S-U-M-O

So, I haven't posted in 9 days. And naturally, lots of things have happened. I've had heart-to-heart discussions on how hard it is to get adjusted to Japan, I've gone to a sumo grand tournament in Nagoya, I've eaten LEVEL 3 ramen. And I've had an overall malange of emotions; all good. I'm also accutely aware of the limited time I have left with my family. And well, I frankly don't want to leave them. At least not yet, I feel like there's so much more to do and so much more to share, especially now that I feel adjusted - now that I feel like a true member of the family. I'm literally already thinking about when I can come back to visit them. When YFU said you'd truly have a life-long relationship with your family, I believed them - but I was thinking a lot of letters and presents and New Year's nengajoo cards and maybe a trip to Japan somewhere down the road.

But I already want to come back!

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Yesterday I went to my 1st Grand Tournament Sumo match. It was pretty cool and very chill (no really, we were seated in far away seats, directly under icy-cold air conditioning units). That's why obachan (pictured bottom left) boguht me a little sumo towel to keep my warm. I felt like a little child, but it was cute nonetheless.

Sumo guys are truly a wonder. They're (naturally) huge, have impeccable hair styles (which are supposedly supposed to double as head gear) and their feet are so fat they can't even fit into their extra-large special sandals. The matches consist of 4 minutes of ritualistic glaring, salt-throwing and special movements to drive away spirits and the matches last from 5 - 20 seconds. If you're pitied against a yokozuna (grand master) just try to fall somewhere where it won't hurt too much. Of course, trying to make this decision in 5 seconds while being slapped around, doesn't make things easier.

The journey to Nagoya was pretty long and involved quite a bit of different transportation, city bus, train, tour bus. Packed with tons of old people. I felt so out of place, seeing as I nearly double in height over my obachan and the old people there were all in awe of this tall, lanky "future American president," which I promptly laughed off as ridiculous and slightly scary. A lot of the people wanted to speak with me in English, which was surprisingly pretty good. There was this one lady though, who spoke in the tiniest of voices, so even though her English was good, I was straining to understand her small-than-a-mouse's-voice voice.

Toyohashi station - this line runs all the way to Nagano, but we stopped in Toyokawa, another Aichi city neighboring ours.

In the subway station, promptly after having butter bread and warm maacha bought for me. Cause, obachan's always feeding me you know.

After perusing as Japanese bus stop. Which are impeccably clean by the way and very funny to navigate when you see lots of old people shopping for foodstuffs after a nice bout of sumo. (But with this picture, we happened to be on the way and not back.)

The tour seemed tobe organized as part senior citizen's trip and part political campaign. Which was weird, because I just can't imagine Jeb Bush organizing recreational trips as part of a political campaign. Anyway, the lady seemed to be fielding lots of questions and answering back in a joking matter. Her political literature too was funny. It had a huge picture of her face plastered onto an anime character's body. She also had a corny original campaign theme song, with a huge picture of her holding a huge onigiri ball set against a background of a rice field. She's campaigning to be the Governor or jicho of Aichi.

When we got to the Aichi government offices, we were given a tour of the current jicho's office (which was pretty lavish) and we also got to see a tour of the law-making chambers. Where she took more questions and also took pictures with us. I couldn't help but feel out of place, in a very gray-haired portrait. I'm sure I ruined her campaign images showing how she works hard to provide for the country's growing senior population. Or her cameraman might have just cropped me out.

Sorry for the crappy picture. Since we were indoors practically all day, flash was freqently turned off.

After our little tour and a lot of her excited and peppy talk. We saw sumo. Picture speak a thousand words (well, maybe mine speak a hundred, they're not that great):

I also got a glimpse of Nagayo-joo, the castle with special gold models of killer whales on it's roof. I really want to visit it, but I think I'll have to wait till I return to Japan to check out it's castles.

I'm really glad I had the opportunity to see sumo. Of course next time, I need to get better seats, because almost 90% of the excitement of the matches is the first 4 minutes of glaring and ritualistic rice-throwing and whatnot. I could barely see their faces from where I was sititng, but of course I stupidly forgot the batteries for my big camera and my glasses. Always next time...

I close with a picture of my crew.