The Diva and The Dome

[Note to our readers: Sorry we've gotten a little behind in our postings. We've been traveling from place to place, and haven't had access to cheap and/or free internet. Now we are writing from a Coffee Bean on top of a Malaysian mountain. More about that later.]

Day 7: We said goodbye to beautiful Kyoto early Monday morning and winged our way back to Tokyo on the high-speed shinkansen. Our plan was to make our way to the famous Tokyo Dome baseball stadium and Tokyo Dome City complex to have lunch with an old friend of Sean and his sister Corey's, Nagi. Nagi is currently living in Tokyo and teaching English to corporate executives and rich Japanese kids. We re-connected with him the day before we left for Asia, when he contacted Sean and Corey through Facebook. Ah, technology.

The Tokyo Dome complex is like a mini-Disney World - games, shopping, restaurants, the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, and a world class spa and onsen. We grabbed some coffee and a bite with Nagi, and caught up on life in Tokyo, the ease of work for foreigners - particularly those who want to teach English (you can get a job in 2 weeks!), and our lives since Nagi and the McMahons last saw Nagi - pre-high school in NYC.

Then we got down to the real business of the day - Sean's $10 ride on the roller coaster, which goes through a building and over and under the ferris wheel. The pictures of Sean's post-ride smile say it all. Nagi and I grabbed some Italian lunch to Sinatra tunes, while Sean took a ride.

Next we made our way back on the trains to Urayasu and Andromeda's place. Dropped off our many bags, now filled with TONS of presents and new items from our Kyoto shopping sprees, and headed out to see our girl's show at Tokyo Disney.

Disney is EXTREMELY popular with the Japanese, which makes a lot of sense. They are perfectly matched cultures - immaculately clean, extremely efficient and all about consumerism. Even young Tokyoites go there in the evenings on dates. Very different from Orlando. We rode the $5 monorail to the Park gates, complete with Mickey strap hangers, and literally ran over to the Broadway Theater for the show. We had to run, because the Big Band Beat show is SO popular, that folks start queueing up about 90 minutes before curtain! See pics. Andromeda does not exaggerate.

Andromeda's #1 fan, Yoshie, her two adorable children (Aya and Ayumu), and her friend Noriko have seen the show nearly every day for the last year since Andromeda arrived. Sometimes several times a day - they have season passes to the Park. (These are the folks who treated us to the fireworks show a couple days prior.) The fans saved us prime seats in the 3rd row, offered us refreshments, and then ... curtain up!

Big Band Beat is SUCH a high-energy show - non-stop singing, dancing, high production, and smiling. All great American big band music with outrageously good Japanese jazz musicians (some of which are on Andromeda's new album), complete with a 10 minute finale of Sing Sing Sing, which Sue's mom would have loved (from her tap dancing days). Andromeda knocked her blues solo out of the park - 4 octaves and all! - in a custom made purple, beaded ensemble. Our only complaint with the show was that Daisy Duck emerged out of the mass of hot pink feathers and not our girl!

After the show, we met back up with the No. 1 fans, who gave us souvenir picture books of our time together at the fireworks show! Thank you, Yoshie, Aya, and Ayumu! We love them SO much and will keep them always to remember our time in Tokyo together! We headed to the employee entrance to meet up with the diva herself, who was showered with endless gifts and praise from her fans - she tells us that in normally takes her about 30 minutes to walk 100 feet, post-show due to the throngs of fans waiting to pose with her and get autographs. They were all saddened that Tuesday would be her last show. :(

Once we cleared the fans, we got onto the train to head into Shibuya for a celebratory dinner on our last night in Japan. Shibuya boasts the biggest intersection in the world - it makes Times Square look like it might as well be in Little Rock. The Diva wanted video of her strutting across Shibuya in her leopard stilettos, and cameraman Sean obliged.

We went to one of Andromeda's favorite Tokyo restaurants, La Boheme, for some delicious Italian food, where we met with DJ Emma's manager and our new Tokyo friend, Akiko. After dinner Akiko took us to this fabulous bar/lounge called Mado on the 52nd Floor of the very posh Roppongi Hills complex, with out of this world views of nighttime Tokyo. Our stay was limited because we had to catch the last train back to Shin-Urayasua, or face the choice of staying out until 5 am or take a $100 cab ride back to Andromeda's. So we bid a fond farewell to beautiful, idiosyncratic, hospitable, bustling Tokyo - until we meet again.

On the train ride home we met two very fun Japanese girls, who loved Sex and the City, and apparently Sean's ass, which they pointed to and giggled "Sexy, sexy!" causing him to turn all kinds of red. The only other time Sue has seen him blush was when we went to see Salma Hayek speak at the New School. :)

Final Japanese Phrase of the day:

Sayonara, Nippon - Goodbye, Japan!