Linking Maine and Japan

Konnichiwa!

It’s raining down hard tonight in Tokyo. But it didn’t ruin my evening plans, because I saw a Giants/Dragons baseball game in Tokyo Dome, and it’s covered. What an experience going to a baseball game in Tokyo! The fans are so orderly and organized, they all chant the same chant in unison! The home team lost (7-4), but Wally met some new friends. The game was sold out, but we managed to get tickets in the very last row of the highest seating area in the stadium. We were just to the right of home plate, and the seats were really pretty good!

This morning we walked to the Tsukiji Fish market. It must be the size of at least four football fields. It has more than 400 species of freshly caught seafood, weighing over 2,500 tons every day. We watched the tuna auction and took some interesting pictures. There is a stone monument near the exit. They say it is there to appease the souls of fish that pass through Tsukiji. We left the hotel at 5:00 a.m. so we could be back in time for our lectures and seminars that began at 9:00.

Something exciting happened at our hotel today. There were lots of security police and they even shut down the elevators to our floor for a while. This morning the crown prince (the emperor’s son) and the prime minister met on the 11th floor of our hotel. I don’t know why it was here, and not in the imperial palace. One of the teachers saw them, but I was eating breakfast.

Sessions today included one on Peace Education, with interviews with a survivor of Hiroshima and the daughter of a Hiroshima victim. We also had a presentation of kabuki theatre, with a lecture to explain more about it. We also met to iron out details about our trip after Tokyo.
Sunday is a travel day. We will take a train to Himeji, the prefecture we will visit for 10 days. I am not sure what my computer accessibility will be there, so I wanted to be sure to touch base today.

Sayonara!
Mrs. Grumbling