Odd Food & Other Scenes from Monday

We were originally planning to go to Nikko today. Its 2 hours north of Tokyo, in the mountains. Its a good place for viewing shrines. Apparently we had more sleep adjusting to do because we didn't even wake up until 10 a.m. And it was raining. So, we changed our plans to do indoor things. We went to the Kabuki-za theater. http://www.shochiku.co.jp/play/kabukiza/theater/ They allow you to buy a ticket to one act. It was standing room only, but it was neat to see. We have no idea what they were talking about, but the costumes were colorful and the music was interesting. They're dressed like women, but those are all men in those costumes, and they speak in high, sing-songy voices. I wish they allowed photos in the theater, but no such luck.While we were there in Ginza, we checked out the basement floor of Matsuya, one of the department stores Ginza is known for. The basement floor is where all the food vendors are. It wasn't a cafeteria or a restaurant or a grocery store, just row after row, aisle after aisle of food, food, food. Most of it was unfamiliar, but I did recognize bread, chocolate, fruits, vegetables, and teas.

The tour books and anyone who has traveled to Japan will tell you: make sure you write down the address of a place you're trying to go to because finding addresses can be very confusing. They're not kidding! I wanted to find a store that was recommended in a tour book. I had my head buried in a map while Greg looked around for a street name. I must have looked pretty desperate because I was approached by 4 young women all dressed up in colorful kimonos, with white socks and wooden sandals and flowers in their hair. They asked me where I was trying to go, and proceeded to walk us around Ginza, making phone calls and asking shop vendors to help us find the place. It was their graduation from university day and they were on their way to dinner when they found me. They must have had some time to kill because they must have spent a good half hour with us. Even they couldn't figure it out! Eventually, they did find, and escort us to the place. (Very typical of our experience with the Japanese people we've met. Very nice, very helpful, and very polite.) It was this cool, little one of a kind shop, called Hashi Ginza Natsuno, (http://e-ohashi.com/cgi-bin/onlineshop.cgi/index.html) specializing in chopsticks. I had to buy something since we had such an experience finding the place. I'm still getting this yen thing straight: I thought I was spending $7.50 on 3 pairs of chopsticks, but it was more like $75.00. Oops.
After that, we went to Shibuya, the busiest, craziest intersection I've ever seen. The light changes at Shibuya station, and suddenly the street is flooded with people. This picture doesn't even come close to what its really like.Here's a sampling of some of the odd food thing we saw in our travels today:
Plastic food at restaurants make it for non Japanese-speaking people to point to the plate they want to order:Here's a vending machine type of thing we used to order Indian food in Shibuya. You put your money in and press the button for the type of meal you want. It spits out tickets, which the waiter gives to the chef and next thing you know, you've got a meal!
Tomorrow we're going on a tour to Kamakura. Gotta be up early, so its good night for us, and have a good day to you!