We took the Chuuou-line densha to Inage-station in Chiba. There he showed us around the high school where he works. It was Sunday, so there were no classes in session, but we were able to get a bit of a feel of what Japanese schools were like. It was very interesting!

The first difference we found was that just like in Japanese homes, you take your shoes off at the entrance and put on indoor slippers. Those slippers were worn in all the hallways and rooms except the bathrooms and the computer rooms which had different slippers that were changed into.

Eleanor here. I had a hard time keeping the slippers on!
They would always keep slipping off my feet (especially on the stairs!), and every room had a separate pair of slippers for each activity. I came the the conclusion that I'm glad our schools don't do that, because I hate slippers. 

Other differences were the classroom walls, which opened at the top and bottom for ventilation, and the teachers' office areas. Each teacher had his or her own work area, but the desks were all together in one common room. The feel of the building was also a little different: a bit more formal with less decoration on the walls. All in all, it was very interesting and enjoyable to see.

Kataoka-san gave me a bagful of snacks from the teachers lounge.
Later, I forgot the bag of snacks in his car, which gave us a chance to meet and hang out again later.

Kataoka-san driving on the left didn't surprise me anymore than any American driving o the right. Either way was a car ride.

He took us to a yaki niku (grilled beef) restaurant in Chiba. It was really cool! We ordered our meat and side dishes, then we cooked the slices of beef on little grills built into the centers of the tables.  It was one of our favorite places! One of the side dishes I had I can't remember the name of... but Kataaoka-san said that the name meant "tourist". It was called that because it had a sampling of several different flavors mixed that we "toured" while eating. Very delicious!

Kankokyaku. I think the word for tourist was...
The table was set up with a small grill in the middle in which we cooked our own meat. Kataoka-san brought forward several small bottles from the side of the table, and told us they were various types of sauces. He told me to try mixing two of them that I don't remember the name of, but it was really good! 

After that we took the freeway into Akihabara. It was a fun ride. From the highway we could see things like Tokyo Disneyland, Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower, ect. However, the freeways there are very expensive. He paid 400 yen when we first got on the highway, then a little bit later he paid another 1000 yen. That's equal to about $14! I can see why there wasn't too much traffic! It was far different from the free, but clogged freeways that I'm used to in Washington State!

The freeway's clogged BECAUSE it's free.

 Akihabara was fun! There was a lot of stores selling computers, and cell phones, and videos, and anime, and manga... The place we spent the most time in was a store named, Animate - 7 floors of anime and manga related merchandise! I bought some shitajiki (pencil boards) for my collection. Eleanor got manga, of course.

I loved Akihabara. Just being there had the feel of a 'party!'
The next time we go to Japan, I want to visit it at least as much as I did last time! (And get more manga than I did last time.)

That same weekend was Anime Expo Tokyo. We didn't go because it was too expensive, but a few of our friends from the Seattle/Tacoma area did go. According to reports some of them were also in Animate on the 18th, but we didn't run into anybody.

Manga cafe's were some of my favorite hang out area while we were in Japan. Being a speed reader, I was able to really squeeze out our moneys worth by reading three medium sized manga (About 10 or so.), or most of a large sized manga.
(About 30-something)

After that, we said goodnight to Kataoka-san and caught the densha back to Asagaya.

The picture at left was taken that night in Asagaya. There were several people directing traffic around this utility work site, but I found the manikin waving his baton in the center of it all to be  downright cute!  ^-^ 
peace

For the Japanese, manikins like this are fairly common, but for America, you don't see stuff like this very often.
It was an interesting experience.