Broadway in Tokyo and singing all the way back to Koga

This weekend, I went with my partners in crime, Lauren and Chika (and other friends), to see Wicked in Tokyo. Now, I am sad to report that Wicked is the only Broadway show I have ever actually seen, but now I have seen it in two languages; so that basically rocks! We met up on Saturday afternoon in Tokyo and ventured to our hotel to drop our bags before lunch. Now Lauren is our travel coordinator extraordinaire, and she booked us a fabulous hotel that was fun and a little luxurious. The lobby smelled of fresh flowers and had marble floors and a rich wooden staircase.

Next we headed out to lunch and hit up a little Italian cafe with a great lunch special! It was great fun to sit and gab with a bunch of girls about nothing and everything at the same time. Even all the way over here in Japan, the little things are still the most important. We spent an hour and a half at lunch lounging and making new friends with our waiter. He was a fun Japanese guy who liked to try his hand at English while we were ordering in Japanese. He was showing us the display case full of dessert at the end of our meal and we couldn't see, so he said, "chotto sorry," which means, "little sorry." It was so funny that even the Japanese woman sitting at the table next to ours started laughing at the new Japanese/English expression.

We don't have many occasions to dress up here in Japan, so we decided to break out the fancy clothes to go to the theatre. After lunch we went back to the hotel to change and get ready for the show. The theatre was a little odd - it was a theatre tucked into a shopping mall - only in Japan. Our seats were up in the balcony, but as I suspected the theatre was the perfect size and our view was really incredible! I was so excited by how much of the show I actually understood (not just remembered from the last time)! I knew I was understanding because at certain times I really thought the translations could have been better at getting the true feeling of the scene across. The actors were quite good, but to be frank after seeing the original cast in New York - nothing will top Joel Grey and Leo Norbert Butz (and Kristen and Idina). As with every time I see a show (professional or just little community productions) I cannot wait to be back on stage performing for an audience of my own!

After the play, we discussed the content and I let my geekiness fly when I was explaining in painful detail the story and how it intertwined with the original Oz story. I embrace my obsessions. We went to a little British Pub and got some good dark beer, fish and chips, and Shepherd's pie. We talked more about our families, taxes, and cynicism vs. love (love wins every time - depending on who you ask). Naturally we did an hour of karaoke and went back to the hotel singing down the streets of Tokyo!

The next day, we all had to wake up and get back to our respective cities for other meetings and dates. I was meeting up with some people to do even more karaoke (big surprise at this point, I know). Notice the picture above of the billboard for the karaoke place. It's really an awful name, but they have pretty good machines. We ended up doing 5 and a half hours of karaoke and I was all sung out. No seriously, I was; but I got over it quickly...haha.

Now I am just back to my normal routine, teaching, reading, lounging. Hopefully more fun adventures to come soon! And thank you to everyone for playing Malarky with me! Maybe I throw in other trivia from time to time. If you have anything you want to post, do it! We all like playing!