To wrap things up, we had our free day in Odaiba. It’s popular in Japan as a great place for dates. It’s well know for it’s large ferris wheel, right on the Tokyo bay. For that matter, Odaiba itself is right on Tokyo bay.
It took a few transfers to get there, but we were still early, so we killed some time in Panasonic’s Idea Center. There were learned about all of ecologically friendly designs for home life that Panasonic has developed. We also got to see the world’s largest flast screen TV, coming in at 103 inches, diagonally. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed, so we don’t have much to prove it with.
From there, we headed over to the much vaunted Onesen no Monogatari, or “Story of the Hot Baths”, which is half museum, half onsen. Inside, we changed into yukatas and walked around a matsuri during the Edo time period. Outside, there was a path, covered with different shapes of rocks and about four inces of warm water. If you were man enough to make it across the while path at a reasonable pace (we men hated it because our feet could only rest on two rows of rocks at a time, unlike the ladies’ dainty feet) you’d get a bit of a hard massage. My feet felt great afterwards, but during the whole walk, we weren’t having any fun.
After lunch inside, Isaiah had to head back to Tachikawa for a private English class, but the rest of us men went to try out the onsen proper. Unfortunately, Michelle wasn’t go for public baths, and Carolyn wouldn’t go without her, so they resigned to doing a little shopping, while we tried to keep our bathing to a half hour. Sixty minutes later were emerged, relaxed.
Then we walked over to the, currently, world famous life-size Gundam, built in a local park for a “global warming” expo. Walking over there completely defeated the purpose of relaxing at the onsen, but shikatta ga nai, there’s nothing we could do! Let’s say just say there were several guys from church in Seattle living vicariously through me that day. They’ll love the pictures.
After a packed train ride home to Tachikawa, we crashed on couches at the church for half an hour before Carolyn and I went to meet her homestay, the Maru’s, for dinner and a movie. Mike went home early, and Jon, Isaiah, Michelle, and Nozomi were supposed to go to the local matsuri and dinner before calling it a night, but decided to cancel they attendance at the festival. Humorously, it was in the plaza in front of the theater, so Carolyn and I did get to see it. Interesting, yet depressing vain religion.
Rather, we enjoyed seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was in English with Japanese subtitles. We thoroughly enjoyed some of the translation, but it really did loose the British accent of the film. And Dumbledore looked like Gandalf the whole time!
Sadly, this wraps up the trip for us, and Mike and I are both dreading our return to working life. Hopefully, we’ll be able to help out in the future, just as Yoshie and several VBS mom’s requested. It sounds like Mike might be able to get a team from his church together to help out the next time Tachikawa Ekimae needs foreigners for outreach events.
Next up, half a church service tomorrow, then the flight home. We ought to land at 9am and make it to church, but we’ll see how awake we all are.
