While in Japan this summer Jonah and I took a night bus tour of Kyoto which lasted only a few hours and in typically overpriced Japanese fashion cost 8,000 yen ($80) per person. The final stop on the tour was the theater which was run by the "strict spotlight method". This consists of all centimeters of the stage populated by actors and props for the entire duration while the strong spotlight strictly guides the audience's eyes to one particular activity at a time as the rest of the stage is blanketed in darkness. What then happens to some of us is that we want to stare at everything that's in the dark and not spotlighted because it's the same part of the brain that wants to laugh maniacally in a library. Accompanying this method was an overly enunciated Japanese-American voice narrating too dramatically. Here we see the aaaaancient aaaart of flower arraaaaangement, Ikebaaaaaana. Oh but it was worth it.

Especially for the dance theater:

And the puppet theater:

We were riveted:

Oniichann: Kore wa jyoudann desu! Jitsuwa totemo tanoshikatta desu. Arigatou!