clearly, i'm back in my stateside blog mode. things over here are less impressive, therefore i don't update as often. c'mon, how do YOU think cincinnati would compare to tokyo? exactly. there isn't even a comparison.
this entry will be a blur. it's 6:40pm on my off day, and i need to shower and be downstairs by 8. going out with a lotta people tonight to help celebrate james wilcox's (our head sound guy) bday. bowling across the river in newport, ky. anyway, flash back to our last saturday in tokyo. gonpachi was amazing. totally the inspiration for that kill bill scene with the crazy 88's. we actually got a huge private room up on the roof and ate and drank like crazy. i'm sure the japanese couldn't wait to get rid of the roud, brack people (couldn't resist an asian joke right there), because we were definitely quite loud. once we evenly split the bill, i ended up paying 6,000 yen - not bad for an awesome affair. many kudos to brittney griffin and robert for planning everything and making for a great night. the night didn't end there. we walked toward roppongi-dori, roppongi's busiest street, and were approached by this dude. "no cover and your first shot free if you go upstairs." we obliged, realized there were only 3 people in this club (deja vu) before we got there...but took advantage of our free shots. danced the night away 'til 4, when most of the crowd peaced out. however, knowing that our bus call was at 8am (meet at 7:30, leave at 8), i and a few others decided to keep the party going. went to mcdonald's. ordered a chicken tatsuya, went upstairs. scarfed that down. wanted more. saw that eric had ordered a really interesting-looking burger that i had to have. turns out it was an EBI burger, which i mistakenly called by letter, thinking it was an acronym. alas, it was an ebi burger, which is japanese for shrimp. rather tasty. by the time i was done with my 2 burgers, it was about quarter to 5. and when we walked downstairs, the sun was out in full fashion and the breakfast menu was up. but the clubs were still hopping. we went to 99 gaspanic, which was downstairs where no sunlight could filter through and kept the party going. yep, i was doing the stanky leg at 6am. sweet! walked back to the hotel around 6:30, quick e-mail check, showered and packed the toiletries, and by this time, it's 7:30. i go downstairs, put my luggage on the bus, go to 7-11 with romich to purchase our last ice cream waffles of the trip (they even taste great for breakfast!), get back on the bus and bid tokyo farewell.
unfortunately, not everyone else had the same experience that i did. and by that, i mean, ending up on the bus. for the first time ever, crew and cast were traveling together. with load-ins and load-outs in the states, the crew always flies ahead to get started earlier. but in tokyo, we had the saturday matinee, they loaded-out saturday night, and we all flew out sunday morning. well, 4 people ended up not making the bus (well, we had 3 buses but you know where i'm going with this). matos overslept, woke up at 8:45 and had an 11:10 flight (a half-hour earlier than ours) because he was flying back to nyc to see his momma before coming to cincinnati. he had to pay the equivalent of $236 for a taxi out to narita airport! yikes! brittany lewis, one of the ensemble girls, also overslept but had her taxi ride paid for by the japanese presenters because she was on the company flight. ryan (head props) and wilcox managed to catch a shuttle that goes around to a handful of hotels before going out to the airport. we left tokyo at 11:40am sunday and landed in chicago at 9:30am sunday. weird how that time travel works. i believe we went through the time travel portal during the first two hours of the flight, because i'm thankful to have lived through the worst turbulence i've ever experienced. several frightening drops, food trays sliding around. it was pretty bad. but at least the latter part of the flight was smooth. switched over to a tiny american connection flight from chicago to cincinnati that left around 3. got to the garfield suites in cincinnati by about 6.
last week marked my first week as summer conductor. and boy, what a week it was. eight fun-filled shows in which our normal CC was on vacation (good for him, though - best man of his best friend's wedding, and he was planning the stripper party, ahem, bachelor party) and one of our other principals called out of the saturday night show due to a severe migraine. and even the female swing went on sunday afternoon. so there were a lot of people in roles they had never played or hadn't for a while. the new orchestrations, although a bit thin, weren't as bad as i had dreaded. in fact, i'm starting to get a little used to them, and the cincinnati band is doing its best to deliver them well. all things considered, it was a stressful week, but ultimately a rewarding one. hopefully, the upcoming week will be a little more relaxed. oh wait, we have understudy rehearsal on wednesday and a clean-up rehearsal on thursday with the principals. so much for that. but my conducting experience is a little different than what i expected. the podium is so high and the rail separating me from the front row is so low that i have to conduct the entire show sitting. otherwise, i'd be blocking the first three or four rows. granted, i have conducted while sitting on other shows. hell, i've even played keyboard and conducted before. but not with this show. and the funny thing is that after 8 shows, i kinda like the whole sitting and conducting thing. maybe i'll request a stool from now on, who knows? umm, what else? i'm cutting costs by rooming with romich here in cincy. our double is pretty sweet - little balcony and kitchen, not too shabby. life post-show is difficult here because everyone closes their kitchens early. some restaurants don't have taps downtown (how you gonna have a bar with no draft beer? preposterous!), and even the cvs closes at 7 during the week and 5 on the weekend. we're definitely not in a big city anymore. and it's kinda ghetto here. hate to talk negatively about my own kind, but there are way too many of them loitering on the streets, cattle calling girls, pants sagging, loud-mouthed, always asking for money. pretty much following all the black stereotypes. it's kinda sad. and now, not just to rip blacks, but i'll rip americans. we were so hard-pressed to find even a remotely-looking fat japanese person in tokyo. maybe i didn't realize it before but dear god, they're everywhere in cincinnati. americans are both stupid and fat compared to the japanese. but we do know our baseball. five of us (me, bob bones - stage manager, cate, trevor and romich) went to the reds' game against the giants on thursday afternoon. great atmosphere at great american ball park. went to a bar next door, fat cats, and got cheap food and a beer before the game. and for slightly under $50 got tickets in row y just behind the giants' dugout. giants went up 4-0 after two and a half innings, but their starting pitcher, todd wellemeyer, inexplicably pulled his hammy trying to leg out a double-play ball. san fran had to rush and put in a reliever, who promptly gave up 4 runs. giants went back up 6-4, but the reds scored 3 in the bottom of the 8th. and for a stadium that only had 19,000ish present, it was rocking when brandon phillips hit an opposite-field triple to score two to tie the game at 6. he eventually came home on a single, and francisco cordero closed the door in the 9th. great day, 86 degrees, with only thin, wispy cirrus clouds in the sky. well, it's 7:20, so i'm off. i've done nothing all day. went to bed at 5 last night after playing gears of war and drinking bud select 55s in matos' room. woke up to the end of japan/cameroon in the world cup. hit the elliptical, which i've thankfully been doing a lot of lately...and it shows, which is the nice part. watched italy/paraguay on my couch. took a little nap. wrote this entry. now going bowling. hurray for the celtics being up 3-2. hurray for the world cup being awesome. hurray for the vuvuzela (if you don't know what it is, look it up). and hurray for mondays. because work calls tomorrow...
