IrishOboe

For those of you who are keeping track, this weekend comes right after my crazy night out to dinner and karaoke with fellow teachers and right before the week of exams. Friday (Sept 23) was this Autumnal Equinox so there was no school. I slept in until 9am recovering from the night out. I had the urge for pancakes so I walked to the train station to retrieve my bike and go to the store. They were out of maple syrup so I had to go to another store and in this close comparison I was able to see just how much more expensive the close store is compared to the far store. This is part of what inspired my search for another store (which I wrote about, I think). Anyway, after a breakfast of pancakes I cleaned a bit and studied Japanese. I then took the 4pm train to Otsuki where Meagan and Chris (husband and wife fellow Christians and she’s a JET) live, so we could hang out and go to Tokyo together the next day. Otsuki is halfway between Kofu (where I am) and Tokyo so it only took me about an hour to get there and it put me much closer to Tokyo for the next day. I listened to my Japanese tapes on the train and Meagan and Chris met me at the station and we stopped for pizza on the way back to their place, which is in a lovely little spot. We had dinner and watched some movies since they are big movie fans and I trusted their taste in movies better than my non-Christian friends. First we saw The Last Samurai. I don’t know if I would have reacted differently to it if I’d seen it before I came to Japan, but I really enjoyed it very much. That is, after I determined that it had no grounding in logic or history whatsoever. It’s a beautiful fantasy story that borrows the culture of Japan for its setting. It is also a wonderful look into what is beautiful about Japanese culture. I don’t know too much about it, but from what I do know it seems fairly accurate from that standpoint. I wouldn’t, however, recommend it to children since it is about samurai (warriors) so there is a fair amount of fighting. Even so, it is 90% tastefully done (and I can forgive the 10% of it that was a little too graphic for me) and the closest you get to a sex scene is a kiss. I’m glad to know that Hollywood hasn’t forgotten how to elicit strong feelings without being vulgar.

Anyway, back to my weekend. We watched another movie, perhaps not the wisest move, but I enjoyed “Terminal.” Tom Hanks does a great job with the role, but I won’t go into a review of that movie, too. Afterwards we went right to bed and were up in the morning at 6am.

Saturday (Sept 24^th) we took the 7am train to Ueno Eki (station) and visited the National Science Museum. There was some English in places, but it was quite frustrating to not have a clue what was going on! It was an impressive display of all kinds of things. They had a sample Period Table of the elements (with samples of the elements shown), and the biggest collection of bugs and birds I had ever seen. I could see it being a great place to have an annual pass to if I were homeschooling in Japan, which apparently is possible but very difficult. Anyway, we spent about three or so hours there then we went to the station to have lunch at the Hard Rock Café there. It was Chris’s request, but I have never enjoyed a burger and fries as much as I did then. I’ve been eating mostly Japanese and the last time I had a burger was at McDonalds in the first month. I’m not a big burger fan, but if you’ve been away for a while it sure does taste good.

After lunch we met up with the other JETs at the sumo arena. As we were walking there we saw some of the wrestlers outside in their yukata (robes) and they had their hair done up the way the samurai did in the movie last night and they looked good! I wonder if the movie gave me more appreciation for the ceremony of sumo. In any case, I really enjoyed the four plus hours we were there. I know in America we think (or I did at least) of sumo wrestlers as very fat clumsy looking Japanese men in diapers who make all the water fly out of pools when they jump in (it must have been a commercial sometime), but only some of them are really fat. Most looked like football players and some looked positively trim. I don’t know how they show sumo on TV, but live it is a very artistic production. The ring is small and at the center of the stadium, which is much like a western stadium except that the bottom level doesn’t have seats it has cushions. The ring is on a square platform raised a few feet from the ground and housed under a traditional Japanese roof (we were above this roof in the nosebleed section, but it was high enough from the platform that we could still see everything). There were six judges in black robes and with fancy hairdos on the ground around the ring and spectator cushions were directly behind them. I’m sure that doesn’t happen in America, but audiences here are so polite. In fact, the whole thing had a flavor of awe and respect. The referee stood to one side of the ring and was dressed very elaborately and colorfully. I’m not sure what all his job entails, but one of them is singing. He sings to each contestant whilst spreading out his fan to them before they come into the rink. It is a simple chant, but it is beautiful and it helps give the experience a sacred feel. His voice fills the arena and I found it quite beautiful.

The first few hours were of the lower level sumo wrestlers and they matches moved along quickly because they didn’t do much ceremony before the match. When the big guys (not necessarily literally) came on there was a good deal of ceremony that included stretching, stamping and squatting (all very controlled and artistically done) and the ritual throwing of salt into the rink (for purification). Mostly matches were done in 10secs. Some were done in 2 seconds and one very unusual one lasted so long that they took a break in the middle to refresh themselves.

Before each division all the sumo wrestlers came out with their banner outfits (I don’t know how to describe it), but they all matched their mawashi (diapers) and were very colorful and elaborate. Really, you don’t notice that they are mostly naked at all. I thought it would have been a distraction, but I guess there was too much going for that to be a focus. I suppose if I were on the bottom level and were right behind of them it would be a different story.

I don’t like sporting events much, and I really don’t like wrestling, so I think why I liked sumo so much was that it wasn’t a hate-filled sport, or at least it didn’t show. The wrestlers bowed before and after matches, helped each other in the rink, gracefully accepted defeat and humbly accepted victory. They were in control of their bodies and their minds the whole time. Even the big wigs who might have had more to loose and more ego showed only the slightest bit less restraint than the others. I think American athletes have a lot to learn from sumo wrestlers. I think sumo wrestlers get paid a lot of money too, so that can’t be the reason . . .

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed my time and was very happy I went. If you ever get the chance you should go! Afterwards I went with Mike, James, and a few of their Japanese friends out to dinner at another amazingly themed restaurant near Shinjuku station (where we were for orientation). I can’t describe it, but it was cool. There I had the best eel sushi I’d ever had. I had to sit there and eat nothing else for 10min just so I could enjoy the taste in my mouth for longer. Wow! Of course, the meal wasn’t cheap, but it’s Tokyo. The trains in Tokyo are very confusing and it ended up costing me a lot to get home because I’d read them wrong. Luckily my new Japanese friends straightened things out for me and told me where to go. I took the express train home (because the locals weren’t running after 9pm) and I wasn’t impressed at all. They weren’t that fast, they weren’t comfortable (I had to stand most of the time because there were no seats) and they are much more expensive! I got home, though, and that’s what matters. I dropped to bed at 1am.

Sunday (Sept. 25) I talked to Mom, Dad, Heather and Jonathan on the phone since they were all in Florida. That was very nice. I then biked up north and discovered that there is a much closer mountain than where I tried to go to before! You have to bike up a fair amount of residential area on the mountain before you get to forest, but it wasn’t so bad. I did get a lot of funny looks and I fell into conversation with one old Japanese man who was particularly startled to see someone biking up the mountain. I believe it was my first casual conversation with a stranger on the street. I remember in Italy I had one of those after the first week! Oh well, not to compare, I’m happy that we were able to have a conversation at all. After the residential area there are a number of hiking trails and some lead to small lakes in the mountain. I didn’t get to explore since I was afraid that coming down would hurt my knee again, but I have something to look forward to later. Coming down was fun and on the way back I found the Pax and Ogino (grocery stores) and the Chaterese (sorry, I cant’ spell it) where they have cheap ice cream (it’s usually so expensive here!). I sat on the bench and enjoyed a mint chocolate chip ice cream bar dipped in chocolate. Yum, yum! The rest of the day I studied Japanese and did domestic work. It was a great Sabbath.