Sumo Day (short version)

Quick catch up from Monday...we got back from the fish market, and after a nap, we explored Asakusa some more. We were jonesin' for some japanese noodles, so we found a great place in our neighborhood. After noodles, we walked around Asakusa, including the pedestrian walkway that leads up to Senso-ji, one of the most revered Buddhist temples in Tokyo. The temple itself was closed for the evening, so we planned to see it again during the day time. We then went back to the hostel and took a raincheck on going out with a nice Canadian couple we met. We passed out!Tuesday morning, and it was time to get tickets to a Sumo wrestling match. We headed to Ryoguku via the metro with Ruth from the hostel. We bought our tickets and then took the train to Shibuya. We explored this major shopping and entertainment district, got some food (gyoza), and headed back to Ryogoku (aka "Sumo town"). We watched the last 15 matches of the day, and then we met up with the Canadian couple from the hostel, Ryan and Sharon, for dinner and a lot of Sapporo. We got up early the next day, packed up, went back to Senso-ji, enjoyed conveyor-belt sushi, and then we took off for Narita for our next stop, Bangkok.For the long version...read on.

Sumo Day (long version)

SECTION ONE: NOODLES

Our search for Japanese noodles (in soup) on Monday took us to a great local place along the main strip near Senso-ji. Everything was in Japanese and there were no pictures, so that boded well for a more authentic experience. We weren't disappointed. There were no menus...we just sat down at a long bar in a dimly lit brown and tan restaurant. Behind the bar, there were several gentlemen cooking and stirring frenetically. Only one of them decided to brave an attempt at English. He walked us to the vending machine we passed just before we sat down at the bar. He explained that we needed to choose the three core components of our Japanese noodle soup meal:

1. Soup (go figure) - choose miso or soy. Not too complicated. All in Japanese, though, so we just keyed off the numbers.

2. Noodles (shocker) - choose small, medium, or large. Same price. I repeat, same price. Load us up with the large, baby. Eats are expensive in Tokyo, so an upgrade to large for no charge sounded right by us.

3. Add ons - choose from roast pork, bamboo shoots, sprouts, nori (seaweed), medium-boiled egg, or extra spice.

Push another button and you can get the works. When in Rome...so we got the works. We made our choices, fed some money into the machine, and it spit out a series of tickets. We handed the tickets to our guy, and he headed off to make our meal. A few minutes later, we had a bowl of soup with egg, nori, and pork in it, a plate on the side with all the veggies, and a pile of noodles about the size of half a box of spaghetti. To put it all together…add the veggies to the soup, dip a few of the noodles at a time into the soup, and slurp away. Literally, slurp. Picture what you used to do as a kid (sorry, mom) at the dinner table when you would eat spaghetti. I tried to do it without the unpleasant side effect of spraying everything, including my wife, with soup. Since I failed miserably, I went back to the shy foreigner role and was prim and proper. We spent an hour working on that bowl of soup...and then gave up.Three quarters of the way through the meal, a Japanese businessman walked in, ordered his soup (with large noodles), slurped enormous quantities of noodles at a time, finished his soup in around seven slurps, and left. The slurps were loud, obnoxious, and seriously disturbing. And no one batted an eye. The Japanese definitely know how to wine and dine, but as a matter of course, food is yet another task to get through during a very busy day. Very rarely did we observe anyone hanging out for a post-meal chill. So our friend's slurp and run was no surprise.

SECTION TWO: SENSO-JI

Anyway, after our soup, we definitely needed to walk it off. We explored Asakusa some more, walking through a long shopping street called "Nakamise" leading up to the inner gate (Hozomon) of Senso-ji, the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo (completed in 645 AD).

The Nakamise had tons of shops selling everything from fans to toys to traditional sweets. We tried one of the famous sweets, a small cake with a sweet red bean paste filling. Cut a twinkie in half, make the cake more golden brown and fresh, and fill it with a sweet red paste, and you can picture what we tried. After walking past many shops and a final couple of stalls dedicated to yakitori (grilled chicken skewers), we arrived at the inner gate of Senso-ji. Replete with enormous red, black, and gold lanterns and a famous five-story pagoda, the temple was quite beautiful at night.