Monday, June 14, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
can't we just skip cincinnati?
i don't want to leave japan. i would much rather do another two weeks here, instead of spending two weeks in cincy, then go straight to philly. cincinnati has the potential to be a nightmare. it'll be my full-time conducting debut, as sam is taking a couple of months off to pursue other projects and will rejoin us in san francisco in late august. the orchestra is being reduced from 14 to 11 (we lose a trombone, a trumpet and a reed), and i have yet to see these new charts. in fact, they're just being mailed to cincinnati on monday, so even the local players there haven't seen them. the reprogramming of key 2 and the fixing of one of the key 2 receptors has been postponed until philly and add that to the fact that we'll be in cincinnati after just coming from tokyo, and there's bound to be a natural letdown. but none of those reasons come close to topping the list as to why i want to stay here.
our show has not and, in my opinion, will never be received the way it has here. the japanese audiences have not been overly vocal during the show but instead wait to show their approval at the end. and boy, do they ever. i was told today that a standing ovation is actually a rarity in japan. because the japanese are so courteous, they feel impolite if they stand, for fear of blocking someone else's view who's sitting behind them. and that bothers them to the point that they don't stand but "only" vociferously applaud. that was totally not the case here. they thoroughly enjoyed our show so much that they all stood. i've signed so many programs here that i think my fingers are going to fall off, and i couldn't be happier. americans rarely ask the lowly musicians to sign their programs. but the japanese respect all aspects of the show, not just the so-called "stars." best of all has been the way the local orchestra and producers have treated us. on friday in between shows, we had a full company meeting onstage. the four producers each gave a little speech about how thrilled they were to have us and how inviting and appreciate the sold-out audiences have been. even they wished we wouldn't leave. and then, the gift exchange. ray, our production stage manager, is a japanese history buff and really wanted a particular artifact. turns out it cost 32,000 yen. so throughout the week, company management solicited donations from the rest of the touring company. each member of the rhythm section chipped in 1,000 yen. ray's been awesome - buying us bagels/breads/muffins every sunday morning for a matinee (we love bagel sundays!) and leading two tours while here in japan. well, long story short, ray went window-shopping on monday, saw this artifact, really wanted it and said he would come back to get it on wednesday. mina, one of the producers, bought it herself on tuesday and when ray went on wednesday, he was so heartbroken that it had been sold! but you should have seen the look on his face on friday when he realized how he had been duped. huge smile, mixed with a hint of anger, lol. then we had a huge gift exchange. we had all personally signed several dozen dreamgirls posters to give to the entire japanese company. they, however, outdid us by a large margin. each member of the american company got his own copy of the souvenir program, which was so expertly done. printed in both japanese and english, it thoroughly outlined the show and had many show stills in it (on a quick aside, pictures taken from our tour in the states were sent to tokyo before our 3-week run here and placed in the lobby, so that the audiences would get a taste of exactly what they would see.). we each got a 5-cent yen, in honor of us selling out all of our performances. we each got a pair of gorgeous chopsticks with our first name written on them in japanese, as well as the animal for the year of our respective births on the end. see, i told you the japanese presenters were the best. i will cherish those chopsticks forever. i probably won't ever use them. i could see them as a perfect thing to frame and hang up in my house, when i buy one. on top of all that, the japanese orchestra and the rhythm section exchanged small trinkets - they told us not to open ours until later, so i have no idea what i've got. even saori made - yes, made - all of us these really cute keychains, thanks so much! all in all, i'm loving the japanese love we've received.
on a more serious note, jason hasn't been doing so well. he claims to not have slept well for the entire time we've been here. he's also had muscle spasms and then fell friday afternoon during intermission of our first show. even though he finished the matinee, it was quite evident that he had tweaked his back pretty good. he went to the hospital and actually missed nearly all of the first act of the second show. in a frantic mad dash, our spare keyboard was set up next to sam, and romich and i (with much-appreciated help from randy cohen, the tour's programmer, at 6:30pm local [read: 5:30am eastern]) programmed my keyboard to include bass in the left hand. so between sam and i, we managed to cover the bass part until jason got back. unfortunately, the doctor had only drugged him up, and he really wasn't feeling any better. he valiantly finished the show but decided against playing the saturday matinee. so sam and i pinch-hit for him once again. according to the doc, he's suffering from excessive fatigue and needs to rest. too bad he's got an 11-hour flight in coach to chicago tomorrow, followed by a 5-hour layover and a 90-min flight to cincinnati...and then, another 8-show week to do. he said the doctor laughed at him when he relayed to him his schedule. i sure hope he gets better soon and can get upgraded to a comfier seat for the flight tomorrow. it truly is a shame that he is going to miss tonight's festivities.
before i get to that, i have to mention yet another japanese specialty that we don't have back in the states. and i got it from family mart, which seems to be based off of famima and is everywhere around tokyo. it's called a chu-hi. it's made with shochu, or japanese vodka that can be made in a variety of ways (potato-based, rice-based, etc.), and carbonated water flavored with lemon (or lime, orange, kiwi, etc.). not only does it come in many flavors but different alcoholic contents. 3, 6 and 8% ABV! they're made by multiple brands - right now, the one i'm sipping on is a lemon-flavored 6% kirin chu-hi. had an 8% yesterday and a 3% last week. for only 178 yen, i've got a pregame drink in the form of a 500 mL (or a little more than a pint) bottle that stronger than most domestic beers! even their most popular beers are better than ours. kirin, asahi and sapporo (and to a fourth degree, yebisu) are everywhere - something i've perceived as being similar to our bud, miller and coors. but they taste so much crisper, more full of flavor. oh, i love japan. but tonight will not likely be a beer night. more like an endless sake and shochu night.
