9/6/25 - 22/6/25 Weeks 13 & 14 in Japan

The past two weeks have seen me hit the halfway point of the 10 weeks before summer vacation! The time is going both slowly and quickly and with every sunny day, I get more and more excited for spending the holidays relaxing on the beach and adventuring around Japan. At the time of writing this, I have three and a half weeks to go!

The weekend of the 14th and 15th was a relaxing weekend and the hot and humid weather meant it was harder to make some more elaborate plans. On the Saturday, Chloe, Jesus, Luke, Erin, and I adventured to large park nearby called 'Showa no Mori Park' and it did not disappoint. The park was massive. It had loads of open green spaces, a running route, cycling paths (with bikes to hire), tennis courts, a large Koi fish pond, and even a kids obstacle course! We took a picnic with us and spent the afternoon playing frisbee and exploring the area. During the exploring we found a staircase down a steep hill that opened up onto a stunning, large pond that even had some koi fish swimming in it! The fish were beautiful and it was amazing to see them in the wild. They were also probably the biggest fish I've ever seen in my life.

Next to the lake, we found a massive slide that was honestly like nothing I've seen before. Careening down a hill, the slide was made of thin steel rollers that propelled you down the slide at a pretty intense speed! Japan is full of surprises and this was definitely one of the more unexpected but exciting ones - I spent ages going down the slide again and again, each time trying to go faster and faster. It was so much fun. With slides like rollercoasters, hydrangeas blooming, and spectacular views, the park is definitely a special place.

That evening I headed out to play badminton with some local Japanese people and it was a super fun experience. Obviously it was all in Japanese and I definitely wasn't as good as the others, but they were all so friendly and it was great to properly try another sport!

One thing that I've been missing while out here is all the different food you can get in the UK! Here in Japan, it's much harder to find different cuisines and quite often Chloe and I find ourselves missing more western meals; one of the main ones being a roast dinner! So, when we heard that we can get a Costco membership over here and buy a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, you bet that we snatched up that opportunity. On the Sunday we headed over to Costco and the chicken definitely lived up to our expectations, we made the most basic "roast" dinner ever, but it delicious and exactly what we needed.

My weekdays have been pretty normal with nothing major happening to write home about, however there was one day this week where a teacher brought in a massive rhinoceros beetle.... There is definitely never a dull day here.

On the Friday of week 14, a group of us headed into Tokyo for a night out in Shibuya and I had an amazing time. We started the night at a NYC style pizza joint that was delicious and after that we went into the middle of Shibuya to find the first pub of the evening. Tokyo is a city that thrives at night: the neon lights illuminate the night sky and I found myself staring up at the stunning, vibrant blues, reds, and pinks of the signs.

The first stop was a British pub in the basement of a Shibuya skyscraper that was actually pretty similar to the real thing! The deco was very similar to a typical London pub and it definitely was as crowded as you'd find one on a Friday night in central London. After that we headed to a place called 'content corner' which really should just be called 'gaijin corner'. It is basically just a Family Mart store where loads of tourists and foreigners stand outside drinking alcohol and badly singing Oasis songs. It was the first time that I've found myself feeling like a tourist and it was very much not a Japanese thing to do but it was actually loads of fun and we ended up picking up a few people in our crew.

After we had exhausted the corner, we went to a Karaoke place where we spent the next few hours singing badly to 2000s pop songs on the 7th floor of a Shibuya skyscraper. It was a really fun experience.

We stumbled out of the Karaoke bar at 4:30 am on Saturday morning and joined the blur of half awake people (who had all spent the night doing the same as us) as we all made our way to catch the first train back to Mobara. Chloe and I made it back at 7:30 am after we slept most of the way back from Tokyo.

The rest of the weekend was spent basking in 31 degree sunshine at a local beach! I swam in the sea, sunbathed, jumped off the pier and played volleyball with Luke. It's amazing living so near to the beach and Chloe and I are definitely making the most of it.

I think it'll be our saving grace in the mega heat of summer we have coming up. Temperatures are already no lower than 24!