I am not a fan of Japanese Enka but I really wish the singer in the hotel lounge would sing more of it. She has a pleasant voice and is a talented pianist but she keeps insisting on singing songs in English with the occasional Enka song thrown in. It’s not her voice that’s killing me but the pronunciation of the songs. I can’t cope with songs like “When I Wish Upon a Stair”, “Mimories”, and “Shimwhere Over the Lainbow”. Why am I still sitting here? It’s the only part of the hotel with a wireless network and I wanted to play Scrabulous. But I think I’m just going to go to bed.

Marty and I decided to have a less expensive meal tonight and went to the hotel’s buffet dinner. The word buffet can conjure up images of horrible generic dried up food but the food here was really good. Too good as it was hard to decide what to eat – though Marty seemed to have some of everything. I ended up having a prawn and papaya salad followed by steamed swordfish in a black bean sauce. I did have one dessert too many though as they had a chocolate fountain and I love fruit dipped in chocolate. I also like cake and had some of the coconut and pineapple cake as well. I probably shouldn’t have bothered with the chocolate ice cream but it just looked so tempting. Marty went for some sort of pancake as they had a chef who was making a variety of desserts. The only thing I would change is that I would notice sooner that the sparkler on my Mai Tai was causing bits of charcoal to float into my salad!

In the last couple of weeks Marty and I have been to see two stage productions: The Lion King at the Shiki Haru Theatre; and a performance of Carmen given by the Leningrad State Opera at the Orchard Hall.

The Lion King was amazing and since I know the story so well having this performed in Japanese didn’t really bother me (and since I really like opera which is rarely in English the concept isn’t that new to me). I have seen this musical in London but was horrified to work out that it has been around 8 years since I saw that performance. I still expect people to dress up for a musical like this and I think it might be the first time in ages that I have braved multiple train stations in high heels. When we got there I was really surprised by how the Japanese were dressed. The performance was quite early in the evening and nearly everyone was dressed casually or in their work clothes. It felt more like going to the cinema as before the performance people sat outside the theatre and ate bento and drank tea. We didn’t need to queue up in the same way I’ve done in London or New York as the entrance to the theatre was more like a cinema entrance with lots of places to sit around and relax before the performance began.

I went to see Carmen after sitting the JLPT last Sunday. This wasn’t an ideal time to see anything but Marty had gotten the tickets on short notice from someone in his office who could no longer go. I was wearing comfortable clothes as I didn’t want to sit an exam in a dress. We weren’t sure where the Orchard Hall was in Shibuya but when we got nearer to the venue I told Marty to just follow the women in formal wear and furs. He did say they could be going anywhere but really where else would you be going dressed like that on a Sunday afternoon? I was right and this time the Japanese were really dressed up. The clothes were amazing though I did see far too many dead animals draped around shoulders. I love the Japanese style formal wear but the taffeta dresses and black tie looked good too.

The Japanese are crazy about opera. Tickets for this event had sold out more than eight months ago. I have seen Carmen performed before but this was certainly the most expensive performance I have seen. They had a large chorus, full orchestra, a dance troupe and, a very expensive set. It was fun seeing the lead role played by two different woman – Carmen the dancer and Carmen the singer. The dancer, as would be expected, was slim and flexible and no one was going to believe, no matter what stage tricks they tried to pull, that the singer was the same woman. But it still worked and in Opera you always need to suspend belief when watching as the dark sexy hero is usually short, ugly and fat. We have been spoiled by Hollywood films where how a person looks is often more important then whether they have talent. In Opera the key thing is being able to sing.

I wasn’t sure that I liked the voice of the lead singer. She managed to both swallow and project her sound all at the same time which was rather strange. When she didn’t pull the sounds back into her throat she had the most beautiful alto sound but at other times she just sounded strange. The lead soprano on the other hand was utterly amazing and practically brought the audience to their feet at the end of each aria (and yes the Japanese yell “brava” which does sound rather strange not that I ever think it sounds normal). The Opera also didn’t start well as one of the lead males was flat in the first act and there seemed to be problem with all the singers keeping in time with the orchestra. This improved though with every act and by the fourth act the performance was brilliant. I also think we were watching the opening performance so it isn’t surprising that they had some problems with the sound set-up initially.

Marty had lots of fun reading the Japanese sub-titles. I was tired after the exam and didn’t bother to do that or even try to translate the French. Mind you the French pronunciation was quite strange and it took me much too long to realise that they were singing in French even though I knew that it was written in French.

I was a bit concerned about sitting the exam last week because there was a booklet full of rules and regulations sent before it. At least they make it easy for you to know if you have been disqualified. The football system of red and yellow cards is used which is probably much easier than trying to understand the Japanese and makes it easier for those adjudicating the exam. Everyone in my exam room behaved impeccably. No cards were handed out as everyone sat in silence, no phones went off, booklets were opened at the correct time, everyone stopped writing when they were told to and no one ate or drank.

I am used to eating during an exam and found it strange that I couldn’t have anything to chew on. There isn’t a lot of time during the exam so in the end I didn’t miss having a packet of sweets but I would have liked to have had a bottle of water as I did start to feel uncomfortable during the longer grammar and reading test.

There is a lot of sitting around as the instructions are played via CD very slowly before each test. And everything has to be checked and double-checked. Even at the end of each test you have to sit for around 10 minutes whilst the adjudicators count the number of mark sheets and test booklets, as these are not allowed to be removed from the room by those taking the test. I assume all the additional time at the start is there to make sure they have enough time to fix a problem if something goes wrong.

There was only one problem during the test. After the starting instructions for the grammar test one of the adjudicators forgot to switch off the CD player and he accidentally played the track telling us that we only had five minutes left. As it happened so early in the exam it just made everyone laugh and the exam continued.