Fat sweaty men and pretty girls in kimono

Sumo

Wednesday we took a trip to Ryugoku, the area in Tokyo where the Sumo Stadium is and watched the 4th day of the 14 day tournament. It was a lot of fun. I liked the atmosphere more than anything. At the beginning of the day there were not many people so we moved up closer, not much closer, but still. The first floor was all VIP seating, where you had to get walked to your seat, so we couldn't get in there. The seats down there were just sit on pillows on the floor seats. The most expensive seats, ~$130 were right next to the ring. We saw some people get squished by wrestlers who fell out of the ring. It was amusing. The second level was regular seats. I thought our view was fine, so it was okay.

We saw a lot of matches. There was a lot of down time though because each match has a 4 minute prep period during which they sumo wrestlers through the salt in the ring, try to psych each other out and just prepare. Finally, they'll start and fight for usually 7-20 seconds. So, it was short bursts of exciting-ness. Around 4 the big guns came out, by this point most of the seats were filled, despite being a wednesday night. There were a surprising number of foreigners too, russian and mongolian. The current number one is mongolian so a lot of old, nationalistic japanese men are unhappy about it.

It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of rituals, everything from blessing the ring at the beginning, acknowledging your opponent and even receiving your award if you won. There were some matches that had sponsors, so the winner would be given a fat wad of money.


Tea Ceremony

On Saturday I went to Lucy's host family's house where Lucy and I got put into real kimono. Lucy's host mom's friend is a kimono sensei, so she's a master at putting them on people. It is a long and arduous process. Each one of us took about 20 minutes, if not more. There were too many layers and pieces to count, but they were beautiful. My kimono was cream with a green sash, Lucy's was pink with deep fuchsia sash. Pictures soon. We looked really pretty. We got to wear the silly shoes, that were probably meant for someone with size 4 shoe. Walking in the kimono was very difficult, I finally truly understand the scuttling. There is no way you can take big steps. Getting up a step into the doorway was killer.

Lucy's neighbor is a tea ceremony master, so we first got to be "guests" while one of her students was the host. The student, a roughly 70 year old woman, performed the very intricate process of serving tea. The process was very slow and complicated. There are certain ways you have to hold the bowls (not cups, bowls), a certain way to hold and lay the ladle, special way to mix the tea. Then, once the tea was prepared, she sets it out and the first guest scoots up, using her arms to scoot, like a gorilla kinda, and takes the bowl back to her spot, one backward scoot at a time. Then the first guest has to tell the second guest that she's drinking first and thank the host before spinning the bowl twice, resting it on the left hand and spinning it with the right, clockwise. Then the host starts making the second cup. When the first guest finishes, she wipes the place she sipped from with her thumb and forefinger, spins the bowl two more times and scoots forward to return the bowl. Really it was silly, but it was really interesting. Then Lucy and and I both got to be hosts, one at a time. You make the tea with powdered green tea in hot water and you whisk it until it's frothy, it was tasty.


There are a few pretty popular bands from TIU. I saw some of them play in the quad at school the other day, they were actually pretty good. Then we went to see this other band at a Battle of the Bands type thing, at this cute little "Live Hall", just a space for small shows like this. It was a lot of fun and all three bands we saw were really good. The first was crazy and rocking, the second was a little mellower and the third, our friends, sang in English (2 of the members are only half Japanese, including the singer), but mostly just rocking. I liked all three a lot. My friends and I all chipped in to buy one copy of each bands cd, and will just all burn the cd to our computers. After all the bands played they handed out sheet music to everyone, with lyrics and then the whole song was led in some Japanese graduation song or something. It was very very bizarre. I don't know why this happened or who thought it was a good idea, but it happened and my mind was blown. It was a lot of fun and I really want to start going to more small shows like this.

Random things:
-Current list of mento flavors I've seen/had:
melon
strawberry yogurt
carmel and cream
cherry
mint
cola
fruity
green apple
grape

-I saw an old woman, probably 70ish, on the train today. She was wearing normal clothes, suitable for her age, but then a trucker hat that said in huge letters "MARIJUANA" and had a marijuana leaf. It was so funny. She probably had no idea what it said.