as previously mentioned, today was sam's last show for a while. but it's also nikki's birthday, yay! it's also a surprise, so it's a good thing that i won't click "submit" until the minute i leave my hotel room to go meet up with everyone else. i don't know how the cast members that planned this pulled it off. to rent this surprise venue costs a whopping $3500 USD! and somehow, they waived that fee. it'll be a 2,500 yen (about $30) all-you-can-drink open bar. the way it works in japan is that all-you-can-eat or drink places are 2 hours. so we're cabbing over to this place near roppongi at 9 and from 9:30-11:30, we have all-you-can-drink then you pay for your own food on top of that. we're gonna simply split the food bill by the number of people who get food. so for $3500, this clearly must be a nice place. guess where it is? gonpachi, in nishi-azabu. that might not mean anything on the surface but trust me, it's a super special place. it's the restaurant that inspired the crazy 88's scene in kill bill 1! and i LOVE the kill bill movies! http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Thursday, June 3, 2010
as promised - lube, french fries and me behind bars
tammeike-sanno (g-06) to ginza (g-09). transfer to the hibiya line, where ginza is h-08. seven stops away at h-15 is akihabara, where electronics meet sex. it's nicknamed electronic city, because of the sheer inundation of huge stores that line its streets. i was here on wednesday afternoon with romich, each of us in search for a particular device. dave needed some sort of bnc connector, while i was in the process of searching for a camera for my aunt diane. she really wants a nikon coolpix, and i was doing some pricing for her. turns out the camera was cheaper in shibuya, where i bought it today. but that's besides the point. after coming up from the subway, we walked into one of the giant stores and wow. it seemed to continue as far as the eye could see and had at least ten floors. even on a wednesday afternoon, it was still teeming with people. and i'm still stunned by the variety of bright colors that are everywhere here. the japanese surely are not ashamed of being bold and outspoken. outside, there were several anime characters with holes cut out for their heads. needless to say, many pics were taken - one of which is my new facebook profile pic. that pic was taken outside of one of the largest sex shops in akihabara, and dave and i obviously went in. about three feet inside the door, there was a video playing - with sound. god forbid a little kid ever unknowingly poke his head inside a sex store. but as for us, it was pretty frickin' awesome. 7 floors of literally everything you could imagine. and yet again, for a wednesday afternoon, it was pretty packed. i'll only highlight one item of interest from this store: an innocent-looking bottle of suntory (a popular brand here) green iced tea. or so you thought. because it was totally lube. we thought about buying it as a gag gift for someone but ultimately decided against it. down the street, we went in another store, where the adult section was actually underground. typically, when you see dvd's of this nature in the states, it's pretty obvious that they're porn dvd's - privates blocked out, girls flashing you, etc. something obvious. and there was no shortage of those images in this shop. however, i was particularly taken by the videos that, on the front, had a well-photographed shot of a young, cute girl dressed in a schoolgirl's outfit, standing in a park or walking down the street. the other side clearly showed what these little girls were capable of, but the one that struck our fancy had a close-up taken of her, seductively masticating a french fry. totally hot. alas, french fry girl remained on the shelf as well. but the sheer expanse of videos in just these two stores was unreal. and that was two of several dozen. just outside, there were girls dressed as maids attempting to lure you upstairs to their den for a little afternoon spring cleaning. oh man, i loved akihabara. too bad we had a show wednesday night. however, things quickly took as an unexpected turn, as i ended up in jail.
matos saw a sign close to the theater that looked like a clothing store, but the gate was always down in the middle of the day. perplexed, he happened to pass this place later on in the evening on wednesday and went inside. he came to the theatre that night and told the band what he had found. and it was the best mistake-turned-awesome finding of his life. so after the show, romich, james, saori and i joined matos at this awesome restaurant called the lock up. from ground level, you go down a flight of stairs and before you know it, you're descending into a dark underworld. you finally get to the front door, turn left and trigger a guy who is now straining to break free from his chains behind bars. loud, sudden noises are happening all the time. the floor is uneven and jagged. there are multiple doors to open, only one of which leads into the restaurant proper. behind the others, as you might expect, are varying types of aliens and mummies. there must be cameras throughout this maze, because as soon as you slide open the correct door, a hot girl dressed as a cop is waiting for you and ushers you to the side in japanese. upon figuring out how many as in the party, we end up in this waiting area that resembles the inside of a rib cage. after a minute or so, the hot girl cop reappears. WITH HANDCUFFS!!!! two members of the party must be handcuffed together and forcibly dragged through the restaurant by the hot girl cop, towards your table. the restaurant is a maze of low-hanging ceilings and walls lined with different sized jail cells. yes, you literally eat in a cell. i mean, the bars clang behind you and everything. shoes off, duck, sit indian-style and clang. you have been locked up, but with chopsticks and menus. the food is traditional japanese and reasonably priced (780 yen for fondue with 5 fried shrimp and 5 fried potato patties!), but the best part of the menu is the drinks, which are on the first few pages. drinks come in test tubes, beakers, syringes - all sorts of mad scientist containers. and in all sorts of imaginable bright-colored dyes - reds, blues, greens. you can even get these plastic capsules that are filled with some super-strong vodka, must be 100 or 120 proof, that really stings when you bite into them. but they're only 100 yen apiece! it's another push-the-button-to-call-the-waitress kind of place, and she is dressed as a fellow convict or inmate. add that to the fact that there is a wide range of music playing - r&b to heavy metal and all in all, you're probably thinking that prison ain't all it's cracked up to be. that is, until all the lights suddenly go out. black lights eventually kick in, as the music blares. intense heavy metal. gunshots blasting. sirens blaring. there's been a jailbreak! multiple inmates have broken out of their cells and begin harassing fellow inmates! yes, guys dressed in scary masks slam open your cell door, causing instant screams. the best are the ones that slowly open your door, peer in creepily, even walk into your cell and then jump out at you! this goes on for a solid, i don't know, five minutes or so, so you're always on edge until the music subsides and the regular lights return. unreal atmosphere. the entire place is a maze and even getting to and from the bathroom can be an ordeal. and once you get your bill from the waitress, you have to pay the cop up front. and if haven't counted your coins right and provided the correct amount, then they shoot you in cold blood. or so i've heard. ok, just kidding about the cold-blooded murder. instead, they reward you for having gotten out of jail with multiple 1,000-yen coupons! and you can use one per person on any return visit! in fact, matos and i loved the place so much on wednesday night that we went back for lunch between shows today (and took trevor) AND after the second show (and took cate). we told ourselves that we wouldn't go back unless we brought a new person(s). so i've been in cells 46, 45 and 47 in my first three visits to the lock up, and we're definitely going back tomorrow night. we got 8 coupons as we walked on last night, used 3 for lunch, got 4 more, used 3 for dinner, got 4 more - yeah, we've still got a whopping total of 10 coupons to use. that's 10,000 free yen that are just begging to be used. so hopefully, matos and i can round up 8 other convicts to go to the lock up tomorrow night. maybe this time, i'll commit a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
the ginza line shuts down a little after midnight every night, so the last three nights have ended in cabs. the base is 710 yen, and the price increases 90 yen every fraction of a mile. there's a cool 3 bars-2 bars-1 bar countdown that occurs right before the next hike, so at least you can brace yourself. but the best thing about cabs here is their automatic doors. that's right - when you approach a cab, the driver pushes a button, and the door literally swings open. and he closes it behind you without you lifting a finger. so convenient! last night's cab ride was priceless. well, not exactly, it was 2,420 yen. but the five of us managed to squeeze in. dave, james, dave and saori in the back. me up front. clearly, the four of them were squished but being in japan where everything is tinier, even i was squished up in the front seat with my knees banging up against the dashboard. saori was trying to explain to us all the things she does before even her boss gets in - things like purchasing tasty snacks for the green room (more on that to follow) and making coffee.
