To me, Sumo wrestling has always been that thing that happens every few months that gets in the way of watching television between about 4.30 and 6.30. For two weeks. My parents love it. I enjoy it sometimes, but there is only so much semi-naked fat men footage that one can take without begging to watch the news. The same goes for things like The Biggest Loser, and in the summer, daylight savings brings Sumo Wrestling and The Biggest Loser back to back. Wonderful.

But I was very keen to go and watch the wrestling in Tokyo, and a family friend offered to take me, so I was very much there.

An initial misstep with trains (I don’t think there’s a whole lot that’s worth three train changes in order to attend) meant I got to Ryougoku late which, if Japan were a religion, that would be the sin which for one cannot atone without furious and repeated bowing. But the family friend was kind enough to both forgive me with only mild bowing and even bought me a drink.

We headed into the arena, and it really is an arena. Seating is 360 degrees around the dohyou (where the wrestlers fight). We were sitting in one of the higher tiers

The lower seats have people sitting down on mats. The pictures you see on display are of champions past and present, and are absolutely gigantic.

This dohyou is built over a few days and starts as a mound of clay dirt, and is pounded with wooden instruments until it is flat. As you can see here:

This is the initial ceremony where the wrestlers come into the ring and walk around in their ceremonial belts. I’ve always called it the skirt ceremony.

The respective fanclubs of the sumo wrestlers pay for these belts. These fanclubs can follow the wrestlers to various tournaments and offer donations that go towards the wrestlers’ pay. There are also special parties held after tournaments that fanclub members can attend. I will be attending one in September, quite possibly, for the Sumo wrestler Wakanosato.

Gaze upon that glorious visage.

He’s been a wrestler in the highest sumo class as long as I have been watching, thinking of all the Neighbours, I was missing in summer.

Once the skirt ceremony is completed, out comes the Yokozuna, Hakuhou.

A young Mongolian lad, Hakuhou is the top of the top. And he’s really nice, which is somewhat refreshing. The last yokozuna, another Mongolian lad, was pretty much the bane of the Sumo world’s existence, pulling hair during fights, pushing competitors off the dohyou unnecessarily, punching out a car mirror (I think that was him) and, worst of the worst, skipping out on a regional tour complaining of an injury, only to be filmed playing soccer while he was supposedly injured, like a Today Tonight or ACA story about insurance scams.

Yokkoisho

Once these ceremonies are performed, the wrestling starts.

Bouts take a fairly short amount of time, and a wrestler wins if they push the other beyond the rope, or they manage to make the other touch any part of their body other than their feet on the dohyou.

Oh, and if what they’re wearing comes off, instant loss. Possibly to symbolise the loss of sanity and innocence of all those watching.

The day I was there, I watched a number of bouts, from 4.45 to about 6.30. None of these bouts bar one lasted for more than a minute. In normal tournaments winners receive money donated by sponsors but because of a recent match-fixing scandal not only do winners not receive money, the whole tournament is not televised and tickets in the higher tiers were given away for free.

The fights, though short, are very impressive shows of force. The person on the left in the first picture is about 2 metres tall and is from Estonia. He also looks like Leonardo Dicaprio if Leo ever thought acting was not enough for him and decided to get a lot taller and a lot fatter and start fighting men in very little clothing. All the different ways of winning have different names that are announced at the end of the fight.

There are so many different intricacies and ceremonies involved in the fights, before and after and someone with less homework can tell you about them. There’s salt, singers, beautifully dressed umpires, and water is given to the wrestlers before they fight, but never by a fighter that has lost that day.

One of my favourite parts of the Sumo Wrestling, however, is when the result of a bout is unclear. The poor gyouji (umpire) risks his reputation and is required to choose a winner, but if the judges that sit around the ring (I call them “The Committee”) are uncertain, or think the gyouji made the wrong choice, they get up in the middle of the ring and argue about it.

The day I was there I was lucky enough to see a contested decision.

"The Committee"

Two wrestlers fell almost simultaneously (one being the utterly and insanely popular Takamisakari, whose warm-up is so adorable his fan club is probably the biggest amongst the wrestlers who are not in the highest levels, and maybe even bigger than those) and it was decided that the Umpire made the right decision in saying Takamisakari won, and he was not disgraced, and safe to gyouji for another day.

I want to hire The Committee to make life decisions for me, and then have the head announce the results over the microphone.

It isn’t just the wrestlers that are interesting. People who go to watch the sumo are often long-time fans, who yell out the name of their favourite wrestlers before they fight. Children are often amongst those who yell. My favourite yeller was before the bout of the wrestler Aminishiki

“GO! GO! AMI-CHAN!!!!”

