Voice of Will: Sumo

2007-05-21 - 3:34 p.m.
What can I say about sumo?
Wow?
Nope. That doesn't sum it up.
A very large build up, then a quick climax?
well it is that, but so too are many other things that get you sweaty.
Sumo is just... undescribable, but I will try.
We arrived at 11am to watch the days sumo bashio. The kids were excited, criss's co workers were excited and midly worried. I was looking forward to it.
So we get to the tournament center, and we have a problem right from the get go. When criss bought the tickets (on the first day they went on sale) and was told, "no you get kids tickets the day you go for 200 yen." Oh, ok. 200 yen for the kids, that is dirt cheap. ok. Well not ok. It appears they only have very limited kids tickets each day, and they were sold out. Ok, buy a regular ticket. Nope. The only tickets are 9200 yen. yes that is right $90.00 per person.
WTF? Ok. I guess the kids go home. who with? I can take them home, and then come back and watch the bashio later (we have 2 tickets). Just then, a co worker of criss's offers us her 2 tickets, so we would have to buy one adult ticket, and they would buy 2 tickets... We had a discussion, and decided that would be ok, because we didn't want to ruin the sumo match for the kids.
We go in, and it is 11am. This means the scrubs of sumo are fighting. They don't even have the indoor lights on yet. But becaue this is the scrubs, the unranked sumo, they have NO ONE there. The tournament hall is deserted. So we all move down to the third row behind the judge. We are so close we can see every pore on each sumo's face. We can see the hands, the feet, and the butt cracks (some of them were huge).
Some thoughts on watching the scrubs. There were two that stood out. The first one was the individual who had 6 operations on his knees. You could see 3 scars on each knee, and you could hear them creak and pop (worse than mine) as he worked his way up the step onto the platform. I kept thinking, "If you have had to have 6 operations, and you are still an unranked scrub, why do you keep fighting?" Now maybe he had once been ranked, and was working his way back into rankings... or maybe he just loved sumo, but at somepoint you have to look at your body, and say, enough is a enough. I played just enough football in jr high school, and early high school to hurt my knees, and ankles. I decided I didn't want to walk in pain the rest of my life, so I stopped.
The second thought was watching this romanian sumo. He was BUILT. There was no fat on him. He moved like he had lots of judo or other martial arts. Watching the women watch him was like watching a human with a hungry vampires... the girls were licking their lips, and you could see how handsome he was. He won. He was against a larger guy, but he managed to move the behind the big guy, and when it looked bad, he did a great hip throw.... wow.
At this time we moved up above to watch from the original seats. The idea was to go up, and let the kids read their books, and maybe play some gameboys. Well the kids went to the bathroom. Rae comes back, will jr comes back. No zeb. No zeb. 15 minutes go buy, no zeb. WTF? I go in the bathroom, no zeb. I go into the other bathrooms, NO zeb. Go back to the seats, no zeb. He is gone!! We call in the security guards, they start looking for zeb. we are looking all over at the top. Criss says, hold on, and looks downstairs. There he is sitting with the people we came with. Turns out, he purposefully snuck out behind dad, and snuck downstairs.
Well needless to say, he got in a boat load of trouble. At this time, criss who was not feeling well, started feeling nauseous. We spoke about it and she wanted to go home. So she left and took the kids with. I stayed.
I must say the best fights were the second ranked fighters. They are ranked, but are inbetween the scrubs and the top notch fighters. These guys all are HUNGRY, they all want that higher level ranking, so they all put up great fights.
The highest level guys were pretty awesome. People who are my size, but who are exceptionally quick and strong. In this group you have 3 current foreigners from eastern europe. 2 of the 3 won todays matches. It was good to see them win.
One of the other benefits of sumo, is the sumo have to walk among the crowds. There are no special exits, there are no team busses. So as you can see from my picture. I got near two of the same sized sumo's in the hall. Both had won their matches. They looked at me, and asked if I wanted to learn sumo...
No thanks I replied, I like my original bone structure. They didn't understand that english and I said, No NOSE and then make a squishing nose. And pointed to my collarbone and said "crack",and then said "no thud" They laughed, and said, yes lots of "nose" squish and thud... I said no thank you. They replied, well you get lots of girls, and with that a group of japanese women surrounded the sumo and away they went...
sumo groupies...go figure...

Sumo, or what it is like to have a Japanese man in your lap.

May 20, 2007

I am going to leave out the annoying and that bad, knowing that it doesn't really matter in the end. Rather, I have decided to tell you the way I want to remember what I have seen today. Today I went by subway to the sumo ring to watch the wrestlers do their thing. To see the ultimate in pure male physical exertion. To hear the crack of bones, feel the sweat of the fighters, watch as two men big enough to crush me with their bare hands smash together like trains colliding.
Without a doubt, this spectacle was a feat I would enjoy repeating again and again.
We walked through the doors into the arena and promptly walked all the way to the floor level, 2nd row from the actual ring itself. I sat just to the left of the judge to the north. Seated just behind that judge, I was able to see every pore on the face of the competitors, every bruise and straining muscle, every nervous eye, the sand sticking to their feet, the sweat dripping from their foreheads, and the hair on the back of their thighs... okay, so sitting directly behind that particular judge may not have given me the greatest of views... I did end up looking right at the back side of the wrestler before he crashed into the opponent, but I was very happy to be that close. Close enough to reach out and touch the wrestlers waiting their turn.

