This special event started off on the other side of Tokyo Bay in Kachidoki last Sunday. La creme de la creme of teachers…..and myself (9 of us in total) were present to take two groups of kids to Odaiba on a London red double decker bus which is certainly a novel form of transport in these parts and all day we felt a little bit like stars as we were driven round Tokyo attracting much attention.

The idea was letting the students travel on a British institution and having a laugh on the top deck of our new workplace while getting the job done in terms of playing games and promoting the company name.

We started off with a reworking of ‘Old MacDonald’ but substituting ‘farm’ for bus’ (genius eh!) and continued with ‘…and on that bus he had a (teacher name)!’ which left us all slightly embarassed. However, as the song continued we were probably enjoying it far more than some of the kids who were very bemused by it all. Renditions of ‘Heads and Shoulders’, ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ and the inevitable ‘Wheels on the Bus’ followed.

 

Once in Odaiba we parked the bus and played games in small groups for about 40 minutes which was not so easy given the small and restricted confines on the top of a bus. My first game was a pelmanism game which involved the kids rolling a dice with colours on each face and the animal cards face-down had colours on them and they then had to individually make the animal noise which the others would guess. As always at any event a lot of improvisation was needed and I had to really stretch this fairly simple game out by slightly changing the rules.

 

I didn’t need to go on the second kids bus trip but not wanting to hang out in Kachidoki for two hours I thought I would just sit at the back of the bus and help out a bit with the craft part which was to make a 3D bus. Not a chance though as I got told to play an animal bingo game with the kids involving a spinning wheel which was certainly more interesting than the first game I did.

 

Next up was the adult party which was a bit more straightforward and involved drinking beer and mingling with them for a couple of hours which also included a game or two. These included ‘Guess the picture’, ‘Fizz-Buzz’ counting game and a game where teams were given a category and came up with five examples (i.e. 5 tall buildings, 5 rich people, 5 famous Brits etc) which the other teams had to try and guess.

Overall, it was a fun day and nice to get out of the classroom and do something a bit different even if it was on my day off.