Kabuki Tickets: Don't Leave Home Without Them

Matsuzaki-san handed me two tickets for today's kabuki program last week. She didn't want to be responsible for remembering to tuck the tickets in her purse on the big day. I should have promptly passed the buck and tickets to Fearless, the only member of my current circle of playmates who is not afflicted with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, but I attached them to my refrigerator with a cute magnet instead.

I remembered the tickets. Unfortunately, we were already in Yokohama at the time and Matsuzaki-san was squeezing her car into the narrowest elevator in a land of narrow elevators while Fearless and I held our combined breath.

We did eventually manage to gain entrance to the theater but you're going to have to wait a day or so to join me there.  First we're going to visit the Hotel New Grand since Matsuzaki-san went to so much trouble to park her car so she could treat us to lunch before the show.

By sheer happenstance, we ran into Matsuzaki's uncle in the hotel lobby, the first time they've crossed paths in a number of years. She's sixty-four so I'd peg him as an octagenarian. I find that age group quite adorable but I managed to resist the urge to hug him.

After Fearless and I took advantage of the photo op, Matsuzaki-san introduced us to Mr. Seto, a hotel employee of twenty years' standing who doesn't look a day over thirty.  Mr. Seto had quite a treat in store for the gaijin ladies.

He led us down a long corridor, past a fancy Gump's gift shop decked out for the holidays, into the original hotel which was erected in the late 1920s. The grand staircase had an "Art Deco meets the Arts and Crafts Movement" look to my admittedly less than discerning eye. We followed Mr. Seto up the stairs and into a small elevator that groaned as it lifted us to the third floor where (drum roll, please) we walked down a plushly carpeted hallway to a corner room.

Mr. Seto has the key to MacArthur's Suite!

Fearless and Peevish admire General MacArthur's desk

Photographs of General MacArthur decorate the suite nowadays

Back on the first floor, Mr. Seto let us peek into the room where Matsuzaki's wedding took place. This was as thrilling as seeing MacArthur's Suite, at least for me.

As we left Mr. Seto to check out the gift shop and return to the new part of the hotel to have lunch, he mentioned in passing that the "Imperial Couple" had visited the hotel for dinner last evening.

Fearless studies the hotel's history gallery

I believe Babe Ruth once visited the New Grand Hotel

And that's a young Emperor Hirohito, if I'm not mistaken

Maybe now you understand why it's going to take me a couple of days to get to the kabuki performance.