New photos of all this Jazz in Tokyo. Check out the concept cars!
Last Saturday was spent wandering Tokyo with Kyoko-san. Before I get into that however, I have gotten my test score back. Broken down into two parts, I got 65% in the writing, and 80% (!) in the oral, making it an overall score of around 70%. This pleases me, because it shows that whilst there is obvious room for improvement, the Japanese is being retained, and I am making progress. I am also happy that in class I am Mr. Average - not great, but not bad either!
And to last Saturday. We had a great time at the Toyota showroom taking in some future concept cars and F1 stuff. Then we went to the Fuji TV tower to take in a live show and to admire the uniquely cool architecture of the building. Then, to wind down the day we took in the Hama-rikyu gardens, which are tranquil gardens surrounded imposingly by huge skyscrapers.
The Toyota showroom was great. We were able to wander around the cars and freely sit in them and have a play, and I expecially liked being able to drive a future ECO car, which well, drives itself. We were sat in a car, and the car drove us around the showroom, following I think a memorised path. It would stop for other cars, and speed up and slow down on it's own. Also, it ran on electric, so definitely a car for the future. Because of this, it needed to keep everything small and light - not good if you are 6'4 like me! I had a better time of it taking in the concept cars, which were totally cool - I like the design of the two seater car - I wonder when this one will be on the market?
Then it was off to Fuji tower. This tower was built on relcaimed land, so whilst the area has all the facilities and transport hubs, it is strangely eerie. The tower though is great. In the centre there is a huge titanium rotating sphere, which people can enter in order to see the views. After doing that, we walked around a TV set to see a show that was going out live - it was fun to see all the make-up artists waiting on hand to touch up the "stars" after each take - Japanese women love their makeup.
After that we went to the gardens to relax. Because it is autumn, there is not too much in the way of flora and all that, but it was still great to take in the lake, and there were also some entertaining performances. There is a stark contrast between old and new - the park is dwarfed on all sides by huge skyscrapers - take a look at the pictures to see what I mean!
