What a day, what a day! :) They warned me it would happen, and sure enough, it did. Officially, I hit the sack last night at around 11:15 p.m. (not too shabby considering I'd been up with essentially no sleep since 7:30 a.m. on Monday morning.) After just over 5 hours sleep, I woke up fully refreshed and ready to go. "Ha HA!" I thought to myself, "I've got this traveling thing mastered. Absolutely NO jet lag." I went through most of the day today feeling fine...bright eyes, bushy tail...but once we finished up our last session of the afternoon at around 5:00 p.m., I scarcely made it back to my room before I figured it out: When fighting a battle with Father Time (or in this case, 父の時間) I will pretty much NEVER be the victor. What's it they say? Never get involved with a Sicilian when death is on the line? I say never underestimate Father Time when your stay in Tokyo is on the line. :) So I suppose all this is just to admit...WOW! I'm tired! Today, we made it out to do a bit of organized sight-seeing. After boarding the bus at 9:00 a.m., we went by the Detached Palace, and saw the Supreme Court. Our first official stop was The Diet building (which is a little like our House of Representatives.) We took a quick tour and caught all of the building's highlights...but the best part of The Diet was getting to see all of the Japanese school-children on field trips there! They were all SO excited to see us, and clamored for photos whenever a camera was raised. Walking back to the bus, they asked us all sorts of questions (one child in particular was extremely enthusiastic about soccer. But the most impressive part was that he spoke fluent enough English that I was able to understand most of what he was trying to convey. :) )
After leaving The Diet, we went by the Imperial Palace, then on to Asakusa for lunch (scrumptious tempura that I ate with chopsticks! I only dropped one piece in my lap! YAY ME! :) ) Unfortunately, our stop at Asakusa was fairly brief. I had just enough time after eating to pop in to the paper store (which doesn't sound super exciting, but totally was), and run by the temples and shrines. Of course, I zig-zagged my way through the marketplace on my way from landmark to landmark. Hey...you're only in Tokyo once, right? :p
We returned to the hotel in time to change for the Kyogen performance. It was interesting, but also a little foreign (which makes some sense, 'cause, duh? It IS foreign. :) ) The dialogue between characters, although translated into English, was performed with the musicality and rhythm of the Japanese language, so...it sounded strange at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly and, overall, greatly enjoyed the performance.
After a brief period to rest and check email, we gathered together for our official "Welcome to Japan" reception. As has become the norm for this trip, there were a number of dignitaries there who offered us their congratulations and best wishes. And of course, there was more yummy food. :)
So what's on the agenda for tomorrow? Well...I guess you'll just have to wait and see...but it's certain to be another amazing day in Japan! ;)
Chat back at you soon!
Ja mata! :)
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