Actually amazing.

There is much noise, and much excitement. It is so different to watching it on tv. Maybe the lack of close-up wobbling of cellulite that made it better.

Dinner was Chanko Nabe. Chanko is the name given to food that sumo wrestlers eat; often full of protein and energy that the wrestlers need for their long practice sessions and their important bouts. I needed energy to…get home, so I appreciated a hot pot of chicken and vegetables in broth.

It was very good.
As my host insisted that I eat a large amount, there was also sushi

 and vegetables that we grilled ourselves, and fried prawns. This was apparently not enough so I also had dango for dessert.

I managed to eat a surprising amount of it, and it was all very very good. I washed it down with cold Soba (Buckwheat) tea.

So that was my latest adventure, please comment and tell me what you think. And thanks again for reading. I doubt I will have any adventures in the near future due to Waseda and Musical Theatre club taking up almost all of my time, but if I do you’ll be the first to know.

Blogging again.

Well, I never have anything to blog about in Adelaide, not really.

So I present to you the latest of my Japan adventures. I got here 6 days ago for a year of University study, so I’m sure many more will follow.

Today, my friends from University wanted to go to look at mobile phones in Akihabara, so off we went.

Now, the phone bit wasn’t very exciting, but after a little bit of convincing I dragged them to a maid cafe.

We went to the second floor of a small building close to the JR Akihabara station, and we greeted with a cacophony of high-pitched cutesy voices.

The four of us were told that to stay for an hour, and it would cost us 1,000yen each and we had to order one item each as well.

The maid who mostly dealt with us was seemingly the maid in charge (and called Ran-chan), and alongside her was a new maid who was somewhat terrified. The first thing we were asked to do was come up with a team name. After much deliberation I decided to called us “国際チーム (Team international)” because between the four of us we had 5 obvious nationalities (Taiwanese, Chinese, Australian, Japanese). The maid was utterly confused.

After Ran-chan tried to talk us into buying a special course (watch the maids dance and make you a cocktail/float, and get a photo with your favourite maid) and failed (teaches her to try to sell over-priced things to Chinese people), she dejectedly handed us the normal menu.

Photos were not allowed in the restaurant, but I Cylon-ed this one

She suggested the cappucino, which in a fit of…something, I ordered. We also ordered “Kuma-tan” (Bear Chan) and “Kame-tan” (Turtle chan) parfaits and …a cafe latte, but a damn cute latte! (Actually no, just a latte).

So, the cappuccino was presented in a tall glass with froth (I asked for cold)

Then, the maid asked me what my favourite animal was. I briefly flirted in my head with asking for my actual favourite animal, a Tapir, but I said Dog.

This was the result:I see it.

Before we were allowed to eat or drink anything, the maids insisted that we make hearts with our hands, and say

美味しくな～れ、萌え萌えキューン！

The best translation I can offer is “Becoooooome delicious, cute cute KYUUUN!” Kyun is the onomatopoeia for that feeling in your chest you get when something is really cute.

Japanese is a strange language.

Incidentally, that cappuccino was damn delicious, so the ceremony clearly worked. Clearly a scientific experiment to compare the deliciousness of ceremonied and non-ceremonied (it’s a word, shut up) drinks needs to be done. Nature would publish it, of course.

The Bear and Turtle parfaits were, in fact, bears and turtles. You saw a side view of the bear in the stealth cafe photo.

(Chocolate) Bear:

( Green tea) Turtle:

So cute, so very cute.  And quite tasty! The orange layer you see is cornflakes, which seem to be ever-present in parfaits here.

During our animal-themed desserts, a kind maid (Moa-chan, or something. She was my favourite because she spoke in a sensible voice) offered to play jenga or cards with us. If we won, she said, we’d win a voucher!

Jenga with maids costs 500yen, apparently. We declined.

Most of the people visiting the cafe while we were there were men by themselves. They were enjoying themselves with the ceremonies and the maids who looked after them, keeping them in conversation for most of the time. One was constantly talking what seemed to be nonsense. Another was seemingly the typical otaku, who was far too excited by the Oishikunaaare thing. The people at the table next to us were tourists, seemingly, who were even more bemused than our group of four.

So when the hour was up (and the first head maid tried to guilt-trip us into staying another hour by seeming to be on the verge of tears) we paid…6,900 yen for the four of us (1,000yen base fee, plus 700yen cappuccino,  600yen latte, and 800 for each parfait) we left feeling like we’d experienced something and paid a lot of money for it, and cemented my feeling that working in a maid cafe would be tiring and bizarre. And profitable.

