The Tokyo Symphony

Shino, the harpist for the Tokyo Symphony, is such a badass. Whenever I run into her at Diglight, I momentarily forget she is Japanese and I say something like "Oh, Hey! What's Up?" Then I realize she doesn't understand English, and after that I realize I don't know any informal nightly greetings in Japanese. So I kind of stare blankly for second.

Anyway, as I said earlier, she gave me two tickets to see the Tokyo Symphony at the Tokyo Geijutsu Gekijo in Ikebururo, which is literally 15 minutes from my flat. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't find anyone to go with. I asked all the girls I know in town and they turned me down for one reason or another. Double-unfortunately for me, all these girls are friends with each other. You know how girls are; the next time they meet they'll get to talking about how I asked all of them out to the concert, one by one. Then they are going to decipher the order in which I asked them and get super-jealous of each other. They'll start saying things like, "What an asshole!" "What a jerk!" as then quickly fall back in love with me. So maybe I'm not so unfortunate after all...

OK, OK, I'm being glib, I also asked some guy friends. Everyone is busy in this town, what should I expect? I'm getting away from the original point. Allow me to return.

The Geijutsu Gekijo has three halls, with one of the longest escalators in the world leading to the main hall. The architecture of the building is absolutely magnificent and no camera can truly illustrate the dominance of the massive complex.


The concert was pretty good. The orchestra played a few Western pieces as well as two modern Japanese pieces. I'll save my musical critique for another time.

Ironically, Shino only played on one piece at the very end of the concert. She was great though; the conductor singled her out for a personal ovation at the end of the piece.