saori: "yeah, you guys really like a lot of sugar in your coffee, because i'm always buying more sugar. i like my coffee normal."
me: "oh, so you take it black?"
instant uproar in the cab. tonight's cab ride featured far fewer in the way of innuendoes, but instead a professional drummer and jazz singer in the form of our driver. he spoke pretty good english and told us about a visit to california last year to visit his uncle. when he realized we were musicians as well, he broke into a rendition of "i left my heart in san francisco." quite good for a late-night cab driver, i gotta say. ok, a couple of quick things before bed, since it's almost 4, and i've got another two-show day tomorrow before a fourth trip to the lock up in 48 hours. i went to mcdonald's a couple days ago, just because - and i naturally got something different, because i could obviously get a big mac back home any day. got a pretty tasty teriyaki mcburger for only 290 yen, with the sauce being quite similar to the tatsuya-style fried chicken sandwich i had at kfc last week. who knows when the next time i'll get to say that i had a unique sandwich at kfc japan is? also, the japanese producers are overly generous with their snacks. they're always leaving fun and exciting things to nibble on in the green room. cookies, crackers, custards. they outdid themselves today with what i called a green tea taco. it looks like a soft shell of a taco that's green wrapped around a gummi worm. so good. it seems as if they've been saying the best snacks for the end, so i'm excited about tomorrow's smorgasbord. hmmm, i'm a bit reserved about posting this now. i hope no one from the show has the time to read this tomorrow before the shows. i don't want to ruin the uniqueness of the lock up. cheesy? yes, but that's what makes it awesome. it's totally one of those places you have to experience to get the full effect of it. we were trying to compare it to someplace in nyc. perhaps mars 2112 (51st and b'way) or jekyll and hyde (57th and 6th) - two places i've never been to - but apparently, it's better than either of those. a place like this would kill in the states, especially a big market like new york. maybe matos and i should open up a chain in manhattan once this tour is over...
matos saw a sign close to the theater that looked like a clothing store, but the gate was always down in the middle of the day. perplexed, he happened to pass this place later on in the evening on wednesday and went inside. he came to the theatre that night and told the band what he had found. and it was the best mistake-turned-awesome finding of his life. so after the show, romich, james, saori and i joined matos at this awesome restaurant called the lock up. from ground level, you go down a flight of stairs and before you know it, you're descending into a dark underworld. you finally get to the front door, turn left and trigger a guy who is now straining to break free from his chains behind bars. loud, sudden noises are happening all the time. the floor is uneven and jagged. there are multiple doors to open, only one of which leads into the restaurant proper. behind the others, as you might expect, are varying types of aliens and mummies. there must be cameras throughout this maze, because as soon as you slide open the correct door, a hot girl dressed as a cop is waiting for you and ushers you to the side in japanese. upon figuring out how many as in the party, we end up in this waiting area that resembles the inside of a rib cage. after a minute or so, the hot girl cop reappears. WITH HANDCUFFS!!!! two members of the party must be handcuffed together and forcibly dragged through the restaurant by the hot girl cop, towards your table. the restaurant is a maze of low-hanging ceilings and walls lined with different sized jail cells. yes, you literally eat in a cell. i mean, the bars clang behind you and everything. shoes off, duck, sit indian-style and clang. you have been locked up, but with chopsticks and menus. the food is traditional japanese and reasonably priced (780 yen for fondue with 5 fried shrimp and 5 fried potato patties!), but the best part of the menu is the drinks, which are on the first few pages. drinks come in test tubes, beakers, syringes - all sorts of mad scientist containers. and in all sorts of imaginable bright-colored dyes - reds, blues, greens. you can even get these plastic capsules that are filled with some super-strong vodka, must be 100 or 120 proof, that really stings when you bite into them. but they're only 100 yen apiece! it's another push-the-button-to-call-the-waitress kind of place, and she is dressed as a fellow convict or inmate. add that to the fact that there is a wide range of music playing - r&b to heavy metal and all in all, you're probably thinking that prison ain't all it's cracked up to be. that is, until all the lights suddenly go out. black lights eventually kick in, as the music blares. intense heavy metal. gunshots blasting. sirens blaring. there's been a jailbreak! multiple inmates have broken out of their cells and begin harassing fellow inmates! yes, guys dressed in scary masks slam open your cell door, causing instant screams. the best are the ones that slowly open your door, peer in creepily, even walk into your cell and then jump out at you! this goes on for a solid, i don't know, five minutes or so, so you're always on edge until the music subsides and the regular lights return. unreal atmosphere. the entire place is a maze and even getting to and from the bathroom can be an ordeal. and once you get your bill from the waitress, you have to pay the cop up front. and if haven't counted your coins right and provided the correct amount, then they shoot you in cold blood. or so i've heard. ok, just kidding about the cold-blooded murder. instead, they reward you for having gotten out of jail with multiple 1,000-yen coupons! and you can use one per person on any return visit! in fact, matos and i loved the place so much on wednesday night that we went back for lunch between shows today (and took trevor) AND after the second show (and took cate). we told ourselves that we wouldn't go back unless we brought a new person(s). so i've been in cells 46, 45 and 47 in my first three visits to the lock up, and we're definitely going back tomorrow night. we got 8 coupons as we walked on last night, used 3 for lunch, got 4 more, used 3 for dinner, got 4 more - yeah, we've still got a whopping total of 10 coupons to use. that's 10,000 free yen that are just begging to be used. so hopefully, matos and i can round up 8 other convicts to go to the lock up tomorrow night. maybe this time, i'll commit a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
the ginza line shuts down a little after midnight every night, so the last three nights have ended in cabs. the base is 710 yen, and the price increases 90 yen every fraction of a mile. there's a cool 3 bars-2 bars-1 bar countdown that occurs right before the next hike, so at least you can brace yourself. but the best thing about cabs here is their automatic doors. that's right - when you approach a cab, the driver pushes a button, and the door literally swings open. and he closes it behind you without you lifting a finger. so convenient! last night's cab ride was priceless. well, not exactly, it was 2,420 yen. but the five of us managed to squeeze in. dave, james, dave and saori in the back. me up front. clearly, the four of them were squished but being in japan where everything is tinier, even i was squished up in the front seat with my knees banging up against the dashboard. saori was trying to explain to us all the things she does before even her boss gets in - things like purchasing tasty snacks for the green room (more on that to follow) and making coffee.