My personal favourites would have to be:

New York City

Tokyo/ Japan in general

Vienna and Austria

Loire Valley,  France

South Africa.

But of course, there are many things one has to consider:

Where do you want to go? Why do you want to go? Do you want to go with someone? Does this person know? Well why haven’t you told them yet?

Also: what does going on holiday mean to you?

Today’s blog will focus on Money!:

One’s budget will be determined by where you’re going.  Think of the country, figure out the basic cost of things you’ll need. For example, I recently went on holiday to NYC for a month. I budgeted myself $100 per day. I kept this figure in my head and mentally added up my purchases throughout the day: food, clothing, souvenirs and transport issues that arose from my inability to figure out the difference between uptown and downtown subways. My accommodation was a different payment, but your situation may be different.

Who you’re travelling with will drastically alter this price. I tended to get by on breakfast from the person I was staying at (Raisin bran for life), a cup or two of coffee and a pretzel from a street vendor close to a theatre per day. If you’re travelling in a group, or in a hotel where no food is provided, you will probably eat and spend more. Being on holiday, especially in cheap places or awesome places will cause your shopping budget to increase a bit.

In short: be very realistic with yourself. Figure out what you’re going to be doing, budget for it.

ALSO: Always put in more money than you think you will need. An extra few hundred will definitely help if you get an eye infection and run to the chemist, on to find that the US are incredibly annoying about giving out antibiotics without a prescription and you’re forced to have an uninsured doctor’s visit to get something ’cause your eye hurts. Travel insurance helps, but you’ll have to pay the money for the doctor’s visit upfront; reimbursement comes when you get back home.

Exchanging money:

Start watching the foreign currency markets early. Look at how things are going. Also, go to your bank and discuss options. Just discuss. DISCUSS. Figure out exactly what will work for you (many banks now offer a debit credit card where a lump sum is put on it in a foreign currency) and set it up so all you have to do next is walk in and ask them to set it on up for you. Then keep watching the currency market. See a report with a good exchange rate? Run like hell to the bank and set things up.

I am not a huge fan of currency exchanges at airports (rip-off!) and such; best have traveller’s checks or money exchanged already in cash or on a debit card. You never know what may happen with the markets.

Now, the best way to be a smart traveller is to do your research. In New York, people spend hundreds for Broadway show tickets, but there are tickets for as low as $20! Many Broadway shows have lotteries for tickets a couple of hours before a show starts on any given night. Anyone can put their name in the hat and join other excited participants hoping to have their names drawn out. The Wicked lottery is an experience; hundreds can turn up and put their names in, only to have one family get 6 of the 26 available tickets. My tip for the Wicked lottery? Befriend large-ish groups. They will each have their name in with the chance to win 2 tickets each. If only some of them win, they may choose to give up their tickets to the friendly foreigner they just met in the queue. Booyah. There are also half price ticket booths in many locations. There are so many shows that most shows are begging to sell tickets. But some shows are so insanely popular that they sell out early. Some may sell standing room tickets, some will have very cheap tickets which are “partial view” (on the severe left and right of the audience); generally not bad, except for the one time a fire hydrant blocked my view of a third of the stage.

Enough of my rambling, my point is: there are ways to get things cheaply, and the best way to figure these out are to trawl the internet or befriend locals with similar interests to yours.

Shopping, DOs and DON’Ts:

There is NOT something similar like that at home, so get it. Now.

Carrying something fragile home is NOT a good idea. If it breaks, your heart will break with it.

Do NOT be afraid of buying something a little unusual

Little pictures and art pieces by local artists bought at street markets can be a great way to decorate your home.

Keep packing your suitcase during your stay. If you can’t fit everything in your suitcase on the way home and you don’t have any cardboard boxes at your disposal, you’re stuffed.

Do NOT be afraid of buying large numbers of little souvenirs. You will inevitably forget a close friend (or someone who thinks they’re a close friend) or someone’s birthday will come up soon after you get back and you’ll have a little extra thing to add to their present. Oh, and don’t be afraid to shop around for souvenirs, as different stores will be selling practically the same thing for different amounts of money. I thought I hit the jackpot when I found $1 NYC keyrings, then the owner of the shop (a charming man who boasted that he had “Two wife and girlfriend!”) insisted I stay in New York and be his girlfriend. Win some, lose some…

DO NOT BUY YOUR TRAVELLING SECOND COUSIN POPCORN. SHE WILL INEVITABLY GET ANGRY ABOUT THE GODDAMN POPCORN AT 3 DIFFERENT AIRPORTS. ESPECIALLY IF SHE’S GOING HOME TO AUSTRALIA, LAND OF QUARANTINE AND “You can’t bring those seeds in, sweetie, people make drugs from those. You’re six, so I’ll let you off with a warning.”

