Languages / Japanese / Level 2 · Unit 4

週末の予定 — Weekend Plans

Lesson 55 of 170 · Level 2 of 6All lessons
In this lesson

You are learning weekend plans: you will read the scene it happens in, learn 10 words and phrases, take apart the pattern behind them (stating plans and schedules), hear them in a conversation, rehearse them, and finish by saying one thing out loud to be graded.

The scene

Mapping a weekend through Tokyo's depachika. Isetan Shinjuku (伊勢丹 新宿) — the legendary department store basement where every region of Japan sends its finest foods.

伊勢丹 新宿 — The Weekend

Saturday morning. The stranger takes the Marunouchi line to Shinjuku-sanchome. The plan is clear. 「まず伊勢丹のデパ地下に行く予定です。」

Isetan's basement is not a supermarket. It is a cathedral of Japanese food. Each counter is a regional embassy: Kyoto pickles, Hokkaido cream puffs, Kanazawa gold-leaf sweets. The sōzai corner displays rows of prepared dishes — grilled fish, simmered vegetables, jewel-like bento boxes wrapped in cloth.

He selects a bento: grilled salmon, tamagoyaki, pickled plum, rice. A wagashi from Toraya — a red bean confection shaped like an autumn leaf. 「買い物をしてから、新宿御苑で食べる予定です。」

He sits on a bench in Shinjuku Gyoen, cherry trees overhead. The bento is perfect. The wagashi dissolves on his tongue. 「午後は何も予定がありません。」 Sometimes the best plan in Tokyo is no plan at all.