The End?

OK, as expected my final week of Japan has been a busy one, so one more time, lets go!

On Thursday I fulfilled one of my number one Japanese cultural experiences and went to the July Grand Sumo Tournament in Nagoya. The tournament had been running since Sunday and since this was one of the few days I would be free this week, I decided it would be ideal.

Although the first fights started around 8:30am, I decided to get there around half 1 to be able to get a feel for the place and see the main fights which would wrap up around 6. Once I was in the Meijo Koen area where the tournament was taking place, I could already see some wrestlers walking round in their decorated Yukatas, which was cool.

Once I was in, I proceeded to take a look at the souvenir shops which were selling various Sumo related goods including towels, posters, snacks, and of course fans. One of the things one of my students had warned me about watching sumo was how hot it was and how fans were necessary, so I bought an overpriced paper one in preparation. Once I found my reserved seat, which was also really expensive, I realized that there was actually superb air conditioning which rather negated the need for a fan but still I guess it makes a decent souvenir.

The arena was beautifully decorated with a shrine like roof above the ring, and instead of regular benches, there were purple cushions for people to sit on. The ring itself was a raised sandy surface made of packed clay, and a circle outline made of straw bales, within which the two wrestlers would grapple. As well as the gargantuan wrestlers looking spectacular, the referees also dressed up for the event, complete with a pointy hat and a small sword. Apparently this used to be so that if they made a bad refereeing decision they could commit instant seppuku (suicide). And you thought Premiership refs were under pressure!

The first few fights were between fairly weak wrestlers but still entertaining, and gave me a good feel for how the day was gonna go. After about an hour I decided to get some snacks to get me through, buying some manju which were obviously meant to be presents with their decorative wrapping, but I had a craving for them so bought them anyway.

When I returned to my seat the Juryo fights were just about to begin. This is like the 3rd best division or something, and they had this ceremony where they bring all the wrestlers out in their ceremonial gear and parade them round the ring which was cool.

There were some decent fights and the arena started to fill up over the next hour. At 4 o`clock the Makuuchi wrestlers came out and had a slightly longer ceremony as these are the top ranked wrestlers in the country. These fights lasted longer than the earlier ones as they had a well long ritual before commencing battle. They each entered the ring, bowed, then went to the corner and did the raising each leg and bringing it down thing (apparently to ward off evil spirits), before grabbing some salt and throwing it into the ring to purify it.

They then took their positions, stared at each other for a bit, then did the raising leg thing again, then went back to the corner and psyched themselves up, then threw some more salt into the ring, before returning to their positions and staring each other down for a bit longer.

They then went to the corner and repeated the ritual AGAIN, before finally starting the pushing match which usually lasted about 10-20 seconds. By this time the fuller arena meant there was a pretty good atmosphere, and lots of the drunk old men were cheering their favorite wrestlers on. Incidentally the average age of the crowd was probably about 60 proving why its Japans “Traditional” national sport.

The fights themselves were actually really enjoyable, and exciting especially when a wrestler was at the edge of the ring and then somehow managed to pull a win out of nowhere. Another highlight was when the wrestlers would be thrown off the stage and into the ridiculously near crowd. This happened about 5 times throughout the day and luckily I caught one of them on tape (see below, although youll have to go through a couple of minutes of ritual, even though I started recording about half way through!).

The last 30 minutes were the best as by this time the crowd had drunk loads of Sake and were pumped up to see some Yokozuna (champion) fights. The final match was awesome as it lasted a good minute before the famous Mongolian Yokozuna Asashoryu was thrown out of the ring in spectacular fashion. Apparently when a Yokozuna loses, its traditional for everyone to throw the cushions they are sitting on into the ring so all mayhem broke loose as soon as this happened.

After that, the guy who had won was given a bow like thing, with no string and he performed a special ceremonial dance with it to the cheers of the crowd. That was pretty much the end of the day, and I was proper glad I managed to see it before I leave.

On Friday I had my last day of school in Anjo and managed to get pictures of some of my students including the 2 year old Keisuke, who is one of my favorites. I also was taken for a meal in my dinner break by some of my favorite adult students at the Monjya yaki restaurant where I had made such a mess a few weeks ago.