We walked some more in search of cheap DVDs for the trip, but we couldn't find any in the neighborhood, although we checked out another one of the enormous department stores in Tokyo, Rox. We got back at around 7:30 and passed out. That's the earliest I have gone to sleep in a long, long time.

SECTION THREE: SHIBUYA

There are only really three things to add about Shibuya: Shibuya crossing, the story of Hachiko, and love hotels.

The big intersection, or Shibuya crossing, is right outside the metro station, near the statue of Hachiko. People line up in orderly fashion by the crosswalks, but the moment their turn to cross appears, they fan out and cross like ants heading towards food. I think this was shown in Lost in Translation, but I honestly cannot remember.

To get to Shibuya crossing, we exited Shibuya station at the Hachiko exit. Hachiko is a dog with such an amazing story that an exit was named after him. Turns out, Hachiko was the faithful buddy of a professor at the University of Tokyo. Each day, he walked with his master to the subway station, and each night, he greeted his master and they walked home together. One day, the professor died while at the University. For the next nine years, Hachiko dutifully went to the subway station to greet his master, who obviously never returned. Hachiko died in 1935, and the Japanese were so touched by his loyalty that they created a statue of Hachiko in front of the subway station. When the Japanese needed metal for weapons in WWII, they melted down the statue of Hachiko (and replaced it a few years after the war). Time and time again during the trip we would find out that an ancient or otherwise important site was destroyed in the 40's and subsequently rebuilt. After focusing so much on the attack at Pearl Harbor, I was reminded that so much of Tokyo was destroyed in retaliation.

That leaves us with love hotels. These are basically by-the-hour hotels where Japanese husbands and wives (and I have to think the affair-minded as well) stop in for…well….some lovin'. Houses are so crowded and lives are so busy, that couples go to these hotels as a necessity. There is nothing really seedy about it, apparently, and after seeing the size of our room in the hostel and hearing about one woman's search for an apartment in Tokyo, we can understand the need.

SECTION FOUR: SUMO

Oh yeah, baby. Sumo. As I type this, I have duct-taped a balled up sock to the back of my head and I am pounding the floor with my feet. SUMO! So, we went back to Ryogoku to go to the sumo stadium. We caught the opening ceremonies of the last group of wrestlers, the highest ranked big boyz. Then we caught the final 15 matches.

The ritual of it all was fascinating. Basically, they fake the start of the match and psyche each other out for up to 4 minutes. Then the ref forces the match to start. Matches lasted between 4 seconds and about one minute. One of the matches was absolutely hysterical…a wrestler around 350 pounds used his signature move called a throat chop on his opponent, also around 350 pounds. The move involves repeatedly smacking at the opponents throat (no lie…around 25 times) until the opponent is so flustered that he basically falls out of the ring. It was unlike anything I have ever seen. I could see Pouya and Grafton completely loving it…and Tony completely cracking up for the entire match. I have a great movie clip that I can show folks when we return (too big to post here).

SECTION FIVE: CONVEYER BELT SUSHI

Exactly what it sounds like, patrons sit in a u-shape around the sushi chefs, who whip up creations and place them on a conveyer belt that runs around the restaurant. The plates are color coded based on price. The coolest part is that when you are done, the waitress simply scans your plates with a device that reads a code in the plate, and boom, your bill is generated, and you take a receipt to the cash register to pay.

After sushi, we took off for the subway, where a Nigerian expat in Tokyo helped us catch the fastest train to Narita. Knowing we would be on the plane to Bangkok for 7 hours, I stood with my pack on the subway most of the way to the airport, opting not to sit down. A nice 81-year old Japanese grandma gave us some chewing gum for strength and waved goodbye to us when she got off at her stop. Japanese people rule.

We're off to Bangkok!