Saturday in Toks

On Saturday, Ann, Cindy and I went down to Tokyo to see Movin’ Out, the Billy Joel musical (by the U.S. touring cast, not in Japanese). It was really good!!! It isn’t really a musical as much as a modern ballet. The whole show is danced, while a Billy Joel-ish guy sings all of the songs on a stage above them. The dancing was amazing! I can’t even imagine being able to do that once, let alone every day?! Fucking crazy, yo. The show tells the story of high school friends being sent to Vietnam, then the aftermath. It was really good and I’m very glad we went! I haven’t had enough theatre in Japan!

In Japan, theatre is way too expensive, and even though we had 8000 yen tickets, we were in the second-to-last row! Um, not acceptable for Jeff the Theatre Queen! Fortunately the show wasn’t sold out, so we moved down to the expensive seats for the second act!

After the show, we went to Yoyogi Koen for Tokyo Gay Pride. We arrived to the MOST depressing pride celebration I have ever seen! There were like five people there and it was silent! It turned out that the parade had just left, so we wandered around looking for it….only to find more silence! Dude, Japanese Pride parades are soooooo Japanese! They were all quiet and organized and shit! Hello, where are the noisy Dykes on Bikes and shit?! After being thoroughly disappointed, the girls and I went to Starbucks, where we got a great table to judge people on the street for an hour. We then returned to the Pride place in the park, and it was MUCH better than before. There were lots of guys and it was actually noisy! Yay. It was nice to see gay people actually existing in Japan. However, it totally felt like we live in Communist China or some shit, as you weren’t allowed to take people’s pictures without permission, ‘cause some people couldn’t be outed? Um, it’s fucking PRIDE, people, you can’t be like “I’m proud of being gay! But don’t take pictures of me, I don’t want people to KNOW I’m gay!” Bah. So they need to work on that, but at least there actually is Pride here, I guess.

In the evening we went to a Japanese-French restaurant that Cindy had read about in The Japan Times. It was good, but they took their sweet time with the food! We got a course set, and they totally were going purposely slow so that we could order a million expensive drinks in the meantime! We were stubborn gaijin, tho, and refused to get shitfaced (and poor), unlike SOME people in the restaurant! One table seriously drank at LEAST three bottles of wine, and there were only three people at the table! Anyway, the dinner was good, but way too filling, despite not being too much food. I am officially gonna die in the States.

The other good news about Saturday was that we got tons of flyers about musicals coming to Japan….including Tick Tick Boom! YAY!!!! TTB is a three-person show by Jonathan Larson, the writer of Rent. I have seen videos of it (perfectly legal, of course), but have yet to see the show in person. Anyway, there is a touring Japanese production of it in November, so Ann and I got tickets to see it! Woot!!! Sadly we didn’t know about it sooner, as we got tickets in the back of the theatre (WHAT Japanese people know of TTB?! Seriously), but at least we’re seeing it. And the guy playing Jonathan was Mark in the Japanese production of Rent! Appropriate! So I am seeing both TTB AND Rent in November….a Jonathan Larson-filled month! WOOOOOOOOOOOT!

Shake your bon-bon

Today is the first day of obon (or “bon”) in Japan, which is the designated time that practically everyone in Japan goes back to their hometown to visit their family and worship their ancestors (K, there is a better way to put that, but I can’t think of it). Thank god I am not Japanese, because trains, planes, buses and roads are soooo crowded at this time of year with everyone going home! Tack on the new airport drama and it’s badness all around.

Anyway, it is interesting that they have obon, as the closest things for Americans would be like Thanksgiving or Christmas, I guess? That’s when you see your family, but we don’t ever give a shit about our ancestors, hehe (well, maybe Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day, but not really).

Being at school sucks even more during obon, as almost every single teacher is taking nenkyu and is on “vacation” (I don’t consider family and ancestor time to be vacation!). There are THREE teachers here today! Sooooooooooooooooooooo boring. C’mon, kyoto sensei, tell me I can go home!!!