Akemi, Kumi, Michyo and Kyoko are housewives who I have been teaching for the past 3 months and have got on with them very well. Anyway the monjya yaki was awesome. Its kind of like okonomiyaki except the mixture is a lot thinner and you`re kind of meant to burn it on the hot plate. Its then well crispy and lush (despite its similarity in appearance to fried vomit). Anyway we had a few of those with some Nagoya style fried Chicken and some mushrooms which we also cooked on the hotplate. It was an awesome meal and way better than the last monjya yaki I tried to make, but after an hour I had to go back to work as my break was up.

Saturday was kind of sad as my Saturday students are students who have been with me since the start, but again I got some good shots of my students, including my morning kids class . This was really difficult as each has an attention span of about 3 seconds so every time I got them together one would run off, but after about 5 minutes of running after them I finally managed to get a shot at them although I should say 3 of them aren’t actually in my class, but they were hanging around so I thought I should include them. I also got a shot with my favorite adult class which was cool.

The evening was something I`d been looking forward to for a while as I had my goodbye party. I met about 24 people at Sakae station and we headed to the Izakaya where we had a reservation. The room we had was nice and big, and we had a nomihodai system which meant that over the next 2 hours we could drink as much as we wanted. There was also a 9 course meal which was pretty good.

Over the next couple of hours more people turned up, and it was really cool to be with all the people Id met over the past year drinking, as well as my workmates, my boss, and even my Saturday adult students.

I also got shedloads of presents including a really gorgeous Yukata, sandals, and fan from Bob which was really nice. In addition to that I also got some clothes, towels, doll festival things (don’t ask), bandanas, and some sweet cards which was really nice. I managed to get pictures with everyone who came including one huge picture of everyone at the same time which was awesome.

After the Izakaya loads of people left and loads of people joined so we were about 20 people strong. I had booked the “Party room” at the Big Echo Karaoke which could seat 35 people. Within a few minutes we were up there singing, dancing and drinking excessively. At one point Texas had to meet our friend Kana so he invited me to come with. Instead of taking the lift however (we were on the 9th floor) he thought it would be a good idea to break into the fire escape area. We then had to climb down some ladders and on the 7th floor Texas feeling crazy as usual, hung out of the building on the Big Echo sign which was ludicrously dangerous but well funny.

We stayed at the Karaoke place for about 4 and a half hours singing classics like Monty Pythons “Always look on the bright side”, Becks “Loser”, and my personal specialty “Fake Tales of San Francisco” by the Arctic Monkeys which I ended up performing standing on the table. That was awesome.

Other highlights included the usually quiet Koshi exploding into life by performing Frankie goes to Hollywoods “Relax”, me and my friend Will belting out Oasis` “Morning Glory”, and Texas constantly squirting everyone with the 2 waterpistols he`d smuggled in.

After that and we lost some more people and gained some others so we were now about 10 strong. We headed to Café Domina although stopped off at Lawson Station first for some snacks. On the way we randomly saw some of Texas` band mates which was cool as I got to say goodbye to them again.

When we got into Domina the music was really good house music, and the DJ booth was accompanied by another table with loads of samplers and synths on as well as some other decks. We met some really cool ravers in there all of which said they were sad to see me go (even though Id just met them). One of them had on 2 pairs of raver glasses and a bike helmet which was proper random.

The night went on, and as I was talking to someone I suddenly felt someone put the bike helmet on my head then got pushed onto the stage. The MC wasn’t surprised to see me and gave me a mic. At this point I lost it and started talking about how much I loved Japan. The crowd were eating this up and after saying “Nihon daisuki!!!” (I love Japan) about 20 times, I started a call and response with the crowd saying “When I say Nihon, you say Daisuki”, “NIHON”-“DAISUKI” , “NIHON”-“DAISUKI”, “NIHON”- “DAISUKI” which went on for about 16 bars. As I was doing it the DJ was turning the mixer down in time with the crowd chanting, and it felt properly awesome. Only in Japan.

As I left the stage, I felt a hundred hands slapping me on the bike helmet as hard as they could and cheering which was really cool. My friends were in disbelief but were loving it anyway.

Later on some other guys took to the stage on the samplers and synths, and after hooking a mic into the synth asked me to come back and talk into it. Anyway despite it being fast house music I gave a freestyle a go which wasn’t great but due to the synthed sounds my voice came out in and the fact that it was English, no one seemed to mind that much.