Ahem

I enjoy buying random stuff at the tourist locations I go to. I do not regret the “Mark Twain for President” Badge from the Mark Twain house giftshop, and it’s always nice to say you bought Huckleberry Finn from the place where the author wrote it or somesuch. Not only are you buying something that will help you remember your visit, you will get a stylish, unique bag to carry random things around in once you get home, or to present birthday presents in.

If you are a lover of art and culture, you really need to include museum entrance fees in your budget. Museums are a wonderful way to learn about the local culture, and big places like Tokyo are likely to have something odd, like a Parasitological Museum (it’s in Meguro) that you MUST go to (assuming you’re a bio nerd like me).

A note about food: even if you’re a small eater, being in a foreign country means that finding things out about your surroundings may very well include buying and eating them. You’ll most likely come across something strange you must try; maybe amazing things, like apple cider donuts, or terrible, like octopus icecream (with octopus bits included). If you’re staying with Japanese relatives, taking home strange food you’ve found at the end of the day is a good way of showing your appreciation for their hospitality. Again, budget it depending on your situation.

In short: THINK. PLAN. STAY AWAY FROM CHEAP KEYRINGS, POPCORN AND OCTOPUS ICECREAM.

Over and out. Leave a comment with any feedback or questions if you’d like, and please suggest topics for me to cover next.

I figure I’ll turn over a new leaf and maybe write something new.

Perhaps….Clare’s Travel Tips!

So stay tuned.

Obligatory Engrish

After reams of fanmail *cough* I had to come back and tell you about adventures in Hakuba

Hakuba is in Nagano Prefecture, where the air and water is clean and soba (buckwheat) is king. Soba noodles are nice, but just eating the fruit is good too.

So father and I descended upon the unsuspecting small town of Hakuba, which was unseasonably warm. The owners of the Minshuku (Like a B&B, but Japanese) called us the week previously, apologising profusely about the lack of snow (for it was surely their fault) and expected us to cancel, but I stubbornly insisted that we go and see Hakuba anyway; it was a place I’d not visited before and the alternative was Kyoto which, though interesting, is not inherently exciting.

Getting to Hakuba from Tokyo was 2 long bullet train rides to Nagano station and a 50 minute bus ride from there to Hakuba station. Mother, always overplanning things, had informed the owners of our accommodation the minute details of our travels, just to make sure the completely clueless father and I were unable to get lost. Mother had also insisted that we call the accomodation owners when we were 30 minutes away from Hakuba. When I did this, the voice on the end of the phone took this news with the bored-yet-polite tone of someone who’d heard it at least 4 times previously from a overprotective control freak with a high pitched voice.

So there we were, in the vaguely cold weather and enjoying the quaint feel of the small town of Hakuba. The Minshuku was almost empty; the only other guest was an English teacher and seasoned skiier. We ate lovely home cooked meals and managed to hold very long conversations with the owners about travelling around to see the sights of the ‘Shinshuu’ area using leet skills and an electronic dictionary. This was the point of the trip where I was having an astonishingly large problem with speaking English, so this probably helped.

One of the trips was to Nagano, where we looked at the local temple,  Zenko-ji. As you will see in the link, historical does not even begin to describe it.

After looking around there and snacking on more soba-based products, we made our way to the station to get on a train to Yudanaka. Now Yudanaka is the closest station to Jigokudani (Hell Valley), which is known for one thing: Monkeys. When the local monkey population are feeling a tad cold, they go and take a dip in the naturally occurring hot skills, much to the delight of tourists. No one had bothered to mention to us that not only was Yudanaka in the middle of nowhere, the walk from the taxi drop-off point at Jigokudani to the actual hot springs was very long. Urk. But the monkeys were adorable. Attempted to get some photos, but mostly my camera liked to focus on steam.

Then, on the bus ride home, it started to snow.

BUCKETS

Did I mention it was Christmas Eve? Overnight, the landscape became a snowscape, and I had my first White Christmas.

This and the Wayne Brady and Over the Hedge CDs I received Christmas morning meant  I was fairly over the moon.

