As you all know Dad and I just returned from out VEX Robotics competition in Tokyo, Japan. Let me just start by saying, I think Tokyo just jumped to the top of my list of favorite cities. It was almost exactly what I expected, which was strangely surprising for a city! The city was clean and modern, yet it retained so much personality and culture! The people were friendly, though I couldn’t understand one word they were saying! I learned so much from the competition itself as well. As “first years” we definitely lacked the experience to rank highly in the competition. We were so blessed, however, to be awarded the Amaze trophy for our design process and extensive iterations!

To give a quick outline of the trip: our first evening we stayed in a popular shopping area and ate ramen, the next day we switched hotel, went to a Japanese garden, and attended the practice matches for our robotics competition. The following day was filled with the official vex competition; which included the opening ceremony, games, alliance choosing, final matches, and award ceremony. The last day we took a bus tour of tokyo – my first – and shopped. Monday we had a bit of shopping time, then dragged our feet to the airport!
Here are some photos of highlights in my trip!

Of course the food was a highlight of my trip. The first picture is authentic Japanese Ramen. It was so delicious! We also had Japanese tempura, another food highlight. I was also thrilled to find a Krispy Kreme, delish!

Not trying to make excuses, but look at those robots! The Hawaiian one was like a flowery tank! The school provided great coverage of the competition, they had a birds eye view of the field and they interchanged it with close ups occasionally – so professional!

Our views from the tour bus! It was so amazing!

I’ll miss you, Tokyo!