Japan – Tokyo to Sapporo

Image above: Digging into round two of the tabara crab legs at Ebi Kani Gassen. [Thursday 28 January] | [View all photos]

Day 6 split between going to Raina’s school to help her with her English language classes and then heading up to Sapporo for my birthday weekend she had kindly planned out.

One of the reasons for visiting Raina was simple to see where she works and what she does as an Assistant Language Teacher at Kasukabe Girls High School. It was fun seeing some of the customs, like having to exchange outdoor shoes for indoor slippers, walking around the school, and I even got to meet the Principal too!

But the best (and also the scariest) part of my visit was participating in the English language classes which all started with me having to make a short speech about myself in front of a room of teenage school girls.  I can tell you that it was more more nerve wracking doing that that the presentations I do for work but, also, a lot of fun too.

One memorable moment came during Q&A and one girl asked me how old I was. To which I asked her to guess and she came up with “30″ only to be nudged by her classmate who told her to not be so rude and say “20″ instead! And another moment came when I was handing out English sweets to the girls and one of them yelled “I love you!”. Hilarious!

Then, with the last class done, Raina and I were soon speeding on the airport monorail to Tokyo’s Haneda airport for our flight to Sapporo which she had sweetly organised for birthday weekend.

After a quick refresh at our hotel, we headed straight back out to taste some of Sapporo’s famous seafood with dinner at Ebi Kani Gassen. And we weren’t disappointed by the view nor by their tabara crab leg buffet with not just one, nor two, but three rounds (plus some sushi) which left us satisfyingly sated.

Coming up …  spending my birthday in the rather snowbound Asahiyama Zoo and spending far too much at Comme Ca being styled by Raina!

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