Junior Class Trip: Tokyo Tour

Thursday March 15, 1990

Today was tour bus day. We drove through Tokyo while a tour guide chatted cheerfully at the front of the bus. I was probably the only person on the bus interested in what she had to say. Of course, I didn't understand any of it, but I tried to follow her speech by referring to a map printed in English. Once I asked her a question and she asked me how long I'd been in Japan and if I was on homestay (that is, a foreign exchange student). "No. Eigo no sensei. English teacher. Their English teacher," I said pointing to my sleeping students behind me on the bus. She seemed very surprised.

Actually, I was surprised that my students were so tired and listless. Most of them have never been to Tokyo, so I would have thought they'd have shown some interest, even if this was the "educational" part of the school trip. (One of my students told me later, when she was showing me her photos of the trip--sssh, this is a secret-- that they had all been hungover. They had sneaked out last night to the liquor vending machines, stocked up, and partied all night in their rooms. The photos showed all.)

We visited, Sun City, the NHK studios, and Asakusa. On the first two, we had to stand in lines and follow our tour guide (with their flags and whistles) around. All of the students, of course, were in uniform. And there JQS and I stood in line with them. We got lots of stares. I guess people thought we had wandered into someone else's tour by mistake.

Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
March 15, 2002

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