Month: July 2006

SO, it was my birthday on the 24th (Monday) and we decided to go out on Sunday night. Nova closes a little early on Sundays, so it seemed sensible. A few students had recommended an Irish pub called Rickey’s which is in Toyota – about a 3 minute walk from Nova. Just about everyone from work went. Even the Japanese staff who got off later than we did. It was a lot of fun! Especially because I didn’t have to pay for anything… Thanks guys!!! :) Photos with explanations below:

And then I had the pleasure of working on my actual birthday, but that was ok. Neither bad nor good. Kerry took a trip to Osaka on Monday and Lisa was extremely nice and cooked me dinner Monday night (spaghetti!!!) and had bought me a little strawberry mousse tart thingie from a bakery.

Yeah!!!!!!!!!! I went to see sumo on this past Thursday (the 20th). It’s been raining like crazy here. Today’s the first day in almost a week that it hasn’t rained. So of course I started to feel fluish on my first day off (Weds.). I had been planning for quite a while to go to sumo on Thursday so I stayed in bed ALL day on Wednesday, took a ton of vitamin c, and drank lots of Kagome (my new favorite drink – blended 100% juice). Felt ok on Thursday but of course it was drizzling a little. So I took a sweatshirt and Lisa and I were on our way!! Sumo tournaments happen 5 times per year in Japan. Once in Nagoya, Osaka & Kyushu, and three times in Tokyo. Each tournament lasts 15 days – Sunday to Sunday. This Sunday (the 23rd) is the last day. So if I didn’t go on Thursday I wasn’t going to get to go…. We hopped on the subway to Nagoya and in about 2 stops a sumo wrestler got on!!! He was wearing Yukata – which is a cotton kimono for summer. So we got off on the same stop and pretty much followed him to the Nagoya Gymnasium. There were TONS of people heading there as well as a bunch of sumo wrestlers in pretty dresses, I mean, yukata. :) I wasn’t brave enough to take pictures in their face……

The gym is just north of downtown Nagoya (get out your maps) and is right next to Nagoya castle. So the big walls that you see would have surrounded the castle. There was also a REALLY neato moat with big walls on each side and super thorny bushes growing on all edges. Back to the tournament. It starts everyday at 8:30am and goes until 6pm. The non professional guys wrestle first and then at about 3:30 the popular, professional wrestlers come on. The amateurs don’t get to do any of the neat foot stamping they just come out and do some bowing, one or two movements (lift the arms to show you don’t have weapons, one foot stamp each side to scare away evil spirits). It’s still very ritualized. There’s a great big shinto shrine that hangs over the wrestling “ring” – it looks like the top of a house with big tassels hanging from each corner. The tassels symbolize the four seasons. So here are some pictures from earlier in the day – you can see that a lot of the seats are still empty. We arrived at about noon.

So after all that excitement we decided to take a little bit of a break before the big guys went on. I had seen on a map that the Nagoya Noh theatre was just down the way so we went for a walk:

So I got the full schedule of upcoming Noh performances in Nagoya – but it’s a bit cheaper in Toyota. Super cool though!! And back to sumo we went. The big guys were about to come on. They get to do more of the ceremonial stuff. They all walk out from the wings in a line and then stand in a circle around the top of the “ring”, walk around it once, and of course they say a few things in Japanese that I didn’t understand. They also wear ceremonial aprons during that part. PLUS, they get to throw salt in the ring before their individual matches to purify the ring. There’s a lot of staring down; they crouch down, get back up, take a drink, throw some more salt, crouch again, back up, towel their face off, and back down again. And then they fight and it’s over with in a minute or so. There’s many different ways to win, but basically, if you touch the ground with anything other than your feet or if you go outside of the ring then you lose. They go at each other full force and some of them slap each other in the face or throat area to force the other person backwards or off balance. Looks painful. For one match, one guy went straight forward (like normal) and the other guy JUMPED straight in the air so of course the first guy fell on his face! That was unexpected!!! So here’s some pics of the bigger/professional/higher ranking guys:

So that was my exciting day at the sumo tournament. I had lots of fun – even more than I expected to. :) I didn’t understand anything that anyone said but it was really neat to watch. Plus there was a little book (in english!) that explained sumo’s history, rules, etc. SUPER COOL!!!! And last but not least I took a short video of the very last match if you want to download it and check it out: Sumo Video

