Tokyo

Sumo 1
Sumo 2 My friends, the Isatsu family, met me at the airport with open arms after not seeing each for four years since their move back to Japan. Kyoko and Katsu have two children, Asumi and Hiroto who are 5 years old and 20 months, respectively. This was my first time meeting Hiroto and he is full of energy. Asumi is bilingual and extremely precocious for her age. I enjoyed the everyday family events with them as well as some tourist sites.

Ballet Recital

Asumi has been practicing ballet for a little over a year and has performed in many recitals. I was lucky to see this one as it was a special performance of Swan Lake. Her teacher is a professional ballerina and very talented. She teaches girls of all ages and all of her students participated in the event. There were little 3 year old girls who were so cute 'stumbling' across the stage. The costumes were beautiful! I had never seen Swan Lake before, but I was impressed.

Temples

The Engakuji and Jochiji temples in Kamakura have been there for over 700 hundred years and the city has been built around them to become very modern. We had visited the Engakuji temple on my last visit because a friend of Kyoko and Katsu practices archery from the temple. The archerers are dresses in black and white robes and are silent during their time there. The have large bows and kneel on the ground in a prayer like stance before the archery. They are shooting the bow from a temple at a target that is across a field. We watched several attempts and most hit right around the bullseye. It was incredible!

Sukiyaki

This is one of my favorite Japanese foods. It is steak cooked with vegetables and then dipped in raw egg. I know, I know it sounds disgusting, but really it is tasty. There are restaurants especially for sukiyaki with a grill in the middle of the table (It kind of reminds me of Benihana's).

Noh Theater

Noh performances usually last for 5 hours with breaks in between the different plays. All parts are played by males and they wear masks for the female characters. The topics are usually of family situations or love and they are performed most seriously. Kyoko and I went and were surprised that they usually lasted so long. We enjoyed the history as well as the older people around us that were sleeping soundly in their chairs. This kind of theater began in the Edo period (about 1,000 years ago) before kabuki theater (which is more entertaining). It was popular in the palace and by looking around the theater it still has a pretty good following. By the way, a good book to read about the history of Japanese theater is Madame Sadayakko. She was a geisha that married an actor in the late 1800s and they travelled to the states to perform with a troup. Sada was surprised to learn that as a woman she was expected to act in America. She continued onto Europe and became one of the most famous geishas. Because of these experiences, she and her husband changed the way that theater was performed in Japan by adding Shakespeare and women in roles. The book was a great introduction to my Noh experience.

Baseball

Mayumi is another friend of mine in Japan and she is fortunate enough to have the game Wii. Even though it is common in America, it is very expensive in Japan and not many people have it. We went over to her house and played many games before Mayumi and I went to the Giants vs. Dragons baseball game. My memories of baseball games in America are that they are extremely boring and mostly elderly men are in attendance. However, that is not true in Japan. This stadium, the Tokyo Dome, was filled with people of all ages and they were chanting their team songs and hitting plastic baseball bats to make a beat. It was very exciting and the Dragons won! The Tokyo Giants are at the moment number one, however, they are a rich team and have that as their advantage. The Dragons are number three and had an American on their team, Mr. Woods, who was very popular with the crowd. Even though we sat in the nosebleed section the game was great and the energy of the crowd was inspiring.

Sumo Tournament

Kyoko, Katsu, Asumi, Hiroto and I all went to a Sumo tournament and the kids enjoyed it as well. It started at 8am and ended at 6pm, however, we arrived at 4pm to witness the best Sumo wrestlers. What a great site! The ring is surrounded by bags of rice and if a wrestler crosses the line then the other person wins. They are quick fights (about 10 or 15 seconds each) and there are many. The rituals are still performed as they were hundreds of years ago. The wrestlers throw salt to purify the ring and they stomp on the ground to rid the ring of evil spirits. They are allowed to do this three times and afterwards they must fight. Before each fight there are men with banners that advertise the company that is sponsoring the reward. As the fights progressed there were more and more banners until the final fight had about 30. This coorelated to a reward of about 10 million Yen. What a fun time!

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