Regrettably, I was sick today. I was running a fever as soon as I woke up so after nearly 4 hours of watching and enjoying sumo I had to leave early. I am sad about leaving early. An actual sumo match is everything I have ever thought it would be, and I would gladly do it again in a heartbeat. If I ever get the opportunity to come to Japan and see Sumo again, I know that I will jump at the chance. It was everything I wanted it to be and more, even with all the foreign guys competing.

Keep your eyes open for the sumo matches shown on ESPN this month.... You may just catch us all on film. Because we were there. Second row, center... on the floor.

And our tickets were for the nosebleed seats...

Voice of Will: Why I Love Tokyo

2007-05-18 - 7:35 p.m.
why I love tokyo
So there are many reasons to love tokyo, and a few to hate it.
Here are two examples of why I like tokyo so much.
I was out on tuesday evening with one of criss's co workers named Andy. We were supposed to be going to a club to see a Japanese Jazz band. Andy had heard about this concert about a week ago, and had asked if I wanted to tag along. So I said, sure. And off we went. Well there was one major problem. Andy had gotten the times wrong. He thought the doors opened at 8, and the band started playing at 9. No. At 8 we showed up, but there was NO ONE. The place was completely empty. oookkkkkaaaayy. We went across the street to chill out in this little coffee place. at 9 someone showed up at the venue, so we went over and talked to this guy. It appears andy was WAY wrong on the times. the doors didn't open until 10 and the band wasn't going to start playing until 11.
Now that kinda killed the mood. Andy had to teach the next morning, and I really didn't want to be out until 1am, especially since the trains stop at 1, so if we missed the train, we would have to either hike back (like 15 miles away), or rent a cab at $6.00 a 1/2 mile. Either way could get pretty expensive.
So we changed the plans, and decided to just explore shibuya prefecture. Think of a suburb of tokyo, that is what a prefecture is. Now I love shibuya. I just love the way it rolls off the tongue (she boo yah!) It sounds like something obscenely physical and obviously filled with bodily fluids...She boo yah! So we walked around, looked at shops, chatted, found a music store... and on the way to the train at about 10:40 we stumble on this full 9 piece ska band on the street sidewalk.
Now get this image. You have 9 muscians in black pin stripe suits, wearing sunglasses. there are lots of brass instruments, a couple of guitars, and a drum set. About half have punked hair (ie mo-hawks) and the other half have anime hair.
ON the sidewalk at 10:40 pm playing about a dozen songs, and selling their CD on a Tuesday. In shibuya.
How random is that? (ps we bought a CD. They are called Empty Black Box. Look them up and if you can find it, they are really pretty good. great beat, uptempo, and they sound fantastic.)
This leads me to my second great experience this week. So I had to mail some documents for Criss to the UAE for the job we are moving to in August. Well the local post office doesn't have anyone who speaks ANY english, but they are great folks, and lots of help. Often when I try to mail things, I learn about japanese postal system, and pick up new japanese words.
Now have you ever tried to tell someone you wanted to ship something to another country, when you don't speak their language? Country names are NOT all the same in different countries.
So I walk up to the teller (my favorite one too.) and ask her if she has ever heard of the UAE. blank confused face. Ok. I show her the envelope. It says United Arab Emirates. she asks, "America?" hopefully. No, I tell her. then "chugo?" (which is china, and the teller knows I ship lots of stuff to china)... No.


Now we have several possibilities at this point. She could say wakarimasen (I don't understand) and tell me to go away, she could try to pantomime it out, or pretend she knows and just randomly ship it somewhere. Or she could do this...
She goes to another teller who speaks some english (more english than I speak Japanese) and she can understand NOT America, NOT china, NOT japan. Ok. She starts digging out a "first 1000 words in english" book. So we look through it, but I don't really figure that United Arab Emirates is exactly one of the first 1000 words in english people learn... go figure. So I try globe. Nope. globe is not in the distinguished list either.... we finally get to Map. and world. OK now we are in business.
They ask me to wait, and one of them goes in to the back and I can see her digging through boxes, and I can understand her saying.. "I know it is here somewhere." After about 10 minutes there is a triumphant cry from the boxes. And she comes out waving this old, battered, but very noticeable ATLAS. (YES!!!! I could have kissed her)
so we open the atlas to the world map, and I show them the UAE. Well I show UAE, but they read ARABIA (from saudi arabia). I have to tell them NNNNOOOOO. UAE, this little part. Then we flip through the atlas, and finally find the UAE on the map, and let me tell you, the Japanese name is like 28 letters long.
But by this time, we were all laughing, and joking around. So to make a long story shorter (too late), I managed to mail criss's paperwork with the minimum of fuss, and lots of help from a very supportive post office.
These some of the reasons I will miss tokyo. The people here are really nice. Not all of them, not all the time. But if you try to speak Japanese first, they will be very helpful. It is just the ignorant tourists who get ignored.
p.s. Today the high temperature was 68 degrees, and it rained over 3/4 of the day. Long, loud thundering rain. The flowers are blooming all over tokyo, so you can't walk down the street without smelling roses, carnations, wisteria, and all the other scents, and the city is alive with vibrant colors. I think I will miss that most of all.
p.p.s. this coming month is going to be very busy. Sumo on Sunday, Myspace secret show japan on monday, I go to china on may 30th until june 6th, and on june 9th we will be going to the ghibli museum to see mae and the kittenbus. And next month we will be doing tokyo disneyland before going to the UAE.