My First.... Excursion Around Toyohashi
Sunday, April 26, 2009
After a chaotic week of work, I got to explore Toyohashi with my co-worker and new friend, Ray! Having a weekend after a hard week of work is very gratifying, but it also feels very fleeting. I already feel the approaching work week, but it motivates me to have extra fun.
Ray decided to show me around Toyohashi this weekend. Toyohashi is actually quite big. You wouldn't know it unless you traveled around the city; it takes around an hour or so by car to get across.
Anyways, as we were biking around the city we ran into one of Ray's students at a kind of festival that was happening. It seems there's always something being celebrated in Japan. It was actually pretty interesting. It's nice to know that Japanese people are willing to go out and do these kinds of things. I personally would be too lazy to dress up and participate in a festival.
Moving on, we biked to a big shopping complex and game center called Sega. Here we stopped to eat at McDonalds. While we were eating I spotted some 12 year old boys smoking outside. I guess it's pretty easy to obtain cigarettes because you can buy them from vending machines. But it was still pretty shocking.
After we ate we went to play some games at the game center. There were two types of arcade systems at the game center. There were the token based ones which allowed you to try and win more tokens, and there were regular arcade games. Ray played the token based system and he actually won around $300 worth of tokens. He had more coins than he knew what to do with, so he gave some away and transferred the rest to an account with the game center which he could use to access later.
I had a great time and I will definitely try to get back to this place!
Click the Picture to see the Album
Ray decided to show me around Toyohashi this weekend. Toyohashi is actually quite big. You wouldn't know it unless you traveled around the city; it takes around an hour or so by car to get across.
Anyways, as we were biking around the city we ran into one of Ray's students at a kind of festival that was happening. It seems there's always something being celebrated in Japan. It was actually pretty interesting. It's nice to know that Japanese people are willing to go out and do these kinds of things. I personally would be too lazy to dress up and participate in a festival.
Moving on, we biked to a big shopping complex and game center called Sega. Here we stopped to eat at McDonalds. While we were eating I spotted some 12 year old boys smoking outside. I guess it's pretty easy to obtain cigarettes because you can buy them from vending machines. But it was still pretty shocking.
After we ate we went to play some games at the game center. There were two types of arcade systems at the game center. There were the token based ones which allowed you to try and win more tokens, and there were regular arcade games. Ray played the token based system and he actually won around $300 worth of tokens. He had more coins than he knew what to do with, so he gave some away and transferred the rest to an account with the game center which he could use to access later.
I had a great time and I will definitely try to get back to this place!
Click the Picture to see the Album