saori: "yeah, you guys really like a lot of sugar in your coffee, because i'm always buying more sugar. i like my coffee normal."
me: "oh, so you take it black?"
instant uproar in the cab. tonight's cab ride featured far fewer in the way of innuendoes, but instead a professional drummer and jazz singer in the form of our driver. he spoke pretty good english and told us about a visit to california last year to visit his uncle. when he realized we were musicians as well, he broke into a rendition of "i left my heart in san francisco." quite good for a late-night cab driver, i gotta say. ok, a couple of quick things before bed, since it's almost 4, and i've got another two-show day tomorrow before a fourth trip to the lock up in 48 hours. i went to mcdonald's a couple days ago, just because - and i naturally got something different, because i could obviously get a big mac back home any day. got a pretty tasty teriyaki mcburger for only 290 yen, with the sauce being quite similar to the tatsuya-style fried chicken sandwich i had at kfc last week. who knows when the next time i'll get to say that i had a unique sandwich at kfc japan is? also, the japanese producers are overly generous with their snacks. they're always leaving fun and exciting things to nibble on in the green room. cookies, crackers, custards. they outdid themselves today with what i called a green tea taco. it looks like a soft shell of a taco that's green wrapped around a gummi worm. so good. it seems as if they've been saying the best snacks for the end, so i'm excited about tomorrow's smorgasbord. hmmm, i'm a bit reserved about posting this now. i hope no one from the show has the time to read this tomorrow before the shows. i don't want to ruin the uniqueness of the lock up. cheesy? yes, but that's what makes it awesome. it's totally one of those places you have to experience to get the full effect of it. we were trying to compare it to someplace in nyc. perhaps mars 2112 (51st and b'way) or jekyll and hyde (57th and 6th) - two places i've never been to - but apparently, it's better than either of those. a place like this would kill in the states, especially a big market like new york. maybe matos and i should open up a chain in manhattan once this tour is over...
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
beginning of week 3 in tokyo
first and foremost, someone was a little...shall we say...upset when she realized she didn't make it into my last blog entry. so, saori will open this one. she and i had an amazing talk earlier today down in the hotel lobby about her future theatre aspirations, how upset i will be on our first day in cincinnati after a wonderful time here in tokyo, etc. gotta say, she's one of the best people we've had on tour. our show tonight wasn't until 7, but she left the hotel at 4:15 to go set up. awesome work ethic. awesome girl. just one of many i will miss when we leave. the entire local staff is so nice. just last night, mr. uji - one of the japanese producers - showed up at a large crew gathering. we went to another traditional shoes-off restaurant that was close to the theater, and if you didn't know it was there, you would never find it. but the food was scrumptious. we kept ordering rounds and rounds of kirin and sake, and i really love the family-style way the japanese approach their meals. one of the best japanese staples i've seen here that we don't have in the states is a headstopper (yes, go ahead and make your jokes now) on beer pitchers. as you pour, there is an extra extension to the pitcher that prevents the foam from ending up in your glass. why is this not available at every bar back home?!?!? i keep reiterating this - the japanese are so intelligent. well, food-wise, i had tempura eel and macaroni au gratin with shrimp and crabmeat. the eel belongs on a list of exotic things i've never had before or haven't in a long time. mackerel, tofu, eel, types of sashimi that i have no idea what they were (i think one was horse) and chicken elbow grizzle, just to name a few. and the kicker is that it's all so fresh and actually quite tasty. well, before we knew it, mr. uji had left the table, presumably to go to the bathroom, but instead came back and told us that he had just paid the entire bill. after a quick cab ride back to the hotel, our night ended with...oh yes, you know it...another ice cream waffle. man, i must have had 8 or 9 of those by now, and i'm not really a heavy ice cream guy back in the states.
my mom brought up a very good point in her last e-mail to me. as much as i dissect weather at home, i've yet to mention it here. spring in japan is pretty darn sweet. this entire week has/will average a high of 73 and a low of 61, with sun on 5 of the 7 days (mostly cloudy last monday, chance of showers this upcoming saturday). but that's not all - our first couple of weeks here did have a north american spring feel to it. there was a somewhat regular pattern of two or three days of sun followed by a day or two of rain, which is pretty much what we're used to in the eastern two-thirds of the states. even in the 70s, there is a good touch of humidity present, so i'd be shocked if a tokyo summer is dissimilar to a manhattan one. but i really wish the clouds had cleared out on monday...
but before i get to monday, i've gotta share sunday's awesomeness. only one show, a noon matinee. and it felt so great to be done at 3 and to be walking around outside with the sun out. jason had been raving about this place called pepper lunch, saying that it was the best spot to eat that he'd found in tokyo, and that i had to try it. it's close to the shibuya station, right next to scramble, where i'd had breakfast on saturday morning. so after the show, that's where trevor and i went, since neither of us had gone yet. first off, its front door has a push button on it that you have to depress before it automatically opens. most shops have this feature, which is genius - the door won't unnecessarily open (and waste the AC inside the establishment) as bustling hordes of people traipse down the street. there is no menu when you sit. it's just like the curry house that i had for lunch on saturday (which had naan that was bigger than the table). the menu is a slew of pictures on a wall or window, right next to a machine that has pictures as its buttons. you insert money, select your picture, get a ticket and the appropriate change, hand the ticket to a waiter, sit down, and a few minutes later, you have food. sweet! for only 1080 yen, i got salad, a butternut squash soup and a heaping plate of beef pepper rice. you get a wooden slab underneath a piping-hot grill set down in front of you. a huge serving of rice, cilantro, shallots and pepper is surrounded by uncooked pieces of beef. it's your job to cook the meat as much as you want before consuming. throw in the three different kinds of sauces that are at your disposal, and you've got yourself a tasty feast. pepper lunch was so good on sunday that i went back on tuesday...and know exactly where they exist in roppongi and akihabara. i love pepper lunch and wish we had it back in the states. simple, cheap, tasty. what more do you want? sunday night, trevor, romich and i went out to roppongi on behalf of matos, who was starting to feel a bit under the weather. he really wanted to buy his friend a t-shirt from hard rock cafe. so we decided to eat there and get a shirt for him. unfortunately, the shop was closed - but that didn't mean that we didn't enjoy our meals. my twisted mac chicken 'n cheese was great. if you haven't noticed, i'm a sucker for two things - macaroni and cheese, as well as salmon. throughout the tour, i've been trying both wherever i can find it. i've had mac with dungeness crab (seattle), shrimp and crabmeat (tokyo), lobster (at gordon biersch in dc during our layoff - took my mom and grandma there for mothers' day, because my cousin, kerry, was working there at the time), as the only topping on a burger (dillon's irish pub in hollywood), chicken/ham/peas/mushrooms/bacon (chicago) and chorizo (columbus), just to give you an idea. and here in tokyo, some fast-food place, first kitchen, had a 290 yen tartar salmon sandwich. it was in my belly with 7 minutes of me seeing the picture. anyway, our hard rock cafe meal in tokyo was pretty darn good. and the waiters there spoke the best english i've heard (outside of our translators on the show...right, saori?). one said that her teacher was from california, thus her accent. turns out that hard rock is the only place we've been allowed to leave a tip. actually, they included a 10% service fee on our bill. literally, the only time i've given a tip (hotel, any other meal, tip jars in little shops don't even exist) was at hard rock. even if you buy a dessert for 399 yen and you give her 400, you still get that 1 yen back. speaking of tips, i wish i could have given one to the red bull girls i saw. turns out they aren't just in boston, dc, new york or atlanta. yep, a pair of smokin' hot red bull girls pulled up to the stage door/loading dock of the theatre after a show. they had just seen it and were handing out free red bulls in exchange for autographs. needless to say, i orchestrated my swap rather quickly.