The night carried on in that random fashion including the fact that in the corner of the club was a skate ramp which my friend Will attempted to utilize using a skateboard that he “borrowed”. Pretty much everyone except me, Bob, Callie and my friends Ali, Rob and Yoko fell asleep in the club as well which was well funny. Once 5am hit, we got out of there and headed to Dennys for a classic breakfast. I got a 3 course deal of salad, steak, eggs, and some Tarako spaghetti which properly hit the spot. More people fell asleep in Dennys including Texas who must have passed out about 10 times throughout the night.

We stayed there for a couple of hours and then eventually headed out into the beautiful sunshine and blue sky of Nagoya in the am. At Sakae station I said an emotional goodbye to Callie and Bob who have probably been my best friends throughout this year, and who have led me through some awesome experiences that I almost certainly wouldn’t have experienced without them. It was one of the best night outs of my life and was the perfect way to say goodbye to my friends and Japan.

Anyway I headed home, and on Monday had another emotional day as I had my last day of work. I got a present from my pianist student Hiroto which was really cool, and thanked my boss Yoko for everything she had done for me. And with that my adventure had pretty much come to an end.

There were a couple of things I wanted to do in Japan before I left including climb Mount Fuji, see Dragon Ash live and visit Hokkaido, but given the quantity and quality of things I did do, I don’t feel too hard done by. I`ve seen another side of Japan than most tourists see, through my connections and through the time Ive had to explore a little deeper. I`ve met some amazing people, and in fact I don’t think a week went by when I didn’t meet anyone interesting, which I cant imagine happening anywhere else.

I`ve been to gigs, parties, festivals, temples, museums, aquariums, onsens, arcades, stadiums, cinemas, weddings, parks, zoos, sumo tournaments, bowling alleys, restaurants, bars and clubs.
Ive been drinking, snowboarding, teaching, learning, dancing, singing, camping and of course eating! And then I`ve done it all again through writing about it on this blog.

I want to thank everyone who`s read or commented here as you’ve kept me going the whole year. Producing this blog has given me a way to revisit this incredible year any time I like, and without sounding too cheesy (which isn’t really possible) I owe that to you all.

Thanks again people! And for perhaps the final time,

Peace out

Jack Woodcock

P.S Heres a few videos of a typical sumo match, the izakaya party, and "Loser" by Beck, Karaoke style.

P.P.S Look out for an epilogue and a greatest hits blog a month from now!

The Parties

Sorry this blogs been delayed so long, but at first I had nothing to write about so didn’t bother, then I had too many things to do so didn’t have any time, and as such you have a long and late blog. Apologies, but lets get on with it.

These past weeks brought with them more excessive expenses as last Friday (well, 2 Fridays ago) I had further injections in preparation for Thailand, whilst on Saturday I had to buy a new pair of glasses, all in all meaning I had spent pretty much all my wages 2 weeks before my next pay day.

Moaning about money aside, this week was pretty cool. On Friday I went to my friend Raul`s party to celebrate his school getting a new teacher. There was loads of lush food as per usual, and I got to see my mates Tomomi, Mochi, Rich and Min as well as loads of new people who were really cool.

After the party I managed to drag about 8 of the guests including my hairdresser Mayumi (although she doesn’t really like me to refer to her like that. I guess because it sounds like she`s my subordinate. Either that or she`s not too proud of the job she`s done on me) to a club where an ex-ACC teacher would be DJing. The club was in Imaike which is near to Sakae, and was called “The Plastic Factory”. It was pretty small, but kind of average for Nagoya and was owned by a Swiss bloke called Hans who was really cool. Also in the club were a few other ex-ACC teachers including my good friend Rob.

The music was unsurprisingly House/Techno and was fairly decent throughout and particularly the ex-ACC teacher who I briefly met, I think his name was Koichiro. At one point a violinist came out in front of the DJ booth along with another guy with a Tabla like drum. The violinists instrument was plugged into some effects pedals and featured flashing neon all over it including the bow which looked like a lightsaber. Over the next few songs he played some cool electric violin melodies including some renditions of famous classical tunes (none of which I could name).

As the night went on I ended up bumping into Kumi, one of my Anjo students who I had taken over from Rob when he left ACC. He had invited her although I didn’t know, so was a bit shocked to bump into her.

A couple hours later and I felt like leaving so took a considerably unwise decision to walk home as the trains wouldn’t start for another 3 hours. I figured it wasn’t that far and that I could do it in just over an hour, but 2 and a half hours later I collapsed on my bed, my legs unable to move. Throughout the entire walk it was really heavily pouring with rain and despite having my umbrella it was a real bitch to do. Needless to say I have learned my lesson since.

