the longest day: blogging from tokyo

after more than a year, i am back in the birthplace (country) of my blog. although here for just 3 hours, barring any major delay. i hope there wont be.

and im using my favorite japanese phrase again – wakarimasen (i dont understand). although now i have an eigo onegai shimasu (english please) to back it up. hehe. hope i spelled them correctly. im pretty sure i pronounced them right though.

anyway, why am i saying that today, the 12th july would be the longest day ever?

but first, a flashback (INSERT MUSIC HERE. BLUR TRANSTION. hehe)

and we’re back (OT day5)

november 1, 2007. last day of our observation tour. we checked out of osic in the morning since we would be heading to the airport immediately after the visit to minpaku.

minpaku was a really interesting museum. it had all these great artifacts from all over the world, and you can touch and feel each one of them. the best part, we each have a “personalized guide” – a PSP actually. they saved short video clips in the device. these explained almost every item. just look for the number code.

the kyoto/osaka experience (OT day4)

october 31, 2007 – we bid goodbye to tokyo and moved to kyoto and osaka. we took the shinkansen, the super fast bullet train. it travels 300 km/hr. (i told you its super fast.) yet, the japanese are now in the process of developing an even faster one. we saw the model on exhibit in miraikan. it uses permanent magnets fixed in the car that are levitated and pulled by superconductive discs moving on the rail casing.

tokyo disneyland (OT day 3)

the disney theme park was one of our priority places to visit. it was already decided that we get the after six passport since it was cheaper – 3100 yen. but i wanted to go to disney sea, which has more exciting rides. first hand experience from friends from the security class.

but since everybody else wanted to go to disneyland, i agreed, thinking theme parks would be more fun when you are with a group.

world peace (OT day2)

not wanting to waste any of our precious free time, we headed to tokyo tower immediately after the visits to NIME and Miraikan. and since we already had our pictures taken the night before, we just walked straight to the tower and paid our tickets to go to the main observatory 150 meters high.

the view was amazing. and they had interactive maps to describe the surrounding area. they even had the area at daytime and nighttime.

with a great view from that height, imagine what a sight tokyo would have been from 250 meters? we need not imagine since there was a special observatory at that height. after paying for another ticket, we headed up the stairs to the next floor for the elevator to take us there.

welcome to tokyo (OT day1)

october 28, 2007 – the day dvp’07 leaves for tokyo for a five day observation tour in mainland japan.

since we will be taking a train from the airport to the hotel, we were all advised to pack lightly. when i packed, i actually thought i was bringing too much. so i did not bring my sneakers, thinking i would only get to use it on sunday. we were asked to dress more “formally” in our official visits. and since i was already planning to not got back to the hotel after the “official” parts, i thought i’d only need one set for each day. but just in case, i brought 2 extra shirts.

imagine my surprise when i saw the size of the bags my classmates were bringing. gonzalo (from uruguay) actually looked like he was never coming back to oic. hehehe. half of my bag was my thick jacket (which i did not get to use, by the way). by that time, i thought, oh no, i packed too lightly. i’m happy to say that i packed enough. although i did wash my clothes in the hotel. free use of machine and dryer and free detergent. hey, i could not let that pass. :p

observation tour

hi, i’m back. this will be a first of a series dedicated to the observation tour in tokyo/kyoto/osaka.

and since i already prepared my trip report, you will be reading it now. hehehe. i’ll post the “unofficial” events in future posts.