Snow Fest, Part 2

Is it bad that I want to stay in bed and read all day? Every day? I’m such a slug.

Also, despite my mothers frantic fears, there was no tsunami action in Tokyo. Should you have been worried, let me quell that by saying that we’re just fine. We spent the day in Tokyo (shinjuku and shibuya, mostly) eating ramen, wandering about, and drinking in the streets. With the exception of some rain showers in the morning, it was a very water-free day.

Part two of our Yuzawa trip, coming at you. In this episode, Jon and Michelle find a place to sleep and look at snow sculptures!

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You’ll remember that we came out to the mountain town of Yuzawa without a hotel booked for the night. (scroll down if this doesn’t sound familiar. you probably missed part one!) We stopped in to the tourist association and found someone that spoke a small amount of English. Boy, what a help!

We really, really didn’t want to spend 300$ / night on a hotel (which seemed to be the going rate for most of the places we had found, and was also the reason why we didn’t book something BEFORE getting on the train). Other than that financial limitation, we tried to communicate to the guy that we didn’t really care about much else. Remember, I was okay with sleeping in the train station if it came to that!

A few phone calls later, he circles something on the map and tells us that it would be $50. … okay? okay! well. we still have no idea what we’re going to, but at least he circled it on the map. That will probably come in handy later.

We’re in the mountains this weekend to visit the Tokamachi snow festival, which is a 30-minute train ride away from where we were at. I think a lot of people were in town for this snow fest, because the trains were crazy packed.

The japanese need very little encouragement when it comes to having full-costume mascots. This is the suica (train pass) mascot! I hugged Suica the Penguin! Isaiah, are you hearing this!!?

We wander out to the streets and follow the crowd into a snow-walled off area filled with tents and sculptures. Speaking of trains, look at the level of detail!

This area is known for growing rice, so there’s a lot of sake makers around too. (remember, sake is basically rice wine) $1 for sake? count us in!

I love that this culture embraces drinking in public so wholeheartedly.

SUMO snow man! This isn’t the kind of stuff we made in our backyard. Tokamachi’ans really don’t mess around with their snowmen!

Just look at the level of detail!

But you know, not everyone… got the hint. Shouldn’t there at least be snow in the snowmen? Nice try, folks.

Boy. All this walking around in the snow is making me hungry. If only there was a guy selling meat on a stick around here somewhere…..

Did I mention how cold it was yet? And wet? Cold and wet!

Unlike jon’s (much more practical shoes), my tennis shoes aren’t waterproof. My toes were angry with me, and so when the opportunity came to warm myself with a beer around a trash-can-fire, like a hobo, my toes simply wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

They do this crazy thing all over Tokamachi & Yuzawa. Having lived in both Wisconsin and Colorado for some time, it struck me as odd that I’ve never seen anything like this before. It appears that the snow melt runoff is piped into the streets to keep them from freezing. Neat, huh? Neat that is, until you accidentally step in it and get your (already angry) toes more wet.

but you know, it’s okay. We’re having a good time and we’re together. And we did come for the snow, after all.

Are you ready for some SUMO?!

It’s nice to know what’s going on, when you’re watching a sport. Also, it’s nice when that sport has cute mascots that you can take your picture with.

Also, it’s nice to have goods seats. (Even better when you had not-so-nice seats the first time you came, so you can really appreciate the awesomeness of your über-expensive floor mat.)

These, by the way, were the chairs:

Did I mention yet that our seats were the traditional masu, or box seats, that fit 4 Japanese-sized people really well? We were cozy. It’s a really good thing that we were all friends…

…and that you’re allowed to drink your body weight in beer that you bought at the 7-11. Although in retrospect, Will is probably right. Chu-Hai Strong Zero might not be the best beverage choice for me. An 8% beverage that tastes like fizzy grapefruit juice is toxic to my judgment. (Seriously, was this stuff made for high schoolers? it doesn’t taste like alcohol at all!)

I’m sure I’m not alone in the camp of girls who tagged along for the ride, but somewhere along the way became genuinely interested in the sport they were pretending to like. Before the maku-uchi (upper division) bouts begins, the younger rikishi (sumo wrestlers) have their moment of starshine. Because not many people get there to see these young wrestlers, we were able to sneak down and steal a few shots!

Here you can see the wrestlers, lined up and waiting for their turn. In front, you can see the ceremonial salt. The salt is thrown by upper division wrestlers before the bout, to both purify the ring and to protect them from injury.

You’ll remember that the sumo dohyō where the bouts happen, is held under the roof of a Shinto Shrine, dating back to Sumo’s history of taking place in sacred places. Kind of neat. I love how traditions and history are carried through and modernized.

