Travels: Tokyo Sumo #cookiemonsters

We were lucky enough to be in Tokyo during the September Grand Sumo Tournament. When you hear the word “Sumo” I know the mental image of large men in colorful diapers come to mind, and you will be totally correct! And it's AWESOME. However, what I found most interesting is all the ritual and tradition involved in the sport.

Our arrival at Ryogoku Kokugikan

Origins of Sumo:

• The sport originated in Japan and continues to the be the only country where it’s competed officially.
• It was used a trial of strength for combat and Shinto religion ritual dances wrestling with the Shinto divine spirits
• Also can be traced back to the Edo period, where wrestlers were likely samurai or ronin looking for an additional form of entertainment

Life of a Sumo Wrestler:

• Sumo Wrestlers are required to live in “sumo training stables” under strict training and diet regimens
• They must grow their hair long to be placed in a top-knot.
• They must wear traditional Japanese dress / chonmage hairstyle so they can be identified immediately when in public
•  Junior wrestlers wake up at 5am , while the higher ranked wrestlers, sekitori wake closer to 7am.
• They are prohibited from eating breakfast to enhance training, and must take a nap in the afternoon after eating in order to increase weight gain. (More from CNN)
• Unfortunately, this dietary regimen leads to shorter life expectancies due to health complications such as diabetes.
• Salaries range from: ~ $11k - $30k per month plus prize and bonus money for successful tournaments
• Many sumo wrestlers are recruited to the professional ranks during high school as strong judo competitors or from collegiate sumo clubs.
• We were surprised that not all sumo wrestlers originate from Japan. In fact, even among the senior sekitori we witnessed the matches of a Russian and a Bulgarian.

Pre-Fight Ceremony: Once the wrestlers enter the ring, there are a couple rituals that the sumo-ers perform prior to any actual contact

•  The “Entry Ceremony” The wrestlers are divided into different classes based on skill with the best wrestlers competing at the end of the day. Additionally, there are “East” and “West” houses where wrestlers competing against a similarly skilled wrestlers from the opposite house. Before the top division of wrestlers competes, they enter the stadium in rank order and are introduced to the crowd.
• The fights take place in a ring called the dohyo with a roof resembles a Shinto shrine.
• Once a wrestler enters the dohyo: he faces the audience and claps his hands and performs the leg stopping “shiko” ceremony to drive evil spirits from the dohyo. (also demonstrating a surprising amount of flexibility!)
• 
• Then they step out of the ring to receive a ladle of “power water” and paper tissue “power paper” to dry his lips. These pieces are given to the wrestler by a fellow sumo wrestler from the same house, but this must not be given by a sumo loser, therefore it’s given by the winner of the previous round or the competitor in the next round.
• They reenter the ring and face each other with open hands to demonstrate they have no weapons
• Finally, from a bucket in the corner they take a handful of salt and toss it into ring to purify the dohyo

The Fight:

• Matches consist of one round and every wrestler only competes once a day. The total wins over the course of the 15 day tournament are calculated to determine the overall winner
• There are no “weight classes” and we saw many “smaller” wrestlers defeat those almost twice their size
• The fight begins when both wrestlers come up to the two lines in the middle and place both fists on the ground simultaneously. The wrestlers determine when the match will begin (after performing above rituals) but if they take too long the official will command them to compete at the next placement
• They then spring from their crouch (the tachi-ai) and attack. Sounds like an explosion and the tangle lasts only about a couple seconds.
• Winner is determined as the first wrestler to be the first to push his opponent out of the ring or force him to touch the ground with any part of his body other than his feet

ENJOY!

Adding my flipbook videos, but if those don't work, don't worry I've added the close-up shots.

you're out!

#wecantstop #wewontstop 

make sure you see the lower right corner...

wouldn't want to sit in the front row...

We LOVE SUMO! Matt's now in training mode...

Travels: Hunting Tuna in Tokyo

While I still didn’t find much cheese to eat in Tokyo (I know Tokyo has cheese, we were just distracted with other goodies) , we did put some serious effort in hunting down the best tuna. :P

When you make plans to get up early for a “not to be missed tourist stop” you don’t really realize how early that is until you’re actually up… man we were tired, but ready for an adventure.

- 3:00am: wake-up

- 3:20am: hop in a taxi to Tsukiji Fish Market

- 3:40am: get in line for the tuna auction

- 3:50am: be ushered in to the waiting area and done our fluorescent green construction vests as we made it! (only 120 people are allowed in every day due to sanitation concerns. by 4:05am everyone was inside, so definitely get there before 4!)

