Sumo Wrestling and the Emperor

On January 9th we went to the opening day of the 1st Grand Sumo Tournament of 2011. This was the first time we had ever seen sumo wrestling so we got there early to take it all in. The tournament starts at 8am with the less experienced wrestlers and then culminates with the top bracket of wrestlers at about 6pm. We got to the stadium at about noon and stayed until the end. If you're asking "How can they sit for 6 whole hours and watch that?", I'll tell you. First, go with some good friends, second go to the conbini (convenience store) and get some snacks and drinks to last the day, and third make up names for the wrestlers and bet on who will win. I'll wait until the end to tell you who won...

One of the murals. All the sumo wrestlers live in compounds so we saw young "wrestlers in training" all over that area of Tokyo that day. 

It wasn't very busy when we got there. 

My bento box lunch. I'm not even sure what all was in it, but it looks pretty!

It was cold, hence the hat and jacket...

There's 2 different "leagues" in sumo. This was the top tier wrestlers from one league.

This is the board that shows all of the top tier wrestlers. The red highlights the name of the wrestler who won the match. 

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko

Depending on if they're the main event or not, a match can last a minute, or 5 minutes. Most of the time is spent before they even compete. If you want to know more, check out this or watch the full clip I posted below to see it. 

McDonald's advertised at the meet. lol!

Now on to the videos! Brad and I have a very nice video camera and digital SLR but we usually just use my old point and shoot because it's a pain to be out walking all day with big bags hanging off of you. However, we were sitting most of this day and severely regret not taking either. So these are all the quality of my little point and shoot. 

Chris named this guy Tomato last year, for reasons you can probably see. I think he was maybe the least athletic wrestler there.



This was Emperor Akhito's entrance. Sorry it's at an angle! I can't figure out how to fix it. But still it was very cool considering he rarely makes public appearances. Most Japanese people that I've talked to haven't seen him, and it's funny that I've seen the emperor before I've seen the President! (We won't count when Obama came to CSU because it was before he was elected and I think I only just caught a glimpse of the back of his head.)


If you watch any video, you should watch this. It really is fun to see all the rituals that go into it, but also how flexible and agile these big guys are!

I'm not sure what the specifics of this exercise were but this was the very last thing to happen before everyone left. I think the belt that he's wearing is the champion belt, so maybe he won the tournament last year? Anyway, it's not very graceful, but then again sumo wrestling really isn't a graceful sport.

Afterwards we tried to got to a chankonabe restaurant (this is the traditional meal the sumo wrestlers eat) but obviously everyone else at the tournament had the same idea so we ended up having yakiniku (Korean BBQ) instead, which was still good.

The restaurant we went to was an all-you-can-eat place so they had all the raw meat and vegetables sitting out and you could help yourself to whatever you wanted. Most of the meats were seasoned and they had different sauces that you could dip it in after grilling. It's really good! And I'm not even a big meat person!

Waiting for the meat to cook. 

Brad picking out what he wants to eat.

All in all, another memorable experience! 

And just in case anybody is curious...we only have 10 more weeks of work left! And 2 more weeks until we have officially been in Japan for 1 year. I can't believe how fast time has gone by!

My Christmas Gift!

As I posted before, Brad gave me a coupon for a piece of pearl jewelry to commemorate our year here for my Christmas present. Yay! So we went to Ginza to see the Mikimoto store. Mikimoto is famous because the founder, Mikimoto, was the first person to figure out how to make cultured pearls. And they have beautiful jewelry. I'm mean really, really pretty. I felt like I was in museum looking at some of the pieces of jewelry they had in there! Brad and I also commented that some of the necklaces were as much as a decent sized house. I can't believe people actually buy things like that! Crazy!

Anyway, we went and found a necklace that was not in place of our next house that we both really liked. I'm so excited! I love it so much!

The Mikimoto store in Ginza. Doesn't it look fancy?

Shopping after new years is like the American black Friday here. Lot's of sales and very busy!

The cute bag! I think this is the first (and only) time where I wasn't the only one walking around without a Chanel, Gucci or Burberry type shopping bag in Ginza. The funny thing though is that almost everyone has some sort of designer shoes or bag and they save the shopping bags that they come in for future use. It is not uncommon to see a very abused Channel shopping bag when you're out and about. 

They wrapped it up so cute I almost didn't want to open it. Almost.

I love it!

And now I have a necklace to match the beautiful pearl earrings my parents gave me for my wedding, a keepsake to wear for a long time to come and hopefully pass on to my (very, very future) daughter. And isn't it just perfect that pearls are June's birthstone? 

(I'll put up a picture of me wearing it later. But right now I'm in my pajamas.)

Thank you Brad. I love you.

New Years!

For New Year's we met up with Chris, his dad Greg who was visiting from Colorado, and Chris' girlfriend Aki in Shibuya. Shibuya is probably my favorite portion of Tokyo. It is home to the largest intersection in the world but it also has a very cool atmosphere. It's mostly popular with people our age and has a lot of restaurants and bars as well as claw games and a few shops (which I really want to go to but have been avoiding, especially after my purchase today...).

Anyway, Brad and I were really surprised when we got to the station in Shibuya how few people there were. Usually even when we're there late on a Sunday night it's pretty crowded... but not on New Years Eve! The reason is is that New Years is typically a family holiday in Japan. People take off of work around New Years and travel to their hometowns to visit family, celebrate the New Years, and travel to a shrine to pray for the upcoming year. To see what wikipedia has to say click here.

 We started out at a restaurant where everything on the menu, including drinks was 270 yen. These restaurants are pretty popular here and mainly have appetizer type food on the menu. After eating our fair share we grabbed some drinks from the conbini (convenience store--also drinking in public is legal and common here.) and headed towards hachiko crossing (the big intersection). This is when we noticed that it was getting more crowded. The crazy thing was that a lot of the people were foreigners. (Usually Roppongi is foreigner central, but apparently there were a lot of tourists and Shibuya's more popular for New Years. I'm just guessing though...) 

When we got close the Hachiko crossing it started getting louder and louder and definitely very crowded and a little rowdy. There were policemen up on top of cars and the Shibuya Guardian Angels were standing back to back waiting for something to happen. It was fun being surrounded by everyone for the New Years but it was also a little scary because you had to move with the crowd. There was no space to move around on your own at all. For all the hype that there was at the intersection, there was no Times Square-esque party and there was no countdown. So I'm not sure if it was exactly at midnight or not but we made our own little countdown after a few minutes and then moved a way a little bit. It was so much fun though! I have never celebrated anything like that in such a big crowd before!

The crossing

The Guardian Angels.

The crowd behind us.

New Years kiss!

After celebrating midnight, we headed to what we do best...karaoke!! (Well they did, I think I took a nap. :) )

Usually the trains stop around 1 or 2 in the morning but around Tokyo on New Years the trains run all night. Since Brad and I couldn't make it back up to our house (the trains do stop outside of Tokyo), we decided to head to Meiji Shrine after karaoke. It was amazing how many people were there at 4 am. It wasn't extremely busy but still more people than I was expecting. They had the the whole thing fully staffed too. There was a guard standing at attention, tons of police around, as well as gift shops, and a bunch of places where you can get your fortune for the new year.

These paper lanterns were all lit up. Very pretty!

The torii leading to the shrine. On New Years day it can take hours waiting in line to get to the shrine. I guess that's the benefit of going early--no waiting!

People throwing change and praying for the new year. 

Here's all the videos from the night. Sorry in advance for my bad video taking skills: