2008 Exchange Program/Sightseeing Tour

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Sightseeing Tour Ikata Homestays Red Wing Homestays Message board

The Tokyo Tour was the first part of the 2008 Exchange Program between Ikata and Red Wing. See what the Red Wing student group did for the first four days of their stay, from July 18 to 21.

To leave messages for the group, please see the Message board.

Contents

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Tour route

View an interactive flyby tour of the group's travels in Google Earth!
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Useful links

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July 18

  • Arrive at Narita
    • Everyone arrived safe and sound, and with all their bags! While the flight out of Minneapolis was delayed, the flight out of Detroit arrived at Narita 30 minutes early.
    • After shipping some bags out and changing some money, we got on a train to Tokyo!
  • Train to hotel
    • Narita International Airport is not actually in Tokyo; it's in the neighboring prefecture of Chiba. So we hopped an express train and rode for about an hour into Tokyo. The landscape changed rapidly from rice paddies to tall buildings.
    • After arriving at Ueno station, we took taxis to the hotel.
  • Dinner
    • We had dinner at a nearby "fast food" restaurant. While Japan does have Western-style fast food restaurants, this was a Japanese-style fast food restaurant, which means everyone sat side-by-side at a long counter that surrounds the cooking area. The food is prepared on-demand (not pre-cooked), but it's all very fast. Many of the students weren't hungry, but some tried curry, steaks, and minced cutlet.
  • Sleep!
    • Now it's 9:35pm and everyone's back at the hotel, in their rooms, (perhaps) drifting off to sleep.

Everything went swimmingly today, except for one thing: Aaron forgot to bring his memory card reader, so he can't post any pictures just yet! Update: Aaron bought a card reader at Yodobashi Camera on July 19.

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July 19

  • Breakfast
    • Many of the students were up before the crack of dawn. Unfortunately jet lag will do that to you.
    • Breakfast was buffet style, with choices of everything from cereal to cold tofu squares. Some people were more adventurous than others, but everyone managed to find something.
  • Asakusa
    • Our first stop today on the bus tour was Asakusa, the site of a big temple and a long line of stores with souvenirs, snacks, and more. Right off the bat several people bought (replica) swords.
  • Yodobashi Camera
    • There were requests to visit an electronics store, so we got back on the bus and headed to Akihabara. There we checked out Yodobashi Camera, a nine-story megastore with electronics galore. Aaron bought a memory card reader so now we have pictures! Yay!
  • Lunch
    • For lunch we went to a yakitori and kamameshi restaurant in Ginza, the posh shopping district of Tokyo. Everyone really, seriously liked the food!
  • Imperial Gardens
    • We braved the intense summer heat and checked out, as best we could, the gardens surrounding the Imperial Palace. Japan has a figurehead emperor, who of course lives in the Imperial Palace. Unfortunately we weren't allowed inside, but the surrounding area was quite picturesque.
  • Tokyo Tower
    • Tokyo Tower is an ever-popular attraction. The view from the deck is amazing. Check out just a small piece of it:
  • Dinner
    • After resting at the hotel for a little bit, we bravely entered a "conveyor belt sushi" restaurant. At a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, everyone sits in a row along a counter surrounding the chefs' preparation area. The chefs place sushi on little plates that traverse the perimeter of the counter on a conveyor belt. Though the spectacle of it all was interesting, many of the students were less impressed with the food. On the way back we stopped at McDonalds.
    • We were lucky enough to have two guests for dinner: One was an Ikata student who previously visited Red Wing on the exchange program, and whose family hosted the sister of one of this year's students. Another was an exchange student on a different program who spent a month at the Red Wing chaperone's home. Everyone had a lot of fun catching up!
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July 20

  • Breakfast
    • Breakfast was the same buffet as yesterday. Again, people were up before dawn, sometimes causing a ruckus.
  • Kamakura
    • After breakfast we got on the bus and drove an hour out of Tokyo to the city of Kamakura in the neighboring prefecture of Kanagawa. In Kamakura we first checked out a Giant Buddha statue over 40 feet tall. It's hollow inside, and you can actually go in and look around!
    • After the Giant Buddha we made our way through the heavy tourist traffic to the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū, a major shrine in Kamakura. Everyone seemed less interested in hearing about the shrine's long history, and more interested in getting out of the hot sun!
  • Lunch
    • We then departed Kamakura for Yokohama, which has a large Chinatown. We squeezed into a small Chinese restaurant and tried Japanese Chinese food, which is different from American Chinese food, which are both different from Chinese Chinese food.
  • Yamashita Park
    • After lunch we walked around Chinatown for a bit, then headed over to Yamashita Park. It was incredibly crowded, with lots of young women in yukatas and people spreading tarps all over the ground. Why? Because tonight there will be a fireworks display, and if you don't come and reserve your spot early you'll be stuck behind a tree or lightpost with nowhere to sit!
  • Dinner
    • We went to an izakaya-style restaurant for dinner today. An izakaya is a Japanese pub, but of course the students didn't drink. Izakayas are fun because the menu is full of a wide variety of foods that come in small portions, so you can try all sorts of things all at once. People liked edamame (boiled soy beans), tempura (battered & fried seafood and vegetables), and some pizzas with unique toppings like crab or prosciutto.
    • After dinner we stopped by a convenience store to check out the snacks.


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July 21

  • Explore the Ueno area
    • This morning was our last morning in Tokyo, so after breakfast we got all our bags together and set off for Ueno. Unfortunately we had to haul our bags with us all the way, down multiple elevators to the subway and then up some stairs on the other end. Sorry guys!
    • We explored the Ameya Yokochō area of Ueno, a bustling marketplace with all sorts of shops. One particularly exotic area had foreign foods galore, including turtles, pigs' feet, and pigs' heads.
  • Fly from Haneda to Matsuyama
    • After wandering around Ueno for a while, we hopped a train to the Tokyo Monorail, and rode all the way to Haneda Airport.
    • Everyone was shocked at how courteous the airport staff was, and how simple and quick the security checks were.
  • Bus to Ikata
    • Some Ikata townspeople were there to greet us when we got out of the airport. After some brief greetings all got on a bus and hit the road. Along the way we stopped for dinner at a buffet-style restaurant with a nice assortment of different styles of food.
  • Begin homestays!
    • When we arrived at Ikata all the host families were there to greet us, with flags and signs and the whole shebang. Everyone looked like they were really looking forward to the next 10 days.

Unfortunately Aaron forgot to take any interesting pictures today, so all we have is one of the kids all listening to iPods at the airport. Sorry!

From here out the Red Wing students will be with their host families for a lot of the time, so we won't be able to report on their day-to-day activities here. We will, however, continue posting descriptions and pictures of the group events that we'll be holding. See 2008 Exchange Program/Ikata Homestays for details!

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See also


Sightseeing Tour Ikata Homestays Red Wing Homestays Message board
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