I did however manage to get home an hour earlier than usual, meaning I could get some sleep in preparation for Sunday. When I woke up I headed to Anjo where ACC teachers Tracey and Rob would be having their leaving party. When I arrived at the ACC school I saw loads of my mates who I hadn’t seen in ages which was cool. After about half an hour the party moved to a bowling alley 10 minutes down the road, where we engaged in the classic American pastime.

I have to say I don’t really have anything new to say about Japanese bowling alleys and how they are different to the UK, as this one was pretty much exactly the same. It even had the same animations on the screen when you got a strike (although I managed to avoid that in the 2 games we played).

The rest of the next week was spent chilling and working as well as planning my goodbye party in 2 weeks, although a midweek highlight was a nearby café called Aladdins which had an awesome traditional Japanese style. Me and Ayae went there for breakfast one morning feeling too lazy to make anything. Their breakfast consisted of a piece of thickly sliced toast with scrambled eggs baked on, along with ketchup and a small pot of yoghurt. This was well nice although far too small. Still the décor alone made it worth the trip.

The next weekend was pretty quiet, being that I was in desperate need of saving money. On Sunday I went round my friends Rich and Mins house for a day of DVDs and pizza which was really cool. They also showed me an awesome Udon place which served a bowl of Kitsune (tofuey stuff) Udon, and some random deep fried vegetables Domburi for a really cheap price which was awesome.


The following weekend was however stacked up with various parties. On Saturday we had a Takoyaki party at work with the staff, my Saturday students, and some other people. This was really cool, and once again there was a huge amount of food on display. As well as various salads and fruit dishes from Tomoko`s (one of the Japanese teachers) grandmas garden there was also loads of crisps, sweets and various alcoholic drinks.

Once most of the people had arrived, we started on some yakisoba which was made on a big hotplate heating a pot thing. This featured lots of cabbage, carrots, beansprouts and pork. This was well tasty, and whilst that was cooking Yumiko and Yukiko (two of my Saturday students) got started on the takoyaki. For those who don’t remember one of my earlier blogs, takoyaki are balls of cooked batter with chunks of octopus inside.

Anyway, the takoyaki were well tasty, and after knocking back a fair few we made “dessert takoyaki” which was made from pancake batter instead of the normal stuff. The chunks of octopus were replaced by chocolate, marshmallows and sweet aduki beans. This was then served with vanilla ice cream which was really really tasty.

Altho quite full, a decision was made to use all the remaining batter, and so we made “Italian Takoyaki” which some of the other guests had found from experimentation at a previous party. This was done with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, edamame beans (alright, not really Italian) as well as the usual staples of Octopus, ginger, rice crispie things and chopped leek.

These were properly tasty unsurprisingly, and we capped the evening off with some melon from Irago which Ayae had donated to us. Irago is famous for its high quality melon and I found out later that they are actually quite expensive. Im not really a melon person, but this melon was absolutely gorgeous.

All in all the party was awesome and at the end Tomoko and Yoko (my boss) gave me a goodbye present which was 2 special mosquito repellent things, which will no doubt be very useful for Thailand.

After the party I headed to Fujigaoka near where I live to go to another party, this time my friend Stevens. There were a few people there who won`t be able to come to my goodbye party this Saturday, so it was a good chance to say goodbye to them. When I got there the party was pretty much winding down, but I spent an hour or 2 there which was really good fun.

After that me, Min and my friend Koshi started to walk home although Koshi was absolutely wasted. He had his bike but after several attempts to ride it ending in him falling over, he eventually gave up and decided to walk alongside us. After a good hours walk I was eventually home and went to bed.

The next day I met my friends Neal and Mariko for lunch in Nagoya. We went to the Nagoya TV tower which is a big Eiffel tower lookalike thing that broadcasts certain TV stations around the area. Anyway it’s a Nagoya landmark which I still hadn’t done so thought it would be a decent place to start the day. After taking an elevator to the top and seeing some awesome views of various Nagoya sights, such as the Oasis 21 building and Nagoya castle, we went to the area beneath the tower to get some food.

Whilst we were sitting there, there was live music from an acoustic guitarist and drummer which was actually really good. The relaxed and classy atmosphere was however slightly ruined by a drunk old man trying to talk to us, and a guy in the front row who had a habit of rubbing his bare feet with his fingers then sniffing with his fingers. But hey, each to his own.

