Hannah And Me Outing

 Yesterday Hannah and I went to the city to watch a musical.  Lovely musical, Crazy For You, nice late lunch, good shopping, and magical Christmas lights.  But exhausting, totally exhausting!!

The exhausting part started as soon as we got to the station.  Hannah looked at the board and saw that the train that we needed to get would be arriving at 9:31 (Japanese trains are nearly always on time to the minute), it was 9:28.  I got down the flight of stairs to get to the platform, then got in the elevator to get up to the platform (the walkways between the platform are underground) but it was the wrong elevator and took us back to where we had started from, got back in the elevator, went down to the walkways again and could hear the announcement for the train, ran, other rather hobbled along to the stairs, climbed up them as fast as possible only to hear Hannah say it was the wrong train.  The destination was right but it was the express train that you have to pay extra for.  Not a good start to the day.  We had a short wait but it was so cold.  The winter so far has been very mild, last week a couple of days were up to 23C.  Yesterday was very cold, high of only 4C, and snow flurries!!

When we got to the city we planned to walk to the place where the theatre is.  It's a shopping, hotel, entertainment center, and business center.  It's about 15 minutes walk from the station complex but when we got to the exit we changed our minds.  The snow was really coming down and because of all the tall buildings, the wind seemed a long stronger than it really was.  We got the subway.  It's only one stop from the station but very deep, about 5 floors down.  

The station we arrived at was very nice, they had a display of artists' work and other historical things, very clean and well cared for.

Some of the displays in the subway station

When we got to the shopping mall we ran into problems.  Hannah needed to find a convenience store to put money on her electric payment app.  We walked from one end to the other but couldn't find one.  By that time we had to get to the theartre for the start of the musical.

The poster

Cast list

theatre name

I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to follow the plot.  Most of the musicals I've watched have been ones that I know the story to and are therefore easy to understand.  I've seen bits of Crazy For You but not the whole thing and had a vague idea of the story.  I was amazed at how easy it was to follow.  The actors were very good and of course, the singing and dancing were incredible.  I really enjoyed it and wished that we could see more musicals!!!!

After that, we had a little something to eat.  We had a snack beforehand but was feeling a bit peckish.  Went to an Italian restaurant.  Pizza, fried shrimp, soup and fried potatoes, nice, filling and warming.

Hannah enjoying lunch!!

We went back to the station and did a bit of shopping.  By that time the Christmas lights were on.  Really beautiful.  Also, they had a live singer with an incredible voice.   We didn't stay long as it was bitterly cold but it was nice to see.  We haven't been for a few years because of the pandemic so this was a real treat.

Really beautiful.

All in all a really nice day out.  I don't get that often, I can't drive and even though I can walk to the local shops I don't as often as I used to.  I need to get more confidence in my ability to walk.  Having a bad knee meant that I didn't try to walk that much but now it feels better (but not fixed, just I lost some weight) I should try to get out more.

Dad called last night.  Asked why I didn't write about him "Working 40 bloody hours a week to pay for Christmas"  Sorry Dad.  And thank you.  Not only for working so much but showing that your family was important that you would take on any job to pay the rent and put food on the table.  It was easy to write about Mom because she was the one who did the Christmas things but just as important was  Dad who made the money!