- 3:55am: read through all the information and realize that the “tour” doesn’t begin until 5:25am…

this is the face one makes upon hearing the news

- 4:00am: succumb to sitting on the floor and settling in for the longest wait in a complete haze. ;)

- 5:20am: get up and get excited! be hustled out into the crazy that is the Tsukiji fish market. They emphasize in everything that you read that this is a place of business and you can quickly tell as everywhere is a flurry of activity with carts swerving this way and that to get & pick-up deliveries. You need to be alert as they certainly aren’t stopping for silly tourists.

he wasn't stopping

- 5:25am: get herded into the big tuna auction. This place is nothing more than a huge warehouse with tuna laid out on the ground and in crates all over the place, but it’s fascinating and surprisingly not fishy smelling. The large bluefin tuna is on the left, a favorite of local Japanese sushi experts due to the high fat content. The still huge, but by comparison significantly smaller, tunas are on the right.  Each fish is numbered and labeled detailing weight, seller info and origin. Each fish’s tail has been sliced off and a slit has been cut near the end to reveal an opening. Tuna wholesalers roam around the market checking the fat content through the slit and taking a pick to pull out a little piece of tuna from the tail and then either taste it or rub it between their fingers and heat it up.

tuna painting

Left: "little" tuna ; Right; "big" tuna

 

my favorite guy

- 5:35am: the auction begins. The auctioneer stands up on his crate box and all the wholesale buyers gather around and exchange hand signals to demonstrate how much their willing to pay for each tuna.

- 5:50am: tour ends and we are ushered on our way. While the actual tour time is short, it’s absolutely worth a trip for the unique experience and afterwards a walk around the market

- 6:00am: pop into a little sushi bar among all the stalls and enjoy some of our own fresh caught sushi!

- 6:20am: head back to the hotel to nap. :)

If you haven’t been yet, but are in the Tokyo area, I’d definitely recommend making the trip (especially you’re first morning in and still getting over the jetlag). A couple articles we read said that the market is moving to a new location either by 2014 or 2016, so you better hurry for your Tokyo visit! :)

… we didn’t have enough sushi with our breakfast and I just had to take Matt & MomZ to Conveyor Belt Sushi for lunch! So delicious…

September 24th, 2013. The Day Our Neighbors Lost their Homes

Originally, I wrote up an entirely different blog post for today, but I'll need to save that until tomorrow because quite a bit has changed in our very own backyard. 

When we first moved here, I wrote about "the price of expansion" and explained about how we learned that families were stilling living in what we thought were abandoned / burnt out homes in our own backyard and the struggles they went through to stay in their homes.

Unfortunately, today those struggles are over.  When I woke up and headed to Spin class I thought something seemed different about the lot behind our home. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it seemed like there was more debris somehow? On my way home and to grab some groceries I noticed a few policemen on the corner of Anfu Lu & Wulumuqi Lu with about 6 men taking sledge hammers to the wall. To myself, and potentially out loud, I thought "that's interesting, I'll take some pics on my way home." But on my way home I encountered an entirely different scene. 

When I returned to the same corner just 10min later there was a a huge gap in the corner made larger by the bull dozer that was squeezing through it. Plus a whole line of men up against the wall wearing red circle stickers on their shirt pockets. Still not fully comprehending what was happening, I snapped a couple pics and headed upstairs to our apartment to get the full view.

It was astounding. There was a huge rope with flags outlining the sidewalks and guards stationed under beach umbrellas (?) every 20 feet or so. 

Through the hole in the wall men started coming in carrying folded cardboard boxes and delivering to what I believe are the 4 houses that still have inhabitants. Once the bulldozer broke through, 4 moving trucks followed down the inner "road" and pulled up to each of the four homes. All those empty boxes were loaded up into the trucks including their refrigerator. (Although I didn't realize that they had electricity?)

After the trucks left, the larger bulldozer came in. A team would water down each building with a fire hose before the bulldozer would attack and destroy. This is how you could tell where the bulldozer would strike next. 

(here's hoping the video works this time)

By 1pm all of the homes had been torn down leaving a cloud of dust in its wake with the smaller  bulldozer and garbage trucks rolling in to pick up the significant piles of debris. 

All-in-all the scene was incredibly calm. The only yells came from people on the street when one of the buildings collapsed over the wall and another from a cat in hiding that ran as fast as I've ever seen once it's hide-out was under siege.

As far as I could tell, no one was harmed this time, thank goodness. But these homes and neighborhood are demolished.

I don't really know exactly how to end this post, because while the buildings are down, there are still so many unanswered questions:

- why now?
- did these people know what was happening?
- where will they live now?
- have they been provided for?
- what happens to this lot?
- did the real estate company finally win? was it the government?