After lunch Mariko had to go so me and Neal went shopping for a bit and ended up at an arcade playing Tekken 6 as well as the Action Decker game (which by the way is awesome. It has these hand sensor things like the Wii and you cant shoot stuff and punch people, and erm yeh. Its well good).

We then went to Oasis 21 to meet my friends Callie, Min, Naho and Justin for dinner. On the way there was some sort of festival going on so there was loads of mascots hanging round which was kind of weird, but kind of cool.

Once the others had arrived we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant to get some pretty lush food. After that a few of the group went home, while me, Callie, Naho and Justin went on to club Looop to see the one and only Texas perform with his group Long Castle Million Street.

Looop is always impossible to find but somehow we managed to find it first time despite it not being marked. Once the lift doors opened on the 4th floor where the club is located I was greeted with a “Jack! Long time no see!” from the ticket guys behind the table, who I vaguely remembered talking to one night.

Also once in the club it was full of people who I recognized from Texas` birthday and other Long Castle Million Street gigs, and I think because Texas had told them I was leaving the following week, I got lots of messages of good luck and people saying they would miss me, which was really sweet. I was also impressed I could negotiate all these people in my Japanese which, has good days and bad days, but recently has had a spate of bad days.

After a few minutes LCMS took to the stage complete with live drummer and bassist, and performed another awesome set. Afterwards we hung out with Texas, Dimbar and the others, as well as meeting some random people at the bar. Also as Ive said many times Looop has the randomest of all selections of music, and this week highlights included Mouse T`s “Horny” and The Offsprings “All I Want”.

A few minutes later and it was time for me to go. I had work the next day so I had to get the last train home. Unfortunately I managed to miss this by about 5 minutes although I could get a train as far as Hoshigaoka which is about an hour and a halfs walk from my apartment. Deciding I couldn’t be bothered with this I decided to get a taxi.

Taxis in Japan are infamous for not knowing where they are going so I was not surprised when the driver didn’t know about the University of Foreign Studies, which I always use as my nearest landmark. I gave him directions as best I could but at one point realized we`d missed the turning. There wasn’t another turning for a good 5 minutes which made me a bit nervous as the fare crept above 2000 yen. Eventually we could turn right and get me home but by now the fare was 3000 yen (about 15 quid), which I guess I shouldn’t complain about although it felt like a bit of a rip off.

Anyway the next day I went to work which was kind of cool as the mums of the students from one of my long time classes had clubbed together to get me a leaving present. This was a Japanese style card game which Im pretty sure Ill never be able to play, but was a really sweet souvenir, although I did suddenly felt a bit guilty for shouting at their kids for the past hour.

After work I headed to an Izakaya for yet another party, this time to say goodbye to my friend Kawai-San who also couldn’t make my party on Saturday. This was a pretty small party of about 6 people, but it was still good fun eating some awesome food and drinking.

After a couple of hours we went on to The Hub, although this was a new Hub that had just opened in Fushimi. It was pretty much the same as the other one in Sakae although this one featured signed shirts from the infamous Nagoya Grampus 8 football team, and banners of support everywhere. After about another hour of that it was time to go though, and I managed to be home by half 11 which I thought was pretty impressive.

The next day and I had my final day of Tuesday lessons (Im actually working until next Monday), which was kind of sad as lots of my Tuesday students are really cool. It was however a 6 hour day with practically no breaks though, so that is one thing I wont miss.

On Wednesday I went to get my haircut as well as get my ticket from the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium for Sumo the next day. More on that in the next blog but yes it is the time of year when the Grand Sumo tournament hits Nagoya, so I cant wait for that.

Speaking of the next blog it will be my final post on this blog, as I do leave the country in one week. I thought about doing a blog in Thailand but as that doesn’t really come under the Jacks Japan Blog bracket, I decided it would be better to leave it alone. Theres also the fact that as much as I love writing these, I do rather feel like I need a break, so a month in South East Asia with no commitments sounds fine to me. I do intend to do some sort of epilogue about my return to Japan from Thailand at the end of August and am also toying with the idea of doing some sort of best of selection as well, but more on that next week.

So yeh, make sure you tune in next week for the finale where Ill be Sumoing it up, having a goodbye party and reflecting on my awesome year here.

Til then

Peace out

Jack