Akasuka festival
Actor Don Kenny performing a kyogen play
Chopstick store
The Diet, Japan's legislature
Tokyo is amazing! We arrived at Narita airport Tuesday afternoon (although it was still Monday night, back in Memphis), and the bus that brought us from the airport into Tokyo was on a highway that was really a HIGHway once it got into central Tokyo. It rose up on a ramp until it was, for a few miles, at the level of about the 12th floor of the skyscrapers we were driving by. It passed so close to some office buildings that we could look into the windows of offices and see people working in them. It's the highest highway I've ever seen!
After going to our hotel, we took the subway to eat dinner at a part of Tokyo called Ginza. The Ginza area is a big shopping section of town, with huge department stores, as well as many small specialty shops. We went into one store that just sold chopsticks and chopstick rests. The chopstick rests are little stands that you lay your chopsticks against when you set them down at the table. There were sets of chopsticks made from different kinds of wood, some lacquered, painted, or inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
Some were very expensive. I imagine that fancy chopsticks are bought to use for special occasion meals or fine dinners served to guests, just as in our country many families might own a set of fine silverware that is only used for special occasions.
Today we took a tour of the Japanese Diet Building. This is NOT a building where people go to lose weight! The word "Diet" in Japan refers to their legislature. The Diet in Japan is like the Congress is the U.S., where elected government officials make laws.
Across from the Diet is a huge library, called the Diet Library. It is surrounded by gingko trees. Just as all the states in the U.S. have a "state tree," the prefectures in Japan have a tree as well, and the gingko is the tree for the prefecture of Tokyo. We have a gingko tree outside of our school library at C.M.D.S.!
Next we went to a local festival taking place at the Akasuka temple area of Tokyo. Lots of families were browsing the booths that were selling all kinds of candy, crafts, and souvenirs. I found out that when you buy something in Japan, they usually wrap up each item separately in pretty paper, or put it an individual small paper bag with pattern or design on it. The Japanese love beautiful paper, and use it in many creative ways.
Later this afternoon, we saw a play. It was a style of traditional Japanese theatre called kyogen. This style of theatre is 600 years old, and all of the plays in kyogen are comedies. The play we saw, called "The Inherited Cramp," really made us all laugh.
After the play, the main actor told us about the different kinds of traditional Japanese theatre, and showed us wooden masks that are used in some kyogen plays. I bought a video of performances of "The Inherited Cramp" and another kyogen play. When I get back, you will get to see two of these comedy plays on the video.
