After enjoying such a nice long break, I'm officially back at school. The first week back involved a placement test for an intensive language course, a week long intensive Japanese review classes for 3hours a day, a class fieldtrip, and at the end of the week we had another placement test. The second placement test was a bit more important since it determined which Japanese level class you should be in. (I made it into class 4, with class 5 being the highest level.) It has been a busy past week! Today (Monday) was the first official day back into the swing of things - I had to attend the other classes I plan on taking this semester. This post is about our class field trip that we took last weekend though - it's one of probably many that will include pictures of 花見hanami which is 'flower viewing'. It's basically when every Japanese person comes out of winter's hibernation and enjoys a picnic while drinking お酒sake under the cherry blossoms.
Our class field trip started bright and early (we met the teachers at 10am so we had to leave the house by 9am... which is early for students!) along the 隅田川Sumida River, which was nice because not only did we see the beautiful さくらsakura trees we also got a nice view of the Tokyo Sky Tree.
Just a glimpse of how beautiful the trees are and also how incredibly crowded it was.
There was a Taiko Drum performance done mostly by children, and it was really cool! The youngest girl looked to be about age 7.
The teacher was exciting to watch because you could tell he was concentrating on his own performance while simultaneously keeping an eye on his students, making sure they were all doing the correct movements.
After the drumming we were treated to lunch by our teachers! We ate もんじゃmonja and お好み焼きokonomiyaki. The above picture is of monja - a type of pan fried batter with various ingredients.. it's known for being runnier than okonomiyaki but they are basically the same thing. I am a fan of monja but whenever I eat it I can't help but think of a phrase my dad always says 'eye appeal is half the meal'.
This is okonomiyaki - there are two style of okonomiyaki, one with noodles and one without. This is okonomiyaki (I did a post way back in September about the other style - hiroshimayaki)
Finished product! Looks professionally made, doesn't it?
After lunch we said thank you and goodbye to our teachers and then raced over to Yoyogi Park to enjoy more 花見hanami! Our MGU 'buddies' had planned a 花見 party for us without knowing about the class field trip so unfortunately they happened to fall on the same day. The day was promising in the early morning but about mid afternoon the sun went behind the clouds and it was just grey and cold. It was worth it though to sit under the beautiful cherry blossoms!
Japanese people love to take group shots at the end of any and every event that takes place. Actually I think a few of the people in this photo are random strangers.. foreigners in large groups tend to attract a lot of attention from drunken Japanese people.
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