Tokyo Disney Sea

Last Friday was not a typical school day, as our school had an event scheduled for that day. The trimester agenda said we were to have an 'undokai', or sports event, with our classes. It turned out to be a whole other kind of event though....

Instead of sweating on some sports field, we went on a trip to Tokyo Disney Sea! Disney Sea is a one-of-a-kind Disney theme park focussing on a more mature audience. Inspired by the myths and legends of the sea, Tokyo Disney Sea is made up of seven themed areas: Mediterranean Harbor, Mystery Island, Mermaid Lagoon, Arabian Coast, Lost River Delta, Port Discovery and American Waterfront. 

Magic Mickey

The park is absolutely spectacular. It has amazing detailed landscaping (including a volcano), the attractions are very modern and high-tech which make them very fun and interesting to ride. Fortunately last Friday was a very quiet day by Disney standards, so we didn't have to stand in the infamous 3-hour long lines.

Our day started with each individual class exploring the park together. After three o'clock the trip was officially over but we were encouraged to stay as long as we wanted. So, back we went through the gates to start part II of the school trip.

One of the main attractions was the Tower of Terror in the American Waterfront area. A free-fall type attraction that is located inside a haunted elevator. The elevator brings you to the top of the tower where suddenly the windows open so you can get a brief view of the scenery before you crash down to earth. Scary!
Another popular attraction was the Indiana Jones Adventure, where you get a wild jeep drive through the Temple of the Chrystal Skull. Actually it reminded us a lot of sitting in a car with a certain former roommate of ours behind the wheel...
Mysterious Island features a submarine simulation ride which takes you to the depths of the dark ocean where the merfolk live. In Port Discovery there was a storm simulator that puts you in a helicopter designed to control the weather. Of course everything goes wrong and you escape death just by a few inches...

The park also had some spectacular parades and shows. Since the park was sea-themed all parades and shows were held in boats. In the afternoon we enjoyed a great show, and in the evening we could enjoy another show full of wonderful light-effects. The whole park was by then beautifully decorated in lights. The evening ended with fireworks above the Tokyo Disney Sea park, after which we went (very tired) back home after a great day.

Aladdin's Genie

Daphne in front of the Tempel of Doom

The volcano

The Haunted House...

Vacation... at last!

After three months of grinding our brains on kanji, grammar, listening and speaking exercises, we finished our first term at the Yoshida School for Japanese Language with a big bang: exams.

There was fairly little time to prepare for the test since it followed immediately after the regular classes were done, so there was quite some pressure these last weeks to combine the usual workload with reviewing past chapters on what we learned before. When the test was over we we're both a little anxious about how we'd done. Laurens finished his grammar test only just in time and Daphne (who is a level higher) had to apply all sorts of new difficult forms of (extremely) polite speech. In the end we both did fine though: Daphne ended up number 2 in her class (from 18 students) and Laurens finished first (only seven students :P). That means that we both go to a next level! Hopefully we'll do just as fine there.

Part of the school tradition is a little trip to relax after the exams. This time we went bowling. We gathered at Takadanobaba (try saying that three times fast with cookie crumble in your mouth :P) and followed our teachers to the bowling alley. It was the biggest free-time center we've ever seen! There was an ice-skating hall, a mini-golf course and an enormous bowling alley. 'The perfect place to show-off my bowling skills',or so Laurens thought. Daphne needed a little warm-up time since her first throws ended up in the gutter but then... strike after strike! In the meanwhile it turned out Laurens didn't have any bowling skills at all...
When the time was up we gathered in conference room where our teachers had a little surprise in store: prizes for the winners! Daphne, to her own surprise, ended up number 3 amongst the female students and won a fashionable Yoshida Language School T-shirt (see picture below). Laurens finished nearly last of ALL the students and won a consolation hug from Daphne.

We had great time this trimester and would like to thank our teachers and friends from the Yoshida for the things we learned and the fun we had. These next three weeks we have a spring-break and after that it's back to school again. In the mean time we will go sight-seeing in Tokyo, train at the dojo, review some kanji, and go on a trip to Kusatsu: a famous hot spring town. So please look forward to our next blog-update!

Daphne's price

The Official Yoshida T-shirt!

Our bowling scores