Cold, kabuki and Harajuku
The colored leaves are very beautiful here, but the weather turned cold in the second half of the month. There’s no central heating in either of my two schools, nor do the bathrooms have hot water (although one school has a state-of-the-art toilet with a heated seat), so while it’s not that cold in absolute terms, I’m pretty cold most of the time I’m not in my apartment. For a few days before the school decided to put out the kerosene space heaters, I had trouble marking papers because I couldn’t feel my fingers. But on the bright side, I brought all of my wool socks with me, and the kerosene heater set up in the teacher’s room is directly behind my desk. Also, since I’m a teacher, I don’t have to wear short skirts everyday like the female students. The female students (and not a few female teachers) bring fleece blankets every day to cover their legs—the blankets are usually pretty cute too, often with a carrying case and everything, so I might invest in one.
Earlier in the month, I went to see kabuki (a type of traditional Japanese theater) in Ginza. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay awake through all five hours of it, but it turned out to be pretty entertaining. I understood most of it thanks to the earphone guide, which most everybody used, including the native Japanese. I think kabuki is a little like Shakespeare, in that modern English speakers can understand it with some difficulty, and there are a lot of references which need extra explanation. Also, kabuki is performed by men only, and there are very intricate costumes and makeup. None of the actors used a microphone, although the auditorium was quite large, but I don’t think anyone had trouble hearing. I didn’t get a chance to see much of Ginza itself, so I’ll have to save that for the next trip.
I also went to Harajuku, fashion street, and got a tourist-y t-shirt with the character for fortune. Harajuku is known for the oddly dressed and made-up people who gather around a famous bridge to be photographed by tourists, like me. Unfortunately, the photographs are trapped in my cell phone still. My travel guide says it’s young women who dress up in costumes and come to the bridge, but there were men too, and not just younger ones. While eating in a restaurant, I saw an older man go by wearing fake breasts and earrings with goldfish in them—he stopped and posed outside the window to let my friend get a picture, of course.