Before the big bouts of the day, the four of us headed out to have a traditional Sumo feast – Chanka Nabe. In traditional style, we sat on the floor of a little cubicle. As lunch started, the boys began to get used to the idea of sitting on the floor cross-legged for multiple hours. Hah.

I love how many menus have pictures here. It makes ordering super easy.

This is lunch:

Ready for more restaurant pictures? Thought so. Last year, we tried to go to a place called Popeyes, known for it’s 70 beers on tap.

…but, it was closed on sundays. We made a point to come back on a Saturday this year. Among other things, I had an imperial coffee stout aged in bourbon barrels. They only gave you about 8oz, which is less than awesome. I thought it was really neat to see how many of their 70 beers were from the northwest. We live in good a good part of the world for beer, wine, and food.

Sumo

And then there was one.

Okay, there was one per “bout” and there were about 45 bouts….

We’re in the middle of the sumo  tournament, which is when all the sumo wrestlers come into a stadium that looks surprisingly like Key Arena (in seattle) and they fight (or “bout”) with each other in ascending order throughout the day.  The tournament is 15 days long from 9am – 6pm with the matches of the top two wrestlers being last in the day.  Since sumo is the national sport of japan, you can think of the fanfare something like football playoffs.  It’s not the superbowl, but it’s climaxing to it. It’s big, big, big.

Below is the ceremony before the matches, when each wrestler enters the dohyo (ring).  The crowd cheers for their favourites.  The little boy next to us seemed to know each of their names.

Being a sportsfan, jon has latched on to the idea of sumo and has decided that he’ll hustle home each day so he can be in front of the tv by 5pm when the broadcast of the top fights begins.

So jon and I travelled up to sumo-town on Sunday.  It was our first solo experience on the trains, and our first time in Tokyo. Thanks to jon’s research and some really handy internet sites, it was REALLY easy.

When we got out of the train station, we heard the pounding of a drum.  “Okay”, we thought, “We’ll go towards the drumming”.  And when we got there, there were people running to get in line for the general admission seat.  Only 300 to be given out, and we made it just in time!

Once inside, they give you a roster of the matches for the day, with each sumo’s ranking on the other side. Following along makes the sport so much more interesting – and it’s not just fat people running into each other for four hours.

After some breakfast and wandering aboot, we went in to see some of the younger guys fight. That was really nice – since not many people were there yet, we  were able to stand up pretty close and get some good pictures.

“Celebrities” in japan, like these sumo wrestlers, don’t get treated with the same fanfare as we treat our american athletes. There they were, just walking. Like normal people. With one lone Seattleite as their paparazzi.

After that we had our Chanka (see below) and explored a bit more.  While not a very exciting picture, our mothers like photos of us. So here we are, at the chanka restaurant.

Jon found a beya (or sumo stable) to “explore” (read: stalk) and we peeked inside to their sumo dohyo (ring) in the lower level.  After the tournament we came back again to “explore” this area and we saw them all in their street clothes, eating dinner.  As it turns out, sumo wrestlers look a lot like big fatty hawaiians.  Kind of homie.

In the middle of all this, we found a memorial in the area.  There was a great fire back in the day, and 40,000 people died.  This memorial was errected to honour their deaths, etc.

Why this is relevant:  before sumo was named the national sport and official moved indoors in the 20th century, sumo bouts were held at temples or monuments.  So while these photos are of a pretty cool cemetary (which the 15 year old in me just really loves), they are ALSO a historical sumo spot.

Okay, two more things. We also found a fugu restaurant (remember, fugu is one of the deadliest sushis around, and only licensed sushi chefs can prepare it in Japan. It’s something of a thrill for adventurous foodies. I hear it doesn’t taste very good and it’s VERY expensive. This is jon, as a fugu. (pufferfish)

teamEggers loves you.

Sumo

Tomorrow’s big adventure is the sumo tournament.  While it was basically sold out, we heard that you can get general admission tickets if you get there by 8am.  So!  We’ll have our first adventure on the train system going into Tokyo.

I’m excited!  It’s going to be great and scary! Woo!

Some interesting facts: The sumo tournament is in the Ryogoju district of Tokyo, also called Sumo Town.  There are sumo stadiums, stables, temples and Chanko restaurants in the neighborhood. Chanko restaurants serve the traditional sumo meal of Chankonabe – it’s like a protein / veggie rich stew that is served in high quantities to bulk up the wrestlers.

The rituals behind Chankonabe sound really neat too.  On the day of the match, they only eat stew with a chicken base and with chicken meat – no beef or other four legged animals or fish, which have no legs.  The idea is that a good sumo wrestler (rikishi) should always be on two legs, like the chicken.