April 3

The next morning we went to a Japanese department store right as it opened. It was a very big deal. Everyone was gathered outside, and about 5 minutes before it opened, a couple of Japanese saleswomen came outside and made a little presentation in Japanese, English, and sign language. The presentation basically said, Welcome, Enjoy your shopping. When the store opened, the whole staff of the first floor was standing at their stations and all bowed and said welcome as you walked by. It was quite the experience. We didn't buy anything at the store because it was it was heinously expensive (things like $200 for a scarf or $2000 for a pair of shoes). They did have a nice art gallery in the department store though, and we looked around there for a while.
Afterward, we explored Ginza, which is the super high-end part of Tokyo. They have all of the really expensive stores there. We were there on a Saturday, so they had closed off the street to traffic, there were so many people there. Even once we realized what was happening, it was still weird to see tables and benches set up in the middle of the street:


Next we tried to find a the O-Kome Rice Gallery... a gallery of the latest things in the world of rice, plus free samples. Unfortunately, the guide book said it was on the first floor but there was a restaurant there instead...so... let's try the second floor:


Hmm.. nope... 3rd floor?


EEk, not there either... 4th floor?


Yeah, that's definitely not it. Oh well


Since we were nearby, we stopped at the Kabukiza theater to buy Kabuki tickets. The theater is pretty:


Sadly, the theater is closing at the end of the month for refurbishments, so all the tickets are sold out. No kabuki for us. Much sadness.
After that, we tried to find the Sony Building, to check out their gallery. No success on that front either (later we found that we had the wrong location on the map...we'll try again another day). But - we did find an awesome and random place! It was a few alleys jam packed with people and fresh fish. Also some samples here, and THE BEST nori I've ever tasted...mmm... I wish I'd bought more.


We were a bit tired after that, so we went home and watched Japanese game shows. Pure awesome, by the way.