almost last posting from Tokyo
This morning we leave Tokyo for our host prefecture (equivalent to a state, in terms of government), Kumamoto. We're flying because it's at the very southwest end of the country, on the Kyushu island - pronounced 'que-shoe.' There we'll be meeting with the mayor, making pottery, visiting cultural sites, and visiting three schools (high, middle, and elementary). We also spend one night and two days with a host family, people who have opened their home to one of us. I'll be with a couple, married, in their 40's, who have two sons, 8 and 13. The father is a teacher, and the mother works part-time. They have been asked to create a plan for what we'll do while we're there...I'm looking forward to meeting them!
The downside: we've been told there's no internet access at our hotel. We do however have access to a mineral spring in the hotel, as well as laundry facilities...the mineral spring makes a good trade. There is an internet cafe some distance away, and I will find it, but probably not everyday. So please be patient with me, dear reader. I'll send more stories when I can.
Yesterday was out free day...and I spent it entirely the way I wanted to. Exploring Tokyo.
5am: wake up and pack my large bag, which was to be shipped to Kumamoto.
6am: breakfast. 6:20, depart to find sumo wrestling practice. 7:45am, arrive at sumo practice.
The stable, also known as the dojo, is where practice happens. It is a gorgeous building: stainless steel exterior, and when you open the front door, ancient iconography (I have a photo...search for 'sumo' as a tag in my photos). The entire interior is beautiful woods, and we have to take our shoes off and collect a tatami mat to sit on. And we watch, listen, smell. The smell of the place was unmistakable: human sweat infusing itself into the dirt in the ring, into the wood of the walls. The dirt held its own smell, so after practice when they swept the dirt back into the ring the smell changed slightly; they also use a powder - could be gymnastics chalk or more like baby powder - to mark lines in the floor and dry their hands, and this carries its own smell. A photo was taken of my with a wrestler later in the day, and he carried the same smell with him. There was an unforgettable sound as well: the smack of a good hit, of skin on skin, shoulders and chests colliding, easily 500 pounds of momentum being thrown together. Every 30 seconds this sound was repeated. Their practice, from what we saw, consisted mainly of practice fights: two wrestlers, looking each other in the eyes. The can delay the start of the match by not putting their fists on the ground. Once they crouch, the fists go to the dirt, and once all four are there, they both spring into action, driving towards the other one, pushing with massive thighs. The fight ends when one goes down, or much more common, when one goes outside the boundaries of the ring. The visions: wrestlers, from almost-massive, almost-sumo wrestler looking guys (not as big as the professionals), to big boys overweight and still developing muscle, to a single, incredibly lean and muscular one, looks more like a marathon runner than anything else...probably cross-training for another martial art.
We stayed for almost 2 hours. The practice ended with the cleaning of the space, and the smell of delicious foods being prepared in a barely-hidden kitchen. Smells of bread, rice, and fish. These guys must consume some incredible amounts of food...
Departed, found a closed bike shop (with a Bridgestone sign), and then a small clothing store where things were bought by Ken and Jenny. Continued walking, found a park with a Buddhist temple - beautiful and not filled with camera-armed-teacher-tourists. Finally to the Edo-Tokyo museum, to walk through their permanent collection. It held some incredible artifacts of Japanese history, including models of Edo-period feudal castles. Spent money in the museum store, got some gifts to return home. Lunch in a tiny road-side restaurant: pointed at dishes in a class case, handed those exact dishes which were then replenished. Had tofu, rice, a whole fish, squash, eggplant, seaweed salad. ¥500 each...about $4.50. Found the sumo museum for Ken, who stayed to watch a tournament. Haven't seen him again...did he challenge of one these guys and become the new national champion or was he beaten and then sent to sumo boot camp? Or did he simply not return to the hotel near the time I did? I will probably find out today.
Headed then to Shibuya, which may be the Times Square of Japan. And if it's not, it's in close running. Incredible place: this is where you can find Japanese non-conformity, lots of young people, lots of diversity. Lots of tourists, too. It also houses what claims to be the busiest intersection in the world. It's an interesting one: 2 roads intersect, which is normal. One gets to go, then the other. And all the while, pedestrians can't, so they're building up at the crosswalks, and they do build up. It starts with 5 or 10 people and grows, in the course of a light, to 100 or 200...on each corner. If I'm at all close, that's 800 people waiting to cross the street. And not only to cross the across the street, as normal. There are also cross walks going diagonally across the intersection - traffic is obviously entirely stopped. When the light changes there is a sea...no, rather a flood of people entering the intersection and moving fluidly around each other. Totally unreal.
Visited a bunch of shops, souvenirs and gifts were bought. The most memorably find for me was a CD called 'Smooth,' a house/trance/soul kind of piece...published by a label in Chicago. Didn't buy it. There wasn't any Japanese script on it at all...I'll find it at home. What will be most remembered is the mass of people, the huge change from everything else I've seen here, the diversity, that this is what most people think of Japan: bright lights, pachinko parlors bleeping and beeping and chiming madly, masses of business men in suits and Japanese school girls in plaid skirts and teens in their rebellious outfits of torn jeans and hip sport coats. Then we returned to the hotel, collected our selves, I saved photos to my computer and began editing some of them, went out for dinner, returned to the hotel, and fell fast asleep. It's now 5am. Time to get camera and flash together, and head out to see what I can find. Breakfast begins in an hour, and in a few I'll be able to upload this post and some photos from yesterday.
