A Business Trip......

Yes, I am an important professional...at least that's how it appeared when I left Ota for 3 days and stepped into the busy city known as Tokyo in my business attire (semi, that is) and headed for the Keio Plaza Hotel.

Jeff and I trained from Ota to Shinjuku and were amidst a plethora of gaijin which we were not the least bit excited about. Because everyone around us spoke English (which makes sense since they were all JETs), it made it more difficult to talk smack about them in front of them. We need to develop our own trash-talking language at some point. ;-)

Sadly, there was a lack of hot guys at this conference. To think that over 1000 JETs from all over Japan were there...and not one hot guy for me to drool over...sad, indeed. We endured the opening ceremony and a couple of workshops before we were let free to explore. Instead of being social, we made our way out to Fonda de la Madrugada in Harajuku. Expensive Mexican food but well worth the money, if not for the awesome awesome mariachi band alone. And no, they were not Japanese. They performed from table to table and when they reached our table, we both thought, "Hmm...this is awkward." They asked us if we wanted a romantic song and we quickly said "No, no" and laughed. Then they suggested a "tanoshii" (fun) song and we nodded in agreement. Then, one of the guys said, "OK, today tanoshii, but tomorrow, romantic!" We chuckled politely and listened to our "tanoshii" song. Although I don't understand much Spanish, I didn't hear the word "corazon" in our song so it's safe to say that it wasn't a romantic song. Hehe. I wonder if I can hire them for my birthday party...hmm. I'm sure they'd be excited to come the Ota, the exciting city that it is. Anyway, we each got the course set on the menu and ended up being stuffed beyond belief. There was soo much food and we ate all of it. I forgot how good Mexican food is! We ended up walking 1 1/2 hrs just to digest a bit of the calories we consumed.

The next day, we woke up to sub-par breakfast and attended a couple of pretty good workshops. In the first workshop, we were given free cookbooks! Woot! Now only if I had a roommate to try these recipes with. It sucks to cook for one person! Before we were hungry again, we had lunch. Thank goodness we weren't hungry as it was the worst lunch EVER. After lunch, we attended yet another workshop, took a nap, then went to the final workshop in the afternoon. That night, we ventured out to find a pho restaurant we found online. It ended up being this hole-in-the-wall type of place with one worker doing everything. Those are the best kind! The spring rolls were amazing and the pho was good, although I must admit the broth tasted a bit different from ones at home...still good tho. Mmm...pho...I miss all that MSG! After we returned back to the hotel, we met up with some other Gunmanians and went out for a drink. When I say a drink, I mean a drink. We all ordered a grapefruit sour...being the party animals we are.

The next morning we were expected to check-out and get breakfast by 8:30am. Yeah, right. Anyway, I got my Starbucks fix and attended the first part of the closing ceremony. I mean, uh, I stayed for the whole thing, of course I did. =) We wandered around Shibuya for a bit after everything ended, then headed back to Ota.

So yeah, ya like my business trip (more like food) review? Yes, we JETs are important people. We have business trips! Haha. I bet my JTEs are wondering what the heck I did in Tokyo for 3 days. Hahaha.