Well, we finally found a bar in Nisshin. Actually, it’s an Itzakaya which is a place where you sit at a narrow bar and order drinks and food if you feel like it. Very Japanese. :) It occurs to me that I forgot to get a picture of the outside of it. I guess we were just too happy to actually find somewhere to hang out after dark! Not too sure what it’s called but there’s actually several areas inside, each with their own little cook/bartender. Kerry and I went out adventuring and after we arrived we called Josh. He lives in Akaike – the next stop over on the train – and works with us at Nova. He’s from Australia. Needless to say, we drank quite a few beers that evening. And then the adventure began when Kerry and I decided to go to the bathroom…… Most doors are labeled with little guy/girl pictures – not these ones!!! I was VERY happy that I had brought my trusty phrase book (thanks mom!). Incidentally, that’s the ladies room I’m standing in front of. :)

So we had a nice night out on the town. We call it the Raccoon Bar because there’s a big painting of a cartoony raccoon on the front of it. And now for some miscellaneous pictures that I’ve taken over the last week or so….

So on July 1st (Canada day) my Canadian roommate Kerry and I went to try to celebrate the Canadian way – drinking. :) Sadly, we failed…. We went to Nagoya looking for a bar she had seen advertising “come celebrate canada day”. We took the train/subway after work and got out in Sakae and proceeded to try to find the bar. Apparently the map in the ad was upside down. So we walked around for around 30 minutes, semi-aimlessly, and giggled at all of the awful 80s hair! Heehee! I can’t remember the last time I saw so many mullets, feathered hair, and otherwise big, oversprayed hair. Very goofy. We eventually asked a parking attendant for directions – we were four blocks away…. :-P The bar was tiny and pretty goofy. No one was particularly friendly but we got to drink Heineken and listen to Canadian music. And then we went home…. :-(

Then this past Thursday (the 6th) I had kids training at a Nova branch in a city called Toyohashi (not to be confused with plain old Toyota). It took about an hour and a half to get there by train, including the two switchovers. We took our regular train to Toyota, transfered to another train to get to Chiryu and then waited around to transfer to an express train to get to Toyohashi. The express train went somewhere around 130km/hr. It was pretty neato. So kids training was awful and made me question what the heck I was doing in Japan. (We all know how much I LOVE kids.) So I took some time to reflect (literally) on the train ride(s) back to Nisshin. Photos below:

Very interesting trips on the trains. Always on time too (what an idea). Last but not least I’ve got some miscellaneous pictures from the last week or so. Including a picture of My Nuts. I haven’t had the courage to open them up yet – the package is just too funny….

As you can see from my previous posts and photos, I seem to spend quite a bit of time at Japanese cemeteries. So I don’t know why I was surprised when I ended up at a HUGE cemetery when I went on a seemingly innocent walk across Nisshin to go to their Hydrangea walk. This was on Thursday. So after my semi-retarded day at Osu Kannon, I decided to go hang out with the flowers. The hydrangea is the town, er, I mean CITY, flower of Nisshin. I’ve looked on my little map of Nisshin before and quite a ways away is a “Hydrangea Walk”. They describe it as a winding road with hydrangeas growing along the sides. Hydrangea season is pretty short – mid to late June – so I figured I’d better go before they all dry up. So I started out on my walk across town and 45 minutes later ( ! ) I saw a little statue/shrine down a little path off the side of the road. I decided to take a little detour and check it out.

So I figured if there were beautiful statues and even a waterfall there was probably something better just a bit further on! (That’s how all these stories start out….) And lo and behold, a HUGE staircase through a bamboo forest! There are little temple like flags on the sides so I thought maybe there was a temple at the top…. Had to check it out!!

But I pressed on. Snakes or no snakes! So that first picture? With stairs as far as the eye can see? There were probably FIVE more sets of stairs just like that. Here’s some pictures from my stair walking adventure:

And FINALLY, at the top of all of this there were MORE buddhas, gravestones, grave markers, shrines, etc. But at least there were no more stairs. :) And I finally saw one or two other human beings too!

So, was I lost? Yes. I picked a direction (left) and it turned out to be correct!! It was the hydrangea walk! And just like they said it would be, it was a winding road with hydrangeas growing along the sides. Some of them were starting to die off, but they still looked pretty good. I was really impressed by the variety of colors and textures.

YES – lots of flowers….. They’re just so pretty!!! And you can see by the last picture – most of them were bigger than my head. Or close to it. :) So, after nearly two hours of walking around, what was next? More walking!!! Yes, that’s right, Katie has lost her mind…. Very unfortunate, but what did you expect?!?!? I actually turned around to head home, but I HAD to stop at the little local castle. It was too late though and it was already closed, so I didn’t get a tour inside but the grounds were still open to walk around.

So, that was my big adventure on Thursday….. I hope to go back to the castle someday and take a look inside – maybe that’ll wait for a visit from a friend though… :)