Christmas Wonderland - weekend in Tokyo


This weekend we went to Tokyo to see the Broadway production of Christmas Wonderland! We had tickets for the opening show on Saturday December 17th at noon at the Tokyu Theater Orb. It was quite the production - lots of singing and dancing and amazing sets and backdrops. Unfortunately it was a "no photography" type event so I don't have pics from the show, but below are a few taken before the show, at intermission, and after the show. (it was a completely sold out show so the empty seats you see are only due to intermission)

They passed out Santa hats to everyone and everyone wore them! Poor dad has a large head and it was a little warm in the theater so he only wore his for the picture.

The theater is located on the 11th floor of a department type store. The views from the large windows in the theater lobby were awesome.

Something interesting is that after the show is over no one gets up out of their seats. You wait until your section of the theater is dismissed. There is no fussing or complaining, people just wait nicely. 

While riding the elevator up it dawned on us that we would need to ride back down. We were predicting chaos - with everyone trying to jam onto the elevators all at once. But it was very organized with lots of theater workers directing people to line up in rows for the elevators. We were down to the main floor in maybe 10 min. Not bad at all!










We actually rode the train into Tokyo on Friday night and went to the temple. Our friends Chad and Sloan work at the temple on Friday nights so we met them after we finished. We both had reservations to spend the night at the New Sanno hotel. It's run by the Navy and is located within walking distance of the temple in Hiroo. The price we pay is amazing considering it's location in the heart of Tokyo - so convenient!

This weekend we happened to get a room on the top floor with a view of the temple and the Tokyo Tower. The view at night was great - Moroni high above the other buildings and the Tower lit up in Christmas colors. But I didn't think my camera could capture it, so I waited until morning to take pics from our room. Zoom in to find Moroni.

Saturday morning we met Chad and Sloan for the breakfast buffet before we went to the show. We were able to leave the Guisinger's car parked at New Sanno all day for not cost! We took the train to Shibuya Station which is right next to the theater. I had never seen the famous "Shibuya Scramble" where the pedestrian light turns green and tons of people cross the street in all directions all at once. It was something.... but being a Saturday it was not as packed as it is on the work day.

Shibuya Station also has a famous statue of Hachiko the dog who waited for his master everyday at the station. After his master passed away, Hachiko continued to go to the station each day for NINE years, until he passed away. It's one of the most popular meeting places in Tokyo.

(The last pic is one pic that I had to take from a distance - it's a guy dressed in a crazy get-up. You don't see stuff like that very often in Japan. I zoomed in so you can better see his strange dress, let me just tell you - the back of his shorts are a thong! Ewww, yes it was bad! But at least he has his mask on....)





















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