Sumo Tournament

Last Sunday I went to the Sumo tournament at the Ryogoku Kokugikan, the sumo stadium in Tokyo.  Facts about the Kokugikan: it was opened in 1985 and holds 13,000 people!  As the day went on the stadium definitely filled up!

We arrived at about noon and saw some of the junior wrestlers compete.  In sumo the wrestlers are called rishiki.  Here is the stadium at the beginning of the day.  The ring - called a dohyo - is covered by a roof like a shrine.

We ate obento named for the wrestlers for lunch.

 Here is the inside of the obento.  It had unagi (eel), rice, chicken tenders vegetables, a slice of Japanese omelet and some other things.  It was really tasty!

Not too much later they introduced the young sumo wrestlers that were at their first tournament.  They around 15 years old.  The fancy aprons they wear (called kesho-mawashi) are very expensive and since they are so young they borrow them from their mentors.

 This picture isn't the best, but it is an example of what happens when the judges disagree with the referee (the gyoji).  They usually sit one on each side of the ring, but when a decision about the match is unclear they gather in the ring and make a decision.

 Here is one way to win - if the rishiki leaves the ring or touches the ground with anything but his feet he loses.

 At around 2 pm we went outside to see the senior rishiki arrive.  It was very exciting and many people were outside waiting. The security officers had to keep reminding people to stay back and leave enough room for the rishiki to pass.

 We were so close!

 This young boy was so excited to see the rishiki!  He knew all of their names - he was really into it!

 At the beginning of match the man with the flag sings out the names of each of the rishiki fighting.  Then they enter the ring and begin to show their strength and flexibility.  They have four minutes before they must begin.

 In this picture you can see that the stadium is really filling up!  The wrestler on the left is one of the skinniest rishiki we saw all day.

 The senior wrestlers enter the room wearing the kesho mawashi and perform a small ceremony after being introduced.

 The most senior rishiki throw salt into the ring before they wrestle to purify the ring.  They do this 2-3 times each.  Sometimes they throw a lot and it arcs through the air.  The crowd really seemed to like that!

 Here is some of the show of strength that they do before the bout.  They pick their legs up and slam them back down.  Also, they hit themselves and sometimes pump their arms up and down.

 For the very top wrestlers there are prizes if they win their match.  These flags list the prizes.  For the very top bouts there were almost 30 prizes!

 Both rishiki have to put their fist onto the ground before they start to wrestle.  Once that happens they move pretty fast!

 I had such a good time at the tournament, I was sad when it ended!

A week of dorm food

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my Dad, and he was surprised to learn I had fish for breakfast!  So, I thought I would take pictures of the dorm food for a week to share what the meals are like here!  The week I documented we worked Tuesday - Saturday.

Tuesday morning starts with some eggs!  I don't know what the brown wedges are called (or what they are made of), but they are delicious and one of my favorite things!  Also, macaroni salad and rice.  Also offered was miso soup and natto.

 Tuesday night I have Japanese lessons and I forgot to take a picture of my dinner out, so we will have to skip to Wednesday morning!

Wednesday morning was tasty with salad, chicken and vegetables in a gravy-like sauce, sesame spinach (another favorite!), rice and miso soup.

 Wednesday night was interesting.  We had fried flatfish with an onion-y sauce, dumplings, half a potato croquette, spicy vegetables, rice and miso soup.  This flatfish is one of the more challenging foods to eat that I have encountered yet!

 Here is the aftermath of the flatfish - I'm still not sure if I ate as much as I left behind...

 Thursday morning brought A stir fry of pork and various vegetables (bean sprouts, carrots, cabbage, etc), salad, rice and miso soup.    A pretty healthy breakfast.

 Thursday night we had a cream stew with sausage, chicken, carrots, potatoes and some other veggies, salad with ham and boiled eggs and rice.  This was pretty tasty, and perfect for a cold night!

 Friday morning we had a "western style" breakfast.  A tuna sandwich, fried ham sandwich, apples, pasta salad, yogurt, a creamy soup and some juice.  I was a little sad that the sandwich roll with soba noodles didn't show up for a picture.  :)

 Friday night was delicious fried salmon, japanese omelet, japanese eggplant (which I like a lot more than the variety back home), some other veggies, an orange slice and rice and miso soup. This was good!

 Saturday morning was a very Japanese breakfast - salmon, spinach, those brown wedges again, salad, rice and miso soup.

 And finally for Saturday night we had something listed on the menu as "hash rice".  Basically meat and vegetables in a sauce with rice - it looked like curry but tasted different.  Also, pasta salad, vegetables and part of a hot dog and yogurt.

I hope this post gave everyone some ideas about the food in the dorm.  It's pretty good overall, and the man who cooks it does a good job!  He must be so busy buying and preparing all of this food!  Breakfast starts at 6:30 am, and dinner doesn't finish up until 10 pm.  A woman comes and helps with dinner around 8, but it is still a lot of work!

