Tokyo Bookfair & Bledisloe Cup

Last weekend I spent in Tokyo at the annual Tokyo EFL bookfair/English Teachers in Japan jamboree. I try to go every year, to dig up new ideas and remember old ones, figure out what the next big thing in teaching will be etc. It is also a good opportunity to meet old friends in the industry - teachers as well as publishers - and to catch up over a few beers on the Saturday evening.

Delightfully, somebody organised the Bledisloe Cup to coincide at the National Stadium...and along a good sized group of us went, finding a row of seats up at the back of the stand. No problem except we couldn't see the screen/scoreboard for replays, score updates etc; neither did the beer dollies manage to make it far enough up the stand with any supplies for our thirsty mob. Some parts of the ground apparently ran out altogether. Bad planning again, JRFU. Why do they insist on selling canned beer, openning each one and pouring it it a cup? Think this is why draft beer was invented...

Anyway, good game, and as will be with this weekend v England, Australia outclassed. We lost a few stragglers on the way to Shinjuku, picked up a few others including one of my old students at Waseda now. A fairly bizarre night as it was also Hallowe'en!

The presentations over the weekend proved valuable for me; these days I orientate towards the more technical ones as I have seen enough happy clappy ones to last me a while. One in particular on using Google documents more effectively made the trip worthwhile.