journey dragged by, but we all had seats so it wasn't too bad.

If you want to wave someone off at the airport without paying the full price, you can just buy a ticket for one station and then not go through the barrier at Narita Airport station. This really keeps the cost down, but obviously you have to say goodbye before checking-in or anything.

This was an option, but I really wanted to say goodbye to her at the gate, so I paid the full price. We got to the airport on time and tried to find the right place. Departures is on the fourth floor, but we walked around the first floor for a long time.

Here's the Limousine Bus counter where I bought my tickets the last two times I came to the airport.

Here is the place I first saw my Mum when she was waiting for me. My heart jumped when I saw this spot again. It was like I expected her to still be there.

And I met my Dad and middle brother here afterwards. So many memories!
I saw the phones I first used to ring my parents when I arrived in January. What a memory of that day!
We sat down here once my housemate had checked in, and took some photos of each other and the airport. Then we went for a walk around the airport shops.

Narita Airport is quite a nice airport. I've been here four times, and I've never seen it busy. It was very easy when I went through customs and everything, and much faster and more efficient than in other countries I've been to. In total, I will come here seven times that I can predict, in only seven months! This will probably become my most-visited airport in the world!

We had fun wandering round, and buying some souvenirs, but the time passed very quickly, and it was time to say goodbye.

We went to the exact same place as I said goodbye to my family in April, so I was having flashbacks again.

It was very sad to wave her off, and see her leave our lives, probably for years, and possibly forever. We said our final thank yous and goodbyes, and then she was gone.

The long journey back on the train was very tiring, and we closed our eyes and became nodding dogs, but I was so pleased I was able to say goodbye.

Last night we had a party where we exchanged small gifts, photos and videos and had a great time with everyone together. That was everyone's farewell, but this was mine.

On Saturday, her roommate leaves for Thailand, and then on Sunday our two Puerto Rican housemates are going home too. So the place will feel a little empty with only four of us here!

It's a life lesson that I think I'm learning early. People come, and people go, but there are some that you really want to return.

Tokyo Tower

Today was one of my housemate's last full day in Japan before she returns to Thailand. We wanted to do something nice for the final day, and she said she'd never been to Tokyo Tower. I've been here for nearly six months, and I've never been to Tokyo Tower either, so we decided to go for the day.

We took the Hibiya line to Kamiyacho station (神谷町駅), which is about 7 minutes walk from the Tower. We stopped for lunch at Yoshinoya, for about the billionth time (it's so cheap!), and one of my favourite Japanese songs was playing, 'Black Diamond', by Double & Amuro Namie. And then they played a song that my French housemate likes, 'Jungle Dance', by Nana Tanimura, or rather, he likes Nana.

We walked up the road, and it was quite humid. This is rainy season, but all this week it's just been humid and cloudy, rather than wet. We passed this funky looking building on the right.



And then rounded the corner to the left, and there was Tokyo Tower!

Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) was based on Paris' Eiffel Tower, but is actually taller, at 333m tall. Although it weighs nearly half of the Eiffel Tower, with only 4,000 tonnes. Tokyo Tower is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world, and the tallest artificial structure in Japan. It is used to broadcast radio for companies like NHK and it also a very popular tourist destination. 2.5 million people visit its attractions in Foot Town and the two observation decks every year.

I'd heard about this board before. Apparently it's too hard to get a decent shot of the Tower with a person in front of it, so now all you have to do is stand in front of this photo!

The first place we visited was Foot Town, which is five floors, including the roof, of a building beneath Tokyo Tower. It has museums, small rides for children, and fun things to look at.

We went into the wax museum, which cost Y500, but you can buy a combination ticket for several museums for around Y1,300.

The actual wax figures weren't very impressive, or life-like, but the concave and convex mirrors at the beginning were definitely the highlight!

I should be a model...

Madonna? Mao Zedong, apparently.

This one of George Bush was probably the best one there.

Jimi Hendrix wasn't too bad.

There was an area with scenes from a samurai fight, and this guy is just adding insult to injury.
No way is that the Beatles!

They had British newspapers! Unfortunately, it was the Daily Mirror. Why not go the whole mile and export 'The Sun' to Japan, just to show Britian in its best light?

They had 3D cinema booths, but it was too expensive, so we didn't try them.
Then we found a free museum area with lots of information about Japan inside. It was really interesting.
All of these little cards showed what you can do with Y10,000 (about £50).

You can buy 4.5cm2 of Ginza...

... 0.087m2 of a building in London...
... 0.31m2 of land in Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido...
... 0.34m2 of New Zealand...
... 0.015cm2 of this Van Gogh painting...
or 14,970m2 of the Moon (that's quite a good deal I think, could come in handy in a few decades too).

This is the roof area, with lots of tiny rides that I wished I could have gone on.

Then we paid our money (Y860) to go up to the main observation deck, which is 150m high. There is a second deck at 250m, but it costs an extra Y600 to go up.

This is the inside of the colourful elevator. You could see the view through the glass walls too.

The observation deck is a circular room with views of many areas in south Tokyo. It was a misty day (thanks to the rainy season) so there wasn't a huge amount to see.

There was a board which lit up with the plans for the 2016 Olympic Games, for which Tokyo is one of the four remaining contestant cities.

There were also boards where you could input an area, and it pointed to where it was on the electronic map.

That's Shinjuku in the background.

Yes, they had glass in the floor that you could stand on and look down to the ground far far below.

We finished in the compulsory giftshop, where I bought a small red model of the Tower. But, I bought it for Y450 (which is very cheap I think) in the observatory shop, and then found the exact same thing in the shop downstairs for Y100 less! So it's worth going to the downstairs shop first to check the stock and prices, before going to the observation deck.

It was a fun day at Tokyo Tower. Maybe there's not a huge amount to recommend it, but I enjoyed the visit.

We then trekked to Ueno, because my housemate wanted to buy some souvenirs for her friends in Thailand. There is a big, cheap department store near Naka-Okachimachi station (仲御徒町駅) called Takeya, and she wanted to go there. We walked from Ueno station (上野駅) and then found it closed! There was sign saying "Closed on the 3rd Wednesday of every month", which was the exact day we decided to go!! What are the chances...

So we walked back to Ameyoko Market (アメ横) and wandered round there for a while, before going home.

It was a another fun day, but of course it was a bit sad because we knew that she'd be leaving the next day.