sorry this post is all over the place, but i just have a lot on the brain. down in the subway, we're so used to standing anywhere along the platform and then pick the closest car door that stops to us. well, that's what all of us do here...except there's one problem. there are either distinct lines or a recognizable color scheme that tells you exactly where to line up for the doors once the train gets there. oftentimes, we've walked into a station, stood wherever and talked while the japanese line up accordingly...then get upset at ourselves when we're the last ones to board and end up standing. who knew that lines on the ground would make things so simple. not only that, but the trains also have directional maps inside. the stop closest to our hotel is tammeike-sanno, or g-06 on the ginza line. the ginza line has 19 stops, and shibuya (where the theater is) is g-01, the end of the line in that direction. it's very clear which side of the subway platform goes is which, because of all the signs that are in english and show stops by (letter of line - number, e.g. g-01). pure genius. once you get above ground, the shibuya station intersection that i cross at least twice daily to go to and from the theatre is historic. it's the same intersection from "lost in translation," and is apparently the second-busiest one of its kind in tokyo. that's saying something for a city with a population of 13 million and a metropolitan population of 39 million. often weaving its way through that traffic is a dreamgirls shuttle (that's loaded with pics from the show), which ferries patrons from other parts of town to the theatre and back. to the best of my knowledge, tokyo is the first city that has offered shuttle service to and from the theater since new york, when people were apparently too lazy to take the A/D or 2/3 up to harlem from midtown. the producers of the show have truly welcomed us and have gone all out to make us feel welcome. and it has shown by the size and appreciation of the audiences we've had for every show. every. just last night, a true japanese celebrity attended our show and loved it. akiko wada came backstage and met us and according to the japanese, she is the equivalent of aretha franklin in japan. so dreamgirls was right up her alley, and she thoroughly enjoyed it.
hmmm, what next? oh goodness, i haven't even mentioned monday. got up at 7am to meet at 8 with trevon (cc in the show), trevor, sam and romich. the five of us were bound for hakone, a wonderful resort about an hour and a half outside of tokyo via train (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5200.html) that features many hot springs, museums and on a clear day, a spectacular view of mt. fuji as just a few of its highlights. we hit up starbucks for coffee, and what a pleasant surprise i got. green tea is all the rage here, and i got a matcha muffin and a venti matcha iced frappuccino. absolutely delicious. little did i know that green tea would follow us all the way to hakone. for 5,000 yen, we got a hakone freepass that allowed us to take any form of transportation offered there...and for an 850 yen upgrade (which we all did), we got to ride in the limited express romance car on the odakyu line from tokyo to hakone and back. and yes, that is the official name of the car - the romance car. a 9:27am train put us in at 11:04, and we jumped on a trolley up the mountainside to the open-air museum. it was an absolute delight - exhibits of japanese graffiti, mesmerizing sculptures, an awesome wood structure that held an uniquely-hung netting apparatus where kids could play, and a stunning picasso exhibit. a crude profile picture stood at the end of one wall, while 18 straight-on paintings lined the rest of the wall. it showed the 18 steps that picasso took to perfect this picture of jacqueline. i wish it had stated exactly when he had painted all of them, just to see how quickly he completed the process. regardless, it was clear that each step had its own character, because one slight change in approach vastly altered the overall image. and picasso recognized his own genius. the 18th and final step was definitely the best one. he knew when his work was completed. the museum also had huge orange fish that really wanted to be fed, because every time you put out your hand, their mouths would open, expecting a tasty treat. the weather managed to cooperate - high 60s but mostly cloudy most of the day. that would come into play soon enough. all my diehard wishing couldn't get those clouds out of the way of fuji. post-museum (where we had a delicious 1,980 yen buffet for lunch), we headed back to the trolley in search of the cable car. the cable car that would take us to the ropeway. the ropeway that would suspend us over 1,000 meters over the hakone valley, where we would hopefully see fuji in the distance. you know me, i'm a fan of bad weather, but for once, i was upset at those stupid clouds. but despite not sending fuji, we still passed over a valley of sulphur, where some volcanic activity still occurs. the area was very smoky and, as you might expect, reeked of rotten eggs. they were selling sulphur eggs (half-dozen for 5,000 yen) with black shells, each one apparently increasing the longevity of your life by 7 years. did we buy any? hell no. i mean, if we stood still too long around the sulphur fumes, they could have possibly overtaken us...that is, according to the guide book. but we didn't want to find out ourselves. we rode the ropeway for several minutes, watching roads snake through the mountainsides and hills disappear behind larger ones. it was an already breathtaking view. however, our adrenaline rush was soon to be met with despair. on our way down to the boat that would take us across lake ashi, we saw a gift shop that had some snacks. on a poster in the window was an ad for 300 yen green tea ice cream cones! we all leapt for joy, because it had been a couple of hours since our lunch, and that sounded like the perfect snack. it was quarter to 4. on a monday. and the damn shop closed at 3! yes, it was 15:45, and the store closed at 15:00! we were stunned silent. then exploded in an outrage. then fell quiet again. the boat didn't leave until 4:20, so we had a half-hour to do nothing but stare in the window at the workers who were cleaning up and not serving us ice cream. the five of us stood at the door in a row, staring at them, in hopes they would have pity on us. nope, not at all. our consolation prize was boarding a pirate boat that took us across the lake. gorgeous views of docks and shoreside hotels. there was even a guy out fishing in his little speedboat. since the boats run so infrequently (once every 40 minutes), joy and corinne (from the hair department), who had separately come on their own, ended up on the same boat with us. next was a winding bus ride around hairpin turns that took us further down the mountainside, back toward gora. we boarded the trolley, which took us back to the odakyu line and our romance car back to shinjuku. our full day as a fivesome concluded with an italian dinner in akasaka-mitsuke. had some tasty gnocchi and campari soda for only 1,900 yen. romich and i were the only ones to prolong the night, by hitting up a pub, 82 ale house. this place is right across the street from still, the absinthe bar we went to last monday. dave was with the chorus line tour that came to tokyo and found this bar and actually met the manager. wakaru really liked us, made sure we had a good time - even exchanged cards with us. the bar was advertising a chimay triple special that started on june 1 (and the date was in tiny print). but after i asked about it, he personally got a keg and tapped it, so that dave and i could partake. how's that for special? yet again, another situation where i wanted to tip but couldn't. after some uniquely thin but awesome pretzel sticks and three of those chimays, dave and i took the party to the hobgoblin, a british pub, in akasaka. we met four americans, my most recent facebook friends, one of which is in the marines and is stationed in japan. he and his wife (notre dame alums) were having a beer and a smoke, and she overheard us talking about theater. she's from chicago and was stunned to hear that we had just played the cadillac palace theatre four months ago. more talk about the states attracted this other couple from huntsville, alabama. 1am came and went before we left the bar, each pair going its separate way. unbelievably, it turns out that the alabama couple was staying not too far from our hotel, and we met up again. right in front of the 7-11. so yep, that night ended like so many others on this tour. with an ice cream waffle.
