Umeshu Update

Just in time for the July basho, the umeshu is ready. I had made it once before and it was flavorful but not tasty, so I made this batch with a fair amount of skepticism. And I was pleasantly surprised.

This batch has recently turned slightly amber. Clam and I had some last week and pronounced it delicious.

fyi: I tried portrait mode for the photo and it looks so teensy, but is not. Those are full sized ume (think green Japanese apricot) and there used to be 750ml of shochu in there.

Sumo + Sushi, November 2022

I heard that an event called Sumo + Sushi was happening in our town. It's a night of demonstration sumo and they feed you sushi. I really wanted to go, but we were going to be out of town on the day it was happening. I mentioned it to my sumo buddy, thinking that she would want to go without me. And I joked that if she wanted to go with me we could go the following week but would have to fly to another city. Amazingly enough, she took me up on it. We bought seriously expensive seats and made plans. Found a budget hotel room nearby, and we were in business. 

Mrguy took us to the airport. We were pampered little princesses. I learned that like me our friend likes to get places early. She brings food with her wherever she goes. Major props for taking hard boiled eggs on an airplane. Not sure why I never did this myself. And she had things she wanted to do while we were there.

We took a Lyft to Grad Central and ate delicious things. 

We split a smoked sturgeon and cream cheese  everything bagel. Someone was super excited to see oysters.

Then we walked back to the hotel through the old theater district. I admit to being apprehensive about walking, because it was getting late in the afternoon and unhoused folks were settling in for the night. Plus there were lots of vape stores everywhere. So much pot. None of this is in my comfort zone now that I am older and can't outrun people. Anyhoo the architecture was fantastic, there was so much to see and I would walk this path again gladly in the future. I even found a friend's band on a marquee.

We changed our outfits for the event, and went over to the venue. Look at how close our hotel was to the club!!

We made friendly conversation with the people in front of us who had fancy tickets. That allowed them (and us) to enter at 4:30 for the 5:30 event. We presented our tickets, followed the friends ahead of us, and then after those folks got to their seats they took us to our seats WHICH WERE ON THE STAGE. They said "This is Konishiki's chair. Do you want to sit next to him?". omg. Now my buddy knows that he is a big deal, but he's not from her era of sumo so she was completely chill and sat in the chair next to him. It was perfect.

Our friends from the queue mouthed up to us "How did you end up there?" and really I don't know. We paid dearly for the tickets, is all I can say. I had no idea that we'd luck out to this extent. We kept looking at each other and laughing out loud at the situation. Somehow we were on a stage in a club in LA watching a sumo exhibition together, sitting next to Konishiki, with a DJ playing great music, and we were being projected on...it was sick.

Konishiki was a doll. Could not have been nicer. I asked him if the selection of late 70s soul music they were playing was his playlist, cause he (and I) were singing along to all of it. He's younger than I am, but I believe he has ten older siblings, so I can see how this music would be in his personal memory banks. He told us that the DJ who was working with him is a guy who is famous in Japan for having introduced Japan to hip hop. So cool! Also cool was my buddy, who would lean over and ask "Was that an uwatenage?" and he'd pick up his microphone and add that detail. We had the best time.

After the show we got a photo op with the wrestlers but not Konishiki. Good thing we took selfies during the show. And then we walked over to a night market which was really interesting but the vendors seemed to specialize in goat dishes. We ended up eating a late dinner in the hotel restaurant.

The next morning we woke up early to watch World Cup soccer. 

Back to the airport, where I bought the most LA snacks ever seen.

Shortly after returning home, I took to my bed and my baby cat comforted me in between my dozens of trips to the bathroom over the next few days. Was it the lukewarm and awful sushi at sumo and sushi? White lady snacks? Hotel food? I have no idea but that final coda made the experience EXTRA memorable.

This ends my catch-up posts from 2022. I'll be in real time unless I notify you otherwise.

Countdown to Vacay

Sunday was mama day. The night before she'd been restless, but in the morning she was up and attem. Until I got there, of course. She was sweetly sleeping again, and could barely keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds. "Lovely to see you," she'd say. And then zzzzzzz. She asked "How's mrguy?" about a dozen times. And at one point she gently cupped my face with both hands, and looked so lovingly into my eyes that I felt like I, myself, could die of love. It's hard to reconcile the fact that the night before those same sweet hands were slapping someone (who she had already bitten twice).

It is countdown to vacay. We leave tomorrow. On Saturday we had mrguy south over for dinner, which was delightful. I miss cooking for friends, so this was great. He's off on an adventure in Japan.

And yesterday I dropped keys and a Christmas cactus off at #1 nephew's house. He's taking care of the babies tomorrow. Then I got gas, and sold some gold. A horrible elephant charm that came with a necklace that I bought last year. The charm brought me $394! 

Made an appointment for a haircut, dropped stuff off at Mom's (gotta make sure she's got paper products for the week!), made clam dip for a certain sumo loving friend -- wooooooo!!!

