Movies

On Saturday Husband-san and I went to the movies to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" - one of several movies playing in English with Japanese subtitles. Or more accurately, we tried to go to the movies. For those following my adventures, you know recent events have brought me to the conclusion that most everything done for the first time will have to be done twice; movie going as well.

We got to the theatre only to find out the only seats left for the show were in the front row. How do we know this you ask? Because in this theatre, all seats are reserved and the ticket taker showed us the seating chart. Since we didn't want to wait for the next show, we ended up buying tickets for the next day, which worked out better schedule wise. The ticket taker told us in the future we could by tickets on line and even wrote out the Japanese symbols we needed to click in order to purchase them. And, to make things even better, they have an "almost" senior citizen "Marriage 50" rate that we are eligible for!! So, instead of 1800 yen per ticket (about $17) it will be 1000 yen. Although we will need to buy the tickets at the box office for that.

They have many other rates too; for students, groups of students (the "friendship" price), ladies day all day Wednesday, and any showing on the first day of the month.

There are other differences as well. The concession stand has very little candy, popcorn in both regular and caramel, sandwiches, wine, beer, tea and coffee. And you get your purchases on a tray that you can carry into the theatre.

While we have the cute little blurbs about "no talking, cell phones, etc." showing how obnoxious people can be and the horrible things that will happen to them if they do, they show a very stylized "art house" short movie telling short stories about a woman at the movies, showing only her legs as she sits in the seat. The narrator tells the story and each one ends with the message "no talking, no kicking" the message being "if you do these things, this lovely woman with beautiful legs will not be able to enjoy the movie - you wouldn't want that now would you." It's the whole, "you are part of a bigger entity and as a proud Japanese person, you should want to keep this theatre in a harmonious state by not doing anything to shame yourself or your family" message. As long as people don't talk or kick, I'm happy. And they didn't - the theatre was silent.

Finally, everyone takes their garbage out when they leave the theatre. All in all, a lovely experience.