Day 4: Kabuki, festivals, food, and more...

After our session on Peace Education, we had the opportunity to learn about traditional Japanese theater. Kabuki theater began as the popular theater of the commoner class in the Edo Period and presently is being performed commercially. It is full of fascinating movements and sounds that many of us are not familiar with.

Later we found one of the more popular shrines in Tokyo. It is carefully tucked away and surrounded by trees to give the a area a very tranquil quality. We found out that there was a festival that night so we ended up seeing part of it that night. We arrived late to the festival because we were trying to eat. We found a place to go into and tried to order off the Japanese menu. It took us a while because we had to do a lot of pointing and hand gestures. We ended up spending a good deal of money for a small amount of food. They were very nice and helpful, but it was tough to figure out what to order. We ended up eating some noodles, interesting kabobs, and a spring roll. I am sure we had appetizers instead of a meal, but it was still really fun to try to figure it out. We ate and left for the festival where we saw people dancing and eating. The dance was very similar to line dancing with very careful and deliberate movements. I enjoyed some more noodles while watching the dancing until we eventually left for the hotel. It was a really fun night, but I needed to get some sleep for tomorrow's long day. Enjoy the pictures.