Nagoya weekend - Museums and Osu Kannon Temple

In Nagoya the second place I went was the Toyota history museum.  I had read good things about it, and it was one of the stops on the tourist bus loop, so I thought I would give it a try even though cars aren't really my thing.  It turned out to be really interesting!

I didn't know that Toyota started as a loom company, and was originally called Toyoda.  Automatic shuttle replacement on looms was their goal, and there were many prototypes of different looms and mechanisms to do it!

First they shows how cotton was cleaned and turned into thread.  It was pretty cool, and you could touch it at each stage and see how it got soft and spun up.  Also, most of the machines had a button that would make them go, or an attendant that would do it for me!  I love to interact with things!

 This machine is the workings of the one above.  It cleans the cotton and puts it into batting-like sheets.

 These looms were all connected together, about 9 of them.  They made a lot of noise when they were going.  The straps go up to the ceiling and are wound around a shaft driven by motors to make them all go.  The cloth hanging in the front is an example of what these looms made.

 This loom made patterns in the fabric by using these punch cards.  It was pretty amazing technology for the time really!

 This is an example of a much more modern loom.  Times sure have changed!

 Moving into the car area there was one huge room with many models of cars from the early days of Toyota until modern cars like the Prius. There was also some examples of the machinery that puts together the cars on the assembly line.  There was one guide who was really excited for me to push all the buttons to make them all go at the same time!  It was exciting!

 There were lots of examples of motors.  Also, one of them showed how the motor moves in different ways in different gears - I found it quite informative.

 There was also some examples of the instruments they used early on to make sure that the materials (mostly metals) that they were using were of the right strength, hardness and malleability.  I was very interested in these old time-y instruments!

 Here is another look at the assembly line robot area.  It was huge!

Here is one of the oldest cars they had there.  It was meant to mostly be a taxi, which is why the backseat is so roomy.  One of the museum guides opened the doors for me and told me all about the car, and then she honked it's very loud horn!  The guides were so nice, they would let you look into any car that you asked to!

 On my last day in Nagoya it poured rain all day.  This ruined my plans to go to a park with a waterfall, but it did give me a chance to go to Nagoya's giant science museum that houses what it claims is the world's largest planetarium (it has a diameter of 35 meters).  It sure does look impressive!

 I thought this was cool, it is a schematic of how a sewing machine works!  I watched it for a while - it always amazes me how simple they really are!

 It wasn't long before I found my corner of the museum!  Look at all those molecules!  I think the way they displayed them make it look so cool!

 They even had a periodic table of actual elements (except the radioactive ones, of course!)  I spent a lot of time looking at some of the more obscure ones that I have never seen before.

 I had to see the planetarium, and it was quite impressive.  The stars looked so real!  But, with the presentation in Japanese and the reclining chairs and the dark, I fell asleep about half way though!  Oops!  But when I looked around at the end, I saw I wasn't the only one!

 Osu Kannon Temple was within walking distance to my hotel, so I spent Sunday afternoon/evening there.  There was a long line to go inside and ring the gong like thing.  People prayed first, but I just threw a few coins in the box and shook the rope that hit the gong.

 There was some really cool graffiti/street art near the temple.

 Also near the temple was a huge shopping arcade.  I browsed in all the shops and ate small snacks at a few different stands instead of having a regular dinner.  I love a shopping arcade!

In all, I had a great time in Nagoya!  I don't usually tend to visit bigger cities, so it was a nice change.  Also, the level of English signage and maps and overall support was really helpful to me!  I would definitely recommend it!

Nabana no Sato Illumination

My first night in Nagoya I boarded a bus bound for Nabana no Sato to see the illumination that was set up.  This was the main reason I visited Nagoya!  Nabana no Sato is a popular flower garden in the summer time, but in winter when nothing is in bloom they fill it with millions of lights!

It took me a while to find the bus station, and I finally found it inside a department store building!  I bought a ticket and away I went - it was about a 30 minute bus ride.  Once I got there, it was amazing!  There were lights everywhere, and that was just the outside!

Inside the river was lit up with lights. They flowed in time with music to make it look like the river was flowing!

All of the trees were lit up, they did a very good job of covering them with lights!




There was a ride called Island Fuji that ascended into the air so you could get a view of the whole park lit up.  The line was super long, so I didn't try it out.  I love the way the water was so calm that the reflections were perfect in it!

 There were two light tunnels, the first one was white.  It was so bright inside it was like daylight!  It was really long - from the beginning I couldn't see the end!

 All of the lights in this tunnel were shaped like flowers!!

 I was amazed at how many lights they had to use to make everything look so awesome!

 The second tunnel was pink lights with pink leaves. This one curved around a bunch, but wasn't as long as the first one.

The main attraction of the illumination was a light show with a projection screen and lots of lights behind it.  The whole field around it was lit in blue lights - it was amazing!  I am so glad that I decided to go to Nagoya to see this, it was really something special to see!