Later that day, I was given the opportunity to have snowboarding lessons. I joined legions of way too talented schoolchildren and close to pro adults and wobbled my way down the face of the mountain with the help of a seasoned ski/snowboard instructor, who was very patient and understanding. Snowboarding is quite tiring, but easy to pick up. I suggest you go and try it now. Go on, I’ll wait.

Great, right?

That’s all for now; I’ll be posting pictures on this post late, so don’t forget to visit again~

So Isuzu, her husband and I ventured out to Asakusa (Ginza line, last stop)

We ate Fried Manju  (wow, Linda just exploded with joy) and Kaminari Okoshi; hard rice/bean sweets. Both were delicious

After this, we had eel for dinner (further Linda explosions) and wandered around a bit.

Basically, Asakusa is your one stop shop for all kinds of Japanese souvenirs. “Ninjya” shoes, sake bottles shaped like gourds, prints (the cheap kind, mind you) and dolls are all on offer for visitors. This means you will see many many foreigners here, all with terrible or no Japanese skills. I find this entertaining; not sure if that’s weird.

“So this is like, a shrine?”

It’s a temple, actually. Sensoji is large, red, and very famous. One of the main attraction is the How-is-it-being-held-up-it’s-fucking-huge Lantern at the front gates. Walking through that leads to an elegant display of true Japanese culture souvenir shops.

My tip? Only go there for the relatives or friends you feel obligated to get generic gifts for…or for intentionally tacky souvenirs.

Nest stop: HAKUBA!

Next episode: Asakusa. Oh and I thought I would share something. Random occurrence, preserved by a photo

and now, for the national anthem

Because of the strictly Male-only Kabuki theatre (which is one of the main causes of the cross-dressing phenomena now seen in the Japanese entertainment industry), a Female-only theatre was set up which was called the Takarazuka. People in Takarazuka have to be gorgeous and sing, dance, and act. They put on large, glamorous productions and have been doing so for many decades.

The reason why I went along was because my Great Aunt, a massive lifelong fan of Takarazuka, told me that an iconic old theatre in Shinjuku was about to close down. This was the Koma Gekijyou (Top [like a spinning top, so name because the stage has a number of sections that spin] Theatre) in Kabukicho, well kown as a rather sleazy area of central Tokyo. More about that later.

So I sat down in the magnificent theatre, wondering why anyone would want to demolish it and build a new one. My great aunt me told me of times when there was a weekly Takarazuka radio program with singing and other entertainment. She sang me the theme song. I was also told that one of my mother’s cousins, the beloved Seio-san (now one of the excecutives at Mitsubishi and yet still only able to afford a 5 room apartment) used to perform in the Koma Theatre as a child actor. Yet another person in my massive family who is into the arts. I guess this explains why mother think it’s a shame that I want to be a Psychologist when I can sing and dance. More about that in another post, perhaps. So, while trying to imagine Middle Aged and portly Seio as a small child in Period dramas, the show started.

And I was completely blown away. There were large dance numbers about Sukiyaki, and at least 4 subplots all kept together with surprising strength. The show was about, of all things, Takarazuka during World War 2. There was much underlying sadness and resentment about the war. and then someone announced that they had to become a famous Takarazuka star quickly, as they had a terminal disease.

Cue Clare desperately trying not to cry. Terminal disease is a cheap shot damnit *sniff*. That, and long dialogue about performing on stage being the best part of life and the girl wanting to die on stage at the end of a big number.Then a scene where the girl, lying in bed, with her fellow performers singing the song she loved most.

Cue Clare crying her eyes out. Blast.

So the show ended, and I was in love. Shame I fell in  love with a theatre that was due for demolition in the following weeks. Mmm, spinny theatre.

Isuzu, my great aunt, told me that her friend owned a nearby Tonkatsu (Crumb fried pork) restaurant so we went there for dinner. Doing so meant we had to walk through a large crowd of hosts. Unfortunately they ignored me (rejected ;_;) so I can not report on their luring techinques. I can note appearance.

• They all had similar hair, and this in turn was similar to Mimasaku Akira’s hair in the first seasonof Hanadan

• 

  Host hair. But it was pointier at the top

• Most of them had expensive, tailored, shiny suits
• Pointy shoes. So very very (very) pointy o_O.
• Oh, and they were all mildly attractive, if kinda sleazy looking.
• Pointy pointy pointy

Isuzu and I walked through the group completely unharmed. How disappointing.

Tonkatsu = delicious. Especially the Tonkatsu in Kabukicho. Omunomu

Next time I post, it will be about Hakuba. Until then~