it's 3:20am on thursday, and i have two shows tomorrow. so i will not write about the tokyo experience that happened earlier tonight after the show. suffice it to say that it was so amazing that i know for sure that i will be doing the exact same thing tomorrow. and no, it's not sex. although, trust me, i wish it were. and wow, i didn't even mention my sex-related events from earlier today. man, this next post is gonna be something. it'll involve lube, french fries and me being behind bars.
my mom brought up a very good point in her last e-mail to me. as much as i dissect weather at home, i've yet to mention it here. spring in japan is pretty darn sweet. this entire week has/will average a high of 73 and a low of 61, with sun on 5 of the 7 days (mostly cloudy last monday, chance of showers this upcoming saturday). but that's not all - our first couple of weeks here did have a north american spring feel to it. there was a somewhat regular pattern of two or three days of sun followed by a day or two of rain, which is pretty much what we're used to in the eastern two-thirds of the states. even in the 70s, there is a good touch of humidity present, so i'd be shocked if a tokyo summer is dissimilar to a manhattan one. but i really wish the clouds had cleared out on monday...
but before i get to monday, i've gotta share sunday's awesomeness. only one show, a noon matinee. and it felt so great to be done at 3 and to be walking around outside with the sun out. jason had been raving about this place called pepper lunch, saying that it was the best spot to eat that he'd found in tokyo, and that i had to try it. it's close to the shibuya station, right next to scramble, where i'd had breakfast on saturday morning. so after the show, that's where trevor and i went, since neither of us had gone yet. first off, its front door has a push button on it that you have to depress before it automatically opens. most shops have this feature, which is genius - the door won't unnecessarily open (and waste the AC inside the establishment) as bustling hordes of people traipse down the street. there is no menu when you sit. it's just like the curry house that i had for lunch on saturday (which had naan that was bigger than the table). the menu is a slew of pictures on a wall or window, right next to a machine that has pictures as its buttons. you insert money, select your picture, get a ticket and the appropriate change, hand the ticket to a waiter, sit down, and a few minutes later, you have food. sweet! for only 1080 yen, i got salad, a butternut squash soup and a heaping plate of beef pepper rice. you get a wooden slab underneath a piping-hot grill set down in front of you. a huge serving of rice, cilantro, shallots and pepper is surrounded by uncooked pieces of beef. it's your job to cook the meat as much as you want before consuming. throw in the three different kinds of sauces that are at your disposal, and you've got yourself a tasty feast. pepper lunch was so good on sunday that i went back on tuesday...and know exactly where they exist in roppongi and akihabara. i love pepper lunch and wish we had it back in the states. simple, cheap, tasty. what more do you want? sunday night, trevor, romich and i went out to roppongi on behalf of matos, who was starting to feel a bit under the weather. he really wanted to buy his friend a t-shirt from hard rock cafe. so we decided to eat there and get a shirt for him. unfortunately, the shop was closed - but that didn't mean that we didn't enjoy our meals. my twisted mac chicken 'n cheese was great. if you haven't noticed, i'm a sucker for two things - macaroni and cheese, as well as salmon. throughout the tour, i've been trying both wherever i can find it. i've had mac with dungeness crab (seattle), shrimp and crabmeat (tokyo), lobster (at gordon biersch in dc during our layoff - took my mom and grandma there for mothers' day, because my cousin, kerry, was working there at the time), as the only topping on a burger (dillon's irish pub in hollywood), chicken/ham/peas/mushrooms/bacon (chicago) and chorizo (columbus), just to give you an idea. and here in tokyo, some fast-food place, first kitchen, had a 290 yen tartar salmon sandwich. it was in my belly with 7 minutes of me seeing the picture. anyway, our hard rock cafe meal in tokyo was pretty darn good. and the waiters there spoke the best english i've heard (outside of our translators on the show...right, saori?). one said that her teacher was from california, thus her accent. turns out that hard rock is the only place we've been allowed to leave a tip. actually, they included a 10% service fee on our bill. literally, the only time i've given a tip (hotel, any other meal, tip jars in little shops don't even exist) was at hard rock. even if you buy a dessert for 399 yen and you give her 400, you still get that 1 yen back. speaking of tips, i wish i could have given one to the red bull girls i saw. turns out they aren't just in boston, dc, new york or atlanta. yep, a pair of smokin' hot red bull girls pulled up to the stage door/loading dock of the theatre after a show. they had just seen it and were handing out free red bulls in exchange for autographs. needless to say, i orchestrated my swap rather quickly.