Not sure when I'll have internet access again. I will certainly try, and will tentatively guarantee another post by Wednesday, all things going as planned.
Be well, be good to yourself, and be good to others.
-Kippu
The downside: we've been told there's no internet access at our hotel. We do however have access to a mineral spring in the hotel, as well as laundry facilities...the mineral spring makes a good trade. There is an internet cafe some distance away, and I will find it, but probably not everyday. So please be patient with me, dear reader. I'll send more stories when I can.
Yesterday was out free day...and I spent it entirely the way I wanted to. Exploring Tokyo.
5am: wake up and pack my large bag, which was to be shipped to Kumamoto.
6am: breakfast. 6:20, depart to find sumo wrestling practice. 7:45am, arrive at sumo practice.
The stable, also known as the dojo, is where practice happens. It is a gorgeous building: stainless steel exterior, and when you open the front door, ancient iconography (I have a photo...search for 'sumo' as a tag in my photos). The entire interior is beautiful woods, and we have to take our shoes off and collect a tatami mat to sit on. And we watch, listen, smell. The smell of the place was unmistakable: human sweat infusing itself into the dirt in the ring, into the wood of the walls. The dirt held its own smell, so after practice when they swept the dirt back into the ring the smell changed slightly; they also use a powder - could be gymnastics chalk or more like baby powder - to mark lines in the floor and dry their hands, and this carries its own smell. A photo was taken of my with a wrestler later in the day, and he carried the same smell with him. There was an unforgettable sound as well: the smack of a good hit, of skin on skin, shoulders and chests colliding, easily 500 pounds of momentum being thrown together. Every 30 seconds this sound was repeated. Their practice, from what we saw, consisted mainly of practice fights: two wrestlers, looking each other in the eyes. The can delay the start of the match by not putting their fists on the ground. Once they crouch, the fists go to the dirt, and once all four are there, they both spring into action, driving towards the other one, pushing with massive thighs. The fight ends when one goes down, or much more common, when one goes outside the boundaries of the ring. The visions: wrestlers, from almost-massive, almost-sumo wrestler looking guys (not as big as the professionals), to big boys overweight and still developing muscle, to a single, incredibly lean and muscular one, looks more like a marathon runner than anything else...probably cross-training for another martial art.
We stayed for almost 2 hours. The practice ended with the cleaning of the space, and the smell of delicious foods being prepared in a barely-hidden kitchen. Smells of bread, rice, and fish. These guys must consume some incredible amounts of food...
Departed, found a closed bike shop (with a Bridgestone sign), and then a small clothing store where things were bought by Ken and Jenny. Continued walking, found a park with a Buddhist temple - beautiful and not filled with camera-armed-teacher-tourists. Finally to the Edo-Tokyo museum, to walk through their permanent collection. It held some incredible artifacts of Japanese history, including models of Edo-period feudal castles. Spent money in the museum store, got some gifts to return home. Lunch in a tiny road-side restaurant: pointed at dishes in a class case, handed those exact dishes which were then replenished. Had tofu, rice, a whole fish, squash, eggplant, seaweed salad. ¥500 each...about $4.50. Found the sumo museum for Ken, who stayed to watch a tournament. Haven't seen him again...did he challenge of one these guys and become the new national champion or was he beaten and then sent to sumo boot camp? Or did he simply not return to the hotel near the time I did? I will probably find out today.
Headed then to Shibuya, which may be the Times Square of Japan. And if it's not, it's in close running. Incredible place: this is where you can find Japanese non-conformity, lots of young people, lots of diversity. Lots of tourists, too. It also houses what claims to be the busiest intersection in the world. It's an interesting one: 2 roads intersect, which is normal. One gets to go, then the other. And all the while, pedestrians can't, so they're building up at the crosswalks, and they do build up. It starts with 5 or 10 people and grows, in the course of a light, to 100 or 200...on each corner. If I'm at all close, that's 800 people waiting to cross the street. And not only to cross the across the street, as normal. There are also cross walks going diagonally across the intersection - traffic is obviously entirely stopped. When the light changes there is a sea...no, rather a flood of people entering the intersection and moving fluidly around each other. Totally unreal.
Visited a bunch of shops, souvenirs and gifts were bought. The most memorably find for me was a CD called 'Smooth,' a house/trance/soul kind of piece...published by a label in Chicago. Didn't buy it. There wasn't any Japanese script on it at all...I'll find it at home. What will be most remembered is the mass of people, the huge change from everything else I've seen here, the diversity, that this is what most people think of Japan: bright lights, pachinko parlors bleeping and beeping and chiming madly, masses of business men in suits and Japanese school girls in plaid skirts and teens in their rebellious outfits of torn jeans and hip sport coats. Then we returned to the hotel, collected our selves, I saved photos to my computer and began editing some of them, went out for dinner, returned to the hotel, and fell fast asleep. It's now 5am. Time to get camera and flash together, and head out to see what I can find. Breakfast begins in an hour, and in a few I'll be able to upload this post and some photos from yesterday.
Not sure when I'll have internet access again. I will certainly try, and will tentatively guarantee another post by Wednesday, all things going as planned.
Be well, be good to yourself, and be good to others.
-Kippu
posted by kip at 18:02
1 Comments:
Sounds good^^
You've been to interesting places in Japan!!
Tokyo is very busy city in Japan, but it has many things to do.
Enjoy yourself!!
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