Having Fun

Hello! It's the end of week four and I'm still going strong! Class is becoming more of a challenge (and I'm actually happy about that!) and I've enjoyed a few more outings since last time! So, last week friday some of us went out to dinner in Tokyo. When you get off of the train you find yourself in an underground market place. Which was no good for any of us because we really like to shop! Especially since we're here, I've been trying to get out of the mind set that shopping is a game I play with fake money at special shops...when really I'm just buying bread at 7eleven... and that bread is costing me more in American dollars than it is in yen. But as I have said, the bread here is sooo good! Especially butterscotch bread. Plus, bread is always fresh, soft and moist. So good! 

Anyway we walked through the market place and eventually found ourselves in the basement of the Marunouchi building. This place is like a combination of a mall and an office buidling. We went up to the top floor (I think it was the top floor) and there was this awesome view of the city, with all the lights, it was so pretty! We took pictures (my camera couldnt do it justice, it kept catching my reflection) and then walked around to check out the restaraunts. They were waaay beyond our price range. I'm talkin, 8000 yen a plate! So we went down a level..or two...or five, I cant remember, but we found a traditional japanese style restaurant where they served okinomiyaki. This is a japanese pancake that they make according to your specifications. Tracey was with us (who speaks...I think fluent japanese) so she was able to explain the menus to us and what was in the food. So we orderd two okinomiyakis, one with sticky rice and cheese, and another with all seafood...every kind of seafood...including octopus tentacles and squid. Needless to say, I had no intention of eating that one lol. They also served beans, kori (seaweed) and seasoned rice. The okinomiyaki was good, it wasn't what I expected though. You say pancake and I'm thinking lots of dough, not the case. It had lettuce and eggs in it, along with the rice and the chese and there was a bar-be-que like sauce on top. It was good though. Against my better judgement, I had a small (and I mean small) bite of the seafood one...bleh. The rice and beans were good though! I also tried a pop soda. It comes in a bottle that has this little glass ball on top that you have to pop into the bottle in order to drink. It tasted like sprite to me, which is fine. Afterwards, we explored a few of the other places in the building, including a Subways that grew lettuce in this huge incubator and an American Pharmacy that was named American Pharmacy lol. 

True to its name, it had a bunch of American products like Snickers, glamour magazine, maybeline cosmetics, etc. It also had random things like tea kettles and ski masks. We didn't buy anything, but we were happy to know it was there. There was another store that sold swiss miss hot chocolate, which I was really happy to see because I'm starting to run out of the stash I brought with me from home :-)

On Sunday, us American students went to see Sumo at the Kokugikan Arena. It was very interesting. Somehow I thought I wouldn't have a problem looking at a bunch of half naked fat men because I knew before hand what I was getting myself into. Not the case! It was...a lot of meat bouncing and getting slapped around! Aside from that though, it was pretty cool. Sumo comes from Shinto ritual from back in the day, so the matches are very ceremonial. A sumo must squat, slap his thighs, squat again, etc to show that he has no weapons on him. Then they pick up this white powder and throw it into the ring, as a taunt to the other wrestler, then they squat and stuff again, they drink water, squat/etc, throw powder again and then the match starts. The match lasts about 10 seconds! So you spend about 7-10 minutes watching them do the pre match stuff, then you watch a 10 second match! Luckily for us, that day was the day that the grand champion retired. So it was a special day. One of the ways they commmorated the occasion was by having a hair cutting ceremony, during which all of his financial supporters cut his hair. they dont actually cut it though, they get on stage, take the scissors and pretend to cut it, then another guy (maybe the coach?) comes up at the end and cuts it. Apparently the good sumo wrestlers get a ton of supporters and they become so rich that they dont have to do anything for themselves. They dont even have to wipe their own behinds (Comming to America!)! And this guy was a grand champion! So you can imagine how many supporters he had. I thought I could... I was wrong! After an hour of watching man after man get on stage, I'm not gonna lie, I started to doze off! So a bunch of us walked around to visit the shops. This place reminded me a lot of the Wells Fargo center, one huge circle with a bunch of small over priced food and good items. Although I think the Wells Fargo center is way more overpriced than the arena, plus the shops were pretty cool. I bought some fries and ice cream, along with a souvenior for back home (not telling what it is though!). Then Max and Tracey went home, having had enough of the festivities, Jeanne went back to our setas, and Sylvia and I walked around some more. We were trying to find the special sumo soup, Chanko (for Sylvia) and the sumo museum. Unfortunately, it turned out that they weren't serving the soup that day afterall, but we did find the museum, with the help of a guide. It always feels scary and I think we tend to over think when we want to speak to someone in japanese, and then the right phrase comes randomly ("Sumo Museum wa doko desu ka" - where is the sumo museum?) usually after the fact! Its OK though...we can always say we're only students learning Japanese! At the museum, there were a lot of sumo ceremonial aprons (kesho-mawashi) on display. So you could see close up how intricate the weaving and designs are - beautiful! There were also random things like hand prints (sumos have some big hands, 'nuff said) pictures and bios. There was also a TV playing some of the greatest matches. We left the museum, and went back to watch the rest of the festivities. there was another ceremony, more matches with less experienced wrestlers, and then the grand champion matches left to see. We walked into..matches, we didn't know which they were though. Then two of the champions (one Mongolian, one American) had their match. The American won (yay! - I know, biased). After that, another sumo came out and did a bow dance. After that, people started leaving. We were so confused.. we were sure that there was supposed to be another set of matches, but it turns out that they were ahead of schedule and we missed the first set of matches while we were in the museum...so..we went home too! On the way out the door, everyone was allowed to take the fresh flowers they had on display for the sumos. I thought about my Drexel girlfriends, always looking out for free flowers on campus. Don't worry ladies, I took enough home for all of us :-)

Missing you guys,