We arrived in Ginza slightly early, so this allowed us some shopping time. We were in one of the nicer shopping districts where everything was far more expensive than we could afford at this time. But it was nice to look and wonder. I found some awesome sneaker/slippers at the Adidas store while Marla peered at dresses at Gucci. We thought $1500 for a dress was completely reasonable. :)

 

At 12:20 the box office opened and there was already a line because we were told that a famous Kabuki actor was in town and performing today. Grabbing our tickets and climbing the five flights of stairs we arrived at our  “nosebleed” seats in the last row of the auditorium. No pictures were allowed, but I did try to sneak some in but the gods were against me as the camera just refused to work. It was eerie. But the screen came up an an austere setting. Painted backdrops housed about 20 seated men (the chorus) who were either musicians with drums and flute or backup singers who told the tale when the lead actors were in dance. The main actor appeared behind a sliding door and the audience went wild. He was accompanied by three assistants who not only played their parts but acted as on-stage costume changers. We opted for no translation and just absorbed the pureness of the art. It was really quite impressive how slow the movements were and precise their blocking was. Attending the second act (you can by tickets per act so you’re not there for five hours) we arrived at the story mid-way. It was an obvious confrontation between two heros which consisted of long monologues and posturing. At odd times, to us, their were hoots and hollars from the audience. One old man if front of us was particularly vocal throughout the performance. The two leads exited and the performance was done and we both felt like we saw something amazing and beautiful even though we didn’t completely understand what was going on.

 

On to Shibuya which most people know as one of the locations of “Lost in Translation”.  One of the first things that Marla spotted as we stepped out from the station is the small lucky dog statue she remembered from the “Amazing Race”.  This dog used to appear every afternoon and faithfully waited for his master.  Even after the owners death, it still continued to come an wait.  Years later, a statue has been set up in honor of that dog.

 

Shibuya is known as one of the more westernized parts of Tokyo. The more I’m here the more I know that “westernized” means “dirty and crowded”. It, by far, resembles what an american downtown feels like but with about 100,000 more people packed in per square foot. There is a main intersection that five roads come to a point and this is also the place where seven walkways come to a point. When the red lights appear and the crowd is allowed to walk, it is a sight to behold. Tens of thousands of people cross the street all the same time and it starts as a trickle and immediately become an amorphous mass pouring into the street and thinning out again as it hits the other side. Definitely there is a feel that if you stop you will be pushed aside, so we didn’t stop to look around, we just went with the flow. Shibuya had an electricity pulsing through it that we haven’t felt before and it wasn’t the large viewscreens and billions of watts of neon. It was an energy that even through confusion there is order and compliance.  Through the chaos there is each individual accepting the small rules of order that keep this machine running well. But after all this deep thought, we decided to see a movie to get away from the crowd, so we found a movie theater and paid twice the normal price ($18 each) and saw Spider-Man 3. Barraged with 20 minutes of advertising and Japanese edited trailers (they even have their own movie trailer voice guy) we enjoyed being the only people in the theater not reading the movie dialogue. Afterwards, we were thanked about eight times by the staff for coming to their theater and graciously led us to the exiting elevator.

 

By this time, it was dinnertime and we found a small basement restaurant that luckily had an ex-Arizona exchange student running it. She spoke great English and helped us order. She also helped us with a common phrase we heard everytime we entered a store or shop. Ishi-mishen, which means  “Welcome to our shop.” Often spoken with a sing-songy appeal. It always made us feel good when entering a store.

 

Shibuya at night is wonderful to behold. The lights from the viewscreens create their own type of sunlight. There’s no need for streetlights as their is more than enough light, it even changes the color of the sky from a black to a light blue.  We waded through the people and made it back to the JR station where we had no idea what awaited us.

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