Japan Day 3: Imperial dreams and a night at the theater

After our tea ceremony and luxurious lunch, we headed over to the Imperial Palace to tour the grounds. You can go inside, but only if you sign up for the guided tours that only run Monday through Friday. The palace was destroyed in 1945 when Tokyo was bombed, but was rebuilt in exacting detail 23 years later. We toured the palace grounds and visited the Higashi Garden. The garden isn't much, but it has the remains of Edo Castle, a 17th century massive castle. The walk from there down to the Nijubashi bridge was more interesting. The area next to the palace is buzzing with activity - locals enjoying a fall weekend - and had the best views of the palace.

We also thought this pristine urban "forest" of fully-grown bonzai pines was unique and interesting. People weren't walking through the trees or sitting on the grass - it seemed only to exist as natural art.

After seeing the palace, we headed to the kabuki theater for a 4:30pm show. Our pamphlet said there were 3 plays on the schedule that didn't wrap up until after 9:30. That's a whole lot of kabuki, so we're thinking we'll have to leave at one of the intermissions to go eat. Also, Americans can't sit still for 5 hours of anything, even if George Lucas and Peter Jackson teamed up on the special effects.

We got an audio translation since it might be hard to follow the story otherwise. The actors - one of the kabuki legend, we were told - are very expressive, so you can at least get the general sentiment without translation. What was funny about the translation is how it would remain silent for several minutes at a time. For example:

"He is asking if she saw the boy that night..." 5 minutes pass in silence on the translation while the actors go on.

"She says she had carried him away from the samurai, then lost him in the confusion." 5 more minutes.

"She tells him she found the boy's body, but it was too late." 5 more minutes pass.

"They are very sad and distraught." Which by this time you've figured out. It has the extended drama that you might expect with opera where it takes 5 or 10 minutes to say anything, but they're talking rather than singing. The costumes and the expressiveness seem to be what make it special. Kabuki was one of Robin's favorite experiences. With the elaborate costumes, make-up and highly choreographed dramatic action, it's a cross between ballet, opera and a classic drama.

Another odd occurrence - during the performance, audience members would occasionally shout out words of encouragement to the performers. I don't know what they were saying, but imagine during an opera if audience members shouted things like, "Great voice!" or "You're so expressive! Keep it up!" or "You died exquisitely well!" 

At the first intermission, we noticed people were breaking out their bento boxes they'd brought with them and were eating dinner in the theater. We also discovered you could go to a restaurant right in the theater, or simply buy a bento box to go and take it back to your seat. There were vending machines offering water, soda, ice tea and hot tea (in a metal bottle!). Just imagine if at intermission at Lincoln Center people took out sandwiches and started eating. We were a little hungry and tired, and weren't sure we could make it another 2 1/2 hours, so we left after the second play, though we probably could have eaten there.

Robin bravely went with me to a no-frills sushi restaurant. She even tried just a little bit of the fish. There were a handful of vegetarian items on the menu. The sushi was good, but by no means the best sushi I've ever had. I'm going to need to go back to Tokyo to the fish market for breakfast.

After dinner, we ended the night at Bar Lupin in the fashionable Ginza neighborhood for a drink. It's a prohibition era bar that was popular with famous Japanese writers. The reviews said it was reasonably priced, so maybe our mistake was trying the Japanese whiskey. It was excellent and very smooth whiskey, but apparently not easy on the American wallet! 2 small glasses of whiskey each set us back over 7000 yen! So, stick with the Sapporo and Kirin beer or the sake.