sorry this post is all over the place, but i just have a lot on the brain. down in the subway, we're so used to standing anywhere along the platform and then pick the closest car door that stops to us. well, that's what all of us do here...except there's one problem. there are either distinct lines or a recognizable color scheme that tells you exactly where to line up for the doors once the train gets there. oftentimes, we've walked into a station, stood wherever and talked while the japanese line up accordingly...then get upset at ourselves when we're the last ones to board and end up standing. who knew that lines on the ground would make things so simple. not only that, but the trains also have directional maps inside. the stop closest to our hotel is tammeike-sanno, or g-06 on the ginza line. the ginza line has 19 stops, and shibuya (where the theater is) is g-01, the end of the line in that direction. it's very clear which side of the subway platform goes is which, because of all the signs that are in english and show stops by (letter of line - number, e.g. g-01). pure genius. once you get above ground, the shibuya station intersection that i cross at least twice daily to go to and from the theatre is historic. it's the same intersection from "lost in translation," and is apparently the second-busiest one of its kind in tokyo. that's saying something for a city with a population of 13 million and a metropolitan population of 39 million. often weaving its way through that traffic is a dreamgirls shuttle (that's loaded with pics from the show), which ferries patrons from other parts of town to the theatre and back. to the best of my knowledge, tokyo is the first city that has offered shuttle service to and from the theater since new york, when people were apparently too lazy to take the A/D or 2/3 up to harlem from midtown. the producers of the show have truly welcomed us and have gone all out to make us feel welcome. and it has shown by the size and appreciation of the audiences we've had for every show. every. just last night, a true japanese celebrity attended our show and loved it. akiko wada came backstage and met us and according to the japanese, she is the equivalent of aretha franklin in japan. so dreamgirls was right up her alley, and she thoroughly enjoyed it.
hmmm, what next? oh goodness, i haven't even mentioned monday. got up at 7am to meet at 8 with trevon (cc in the show), trevor, sam and romich. the five of us were bound for hakone, a wonderful resort about an hour and a half outside of tokyo via train (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5200.html) that features many hot springs, museums and on a clear day, a spectacular view of mt. fuji as just a few of its highlights. we hit up starbucks for coffee, and what a pleasant surprise i got. green tea is all the rage here, and i got a matcha muffin and a venti matcha iced frappuccino. absolutely delicious. little did i know that green tea would follow us all the way to hakone. for 5,000 yen, we got a hakone freepass that allowed us to take any form of transportation offered there...and for an 850 yen upgrade (which we all did), we got to ride in the limited express romance car on the odakyu line from tokyo to hakone and back. and yes, that is the official name of the car - the romance car. a 9:27am train put us in at 11:04, and we jumped on a trolley up the mountainside to the open-air museum. it was an absolute delight - exhibits of japanese graffiti, mesmerizing sculptures, an awesome wood structure that held an uniquely-hung netting apparatus where kids could play, and a stunning picasso exhibit. a crude profile picture stood at the end of one wall, while 18 straight-on paintings lined the rest of the wall. it showed the 18 steps that picasso took to perfect this picture of jacqueline. i wish it had stated exactly when he had painted all of them, just to see how quickly he completed the process. regardless, it was clear that each step had its own character, because one slight change in approach vastly altered the overall image. and picasso recognized his own genius. the 18th and final step was definitely the best one. he knew when his work was completed. the museum also had huge orange fish that really wanted to be fed, because every time you put out your hand, their mouths would open, expecting a tasty treat. the weather managed to cooperate - high 60s but mostly cloudy most of the day. that would come into play soon enough. all my diehard wishing couldn't get those clouds out of the way of fuji. post-museum (where we had a delicious 1,980 yen buffet for lunch), we headed back to the trolley in search of the cable car. the cable car that would take us to the ropeway. the ropeway that would suspend us over 1,000 meters over the hakone valley, where we would hopefully see fuji in the distance. you know me, i'm a fan of bad weather, but for once, i was upset at those stupid clouds. but despite not sending fuji, we still passed over a valley of sulphur, where some volcanic activity still occurs. the area was very smoky and, as you might expect, reeked of rotten eggs. they were selling sulphur eggs (half-dozen for 5,000 yen) with black shells, each one apparently increasing the longevity of your life by 7 years. did we buy any? hell no. i mean, if we stood still too long around the sulphur fumes, they could have possibly overtaken us...that is, according to the guide book. but we didn't want to find out ourselves. we rode the ropeway for several minutes, watching roads snake through the mountainsides and hills disappear behind larger ones. it was an already breathtaking view. however, our adrenaline rush was soon to be met with despair. on our way down to the boat that would take us across lake ashi, we saw a gift shop that had some snacks. on a poster in the window was an ad for 300 yen green tea ice cream cones! we all leapt for joy, because it had been a couple of hours since our lunch, and that sounded like the perfect snack. it was quarter to 4. on a monday. and the damn shop closed at 3! yes, it was 15:45, and the store closed at 15:00! we were stunned silent. then exploded in an outrage. then fell quiet again. the boat didn't leave until 4:20, so we had a half-hour to do nothing but stare in the window at the workers who were cleaning up and not serving us ice cream. the five of us stood at the door in a row, staring at them, in hopes they would have pity on us. nope, not at all. our consolation prize was boarding a pirate boat that took us across the lake. gorgeous views of docks and shoreside hotels. there was even a guy out fishing in his little speedboat. since the boats run so infrequently (once every 40 minutes), joy and corinne (from the hair department), who had separately come on their own, ended up on the same boat with us. next was a winding bus ride around hairpin turns that took us further down the mountainside, back toward gora. we boarded the trolley, which took us back to the odakyu line and our romance car back to shinjuku. our full day as a fivesome concluded with an italian dinner in akasaka-mitsuke. had some tasty gnocchi and campari soda for only 1,900 yen. romich and i were the only ones to prolong the night, by hitting up a pub, 82 ale house. this place is right across the street from still, the absinthe bar we went to last monday. dave was with the chorus line tour that came to tokyo and found this bar and actually met the manager. wakaru really liked us, made sure we had a good time - even exchanged cards with us. the bar was advertising a chimay triple special that started on june 1 (and the date was in tiny print). but after i asked about it, he personally got a keg and tapped it, so that dave and i could partake. how's that for special? yet again, another situation where i wanted to tip but couldn't. after some uniquely thin but awesome pretzel sticks and three of those chimays, dave and i took the party to the hobgoblin, a british pub, in akasaka. we met four americans, my most recent facebook friends, one of which is in the marines and is stationed in japan. he and his wife (notre dame alums) were having a beer and a smoke, and she overheard us talking about theater. she's from chicago and was stunned to hear that we had just played the cadillac palace theatre four months ago. more talk about the states attracted this other couple from huntsville, alabama. 1am came and went before we left the bar, each pair going its separate way. unbelievably, it turns out that the alabama couple was staying not too far from our hotel, and we met up again. right in front of the 7-11. so yep, that night ended like so many others on this tour. with an ice cream waffle.
it's 3:20am on thursday, and i have two shows tomorrow. so i will not write about the tokyo experience that happened earlier tonight after the show. suffice it to say that it was so amazing that i know for sure that i will be doing the exact same thing tomorrow. and no, it's not sex. although, trust me, i wish it were. and wow, i didn't even mention my sex-related events from earlier today. man, this next post is gonna be something. it'll involve lube, french fries and me being behind bars.
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