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!