Third night in Tokyo

Well,I've been in tokyo three days now... Not really sure what the best highpoint would be. The first day we were here we went to the science museum (cutting through the impressivly boring imperial palace grounds) and spent most of the afternoon dicking around there. it was mostly a hands on sort of place, with lots of games etc. About the only thing notable I was able to do was to shock myself with the electric globes that have the purple lightning. It was a pretty bad shock, I pressed a coin to the top of it and it zapped me when I pulled away. The next day we went to the kabuki theater. Kabuki is one of the most ancient forms of theater in the world, and one that, to this day, is played exclusively by men. This is not due to the general stereotypes of gender, but because the costumes have an average weight of about 44 pounds, and it was impracticle to expect women (especially the slight of frame japanese women) to be able to carry this kind of weight in addition to reciting their lines and manouvers. The costumes, as you may have gathered, are very ornate, and include many layers and masks. The words are not spoken as sort of sung, and this allows them to project their voices and allows them to be completely unmiked. Heavy amounts of makeup are worn on every surface of the body, with many of the actors having their skin color completely changed (usually to white). The play that we saw was an interpretation of a traditional buddhist fable, which began with two male lovers pledging to eachother that they would die together in suicide, in hopes that in the next life, one of them would be born a woman and then they could be man and wife. They had exchanged an incense box with their names on one of two parts, the womenly person had the lid with "Saigo" written in the top, and vice versa. The more effeminate partner then jumped off the cliff ahead of his partner, a priest. The priest then meant to go, but fear overcame him, and he was not able to jump. He saw the spirit (in this case a small flaming green ball) and a heron float away from the cliff side, and the curtain closed. Next a stage manager came out, and told us it was 17 years later, there was a princess *17* years old, who wanted to into the priest hood, who opened her left hand for the first time and dropped an insense box when reciting a buddhist prayer with the monk, but though various plot twists, including the competition of two samurai couters over her, and the rekindling of an old love with the worst criminal in japan, it turned out that she had a baby and was discovered having intimate affairs with the criminal (this was very much a border crossing part of the play...), and she was compelled to not join the preist hood, and was indeed banished from her house and all. She had with her an insence box that linked her to the priest Saigo, who had actually been the lover of the man who jumped off the cliff. Saigo was cast out from the priesthood as well, and he claimed to be the one that seduced the princess. She then abandons him asa she has no feelings for him, even though she is the reincarnated form of his love. I left shortly after this (three hours).today, we went to the Tokyo metro museum, saw some art that's really noncommental except for some articulate statues (you can move their brozed parts about and put them into various positions). We went to another science muesum that left me thinking that the japanese had discovered evolution, atomic theory, the theory of relativity, and light speed travel, which was either because of a distortion in the museum's presentation or becuase some of my japanese fell through, and I'm really not sure which. We went to a movie theater next, saw harry potter (my mom and sister had not seen it) and as i watched my third movie in english in japan, i was grateful to be one of three people there that probably understood it. We ended the day with a trip to a video arcade, which was really an amazing experience. My mom and sister ended up getting hooked on this game which proudly advertised "TYPE OR DIE!" and was a game where Zombies and other such monsters came out at you, and you had to type their name inorder to shoot them. I went upstairs and played a few street fighter games, that turned out to be head to head with the person on the opposite side (you can't see them from where you are sitting) and i was against people who probably sat there everyday after work and played this. I was beaten throughly, though I managed to win once when my mom was there, and she said that the man on the other side looked rather worried that someone had beaten him. Another floor had gambling machines all across it, the most prominent being a horseracing arena in which people sat at various stations, placed their bets on different horses, and watched the race. The winner recieved money in the appropriate odds. there was also a game in which you undressed a woman as you scored points, but I decided to give that one a special wide bearth, because the man working the game seemed to have a particular fondness for it... and we'll leave it at that. All else is well, my family leaves tomorrow and i head to the northenmost island. good luck to all at home and good night. -J