Now it's starting to look like vacation. Clam dip and I watched some sumo last night. And before that mrguy and I took in a pretty stupendous sunset. See that hump down there? The mama now lives a few blocks away from it.

Boy kitten enjoyed watching the sumo recap when we went to bed.

Tomorrow we fly. We had enough miles for first class round trip flights, so I hope to make the most of it from the moment we board. I *will* turn off my work email. I *will* turn off Slack. I have a friend who is on notice to text me if anything momentous goes down at the factory that I shouldn't miss.

Early Birthday

In 2006, we went to Hawaii. Right before we left, the factory's stock price became unstable. People started talking about Hammerslag and John Deere in the news. I was in paradise, but glued to my computer as the news of our acquisition materialized over the next few days. Every time I think of the state house in Honolulu I remember the sunny day when I sat on the capitol steps, facing out to the Archives, and received the blow-by-blow of the announcement on my Nokia 6310. My colleague at work relayed the whole thing, and my not being there on one of the most important days in the company's history still bugs me.

Over the last few years, our department has been hit hard but has done so well. We had layoffs after Covid hit. Hammerslag made a small number preemptive staff cuts, but one third of them were in our department, which is now really small for the amount of work we do. One of those cuts made my life much better. I was in a years-long slow motion battle with someone who was laid off. I have not cried at work since she left, and I am in love with the team I work in now. They are amazing.

So here I am, going to Hawaii next week. Things are looking up. We've been working so hard, have taken so many special assignments (tributes to fallen co-workers, extra publishing projects, exhibitions), and really done a great job with them. We've gotten a req. for head count and...a Friday afternoon announcement that JD is having targeted layoffs. I am going to do my best to ignore the news while I am away, but SHOOT! I'm feeling nervous, and worried for my factory, and worried for myself.

Here's crossing our fingers that none of the cuts hit terribly close to home. It would be a shame if I had to go, cause I really do love the place. Example: I love reading obituaries and we put up our annual ofrenda for departed employees a few weeks ago, and today on my first day of vacation, I found myself looking up Hammerslag on Legacy.com to see if there are any people I've missed adding to the ofrenda. And it's all that I can do to stop myself from logging in to my work computer and adding to my spreadsheet. I'm such a dork.

Anyhoo, I got a beautiful early birthday present for myself this week -- I bought an Akebono tegata on ebay. Can't wait to frame it and put it in the half bath. What you really don't get from looking at photos of them online is the depth of the pigment. I always thought that the handprints were inky, but on this one it seems more like tempera paint -- and it's a little messy. I like that lack of perfection. I showed it to mrguy and of course he had to see if his hand was bigger. Surprising that a guy who is 6'7" doesn't have a bigger hand.

Clams

It's July, and the Nagoya basho begins this weekend.

Since last year's Kyushu basho, I have acquired a new sumo friend who is passionate about the sport and, like the person who introduced me to sumo, is a woman and Swedish and into genealogy and Japan. Super odd that way.

Our sumo friendship started one day when I posted a photo of my tattoo in honor of Akebono. It was a wink at my artist friends who were all posting photos for Inktober. I'd just gotten new ink, so I joined them. A few minutes later I took a power walk and went past a friend's house. He asked me if I could step into his kitchen and let his wife know that I know about sumo. So I did, and she really wanted to know everything and we started watching together.

In classic sharing-info-with-a-friend-about-something style, I feel like she knows much more about sumo than I now. She's an avid reader of Tachiai, and listens to their podcast. She walked into Baskin Robbins one day (here in Little Hill City) wearing her Tachiai tshirt and caught the attention of a guy who is one of the NHK English language broadcasters. Now they email back and forth. Again, go figure.

Part of any sumo viewing situation (usually a couple times a basho) is the mountain of food and beverages. She goes shopping, I go shopping, and for some reason I've gotten really into making clam dip. I don't know why. And apparently everybody else is making clam dip right now, also, because I went to many places and found empty spots where the dip should be. I even looked at the gas station, liquor stores, the pharmacy where the clientele look like zombies (which has never failed me before). I hate going to the big grocery store, but I did check at our little marked down the hill, and I could buy some clams in jars from Italy for $8 and that is something I am not going to do.

This is what our spread looked like for the March basho

This is what our spread looked like the other day. We got together to view some vintage 1997 sumo, recorded off TIVO by mrguy. It only took us 12 years to finally watch it! Such festivity. So much food that we didn't even break into the black currant Pocky or the mountain of other snacks we'd stockpiled. And what you're not seeing in this photo is the Japanese beer served in the ruby cut glass tumblers I was given in Chiba. But I think my favorite thing is the sake. Many years ago some Japanese friends gave me cedar cups that smell amazing. Drinking cold sake from those cups is a heavenly sensory experience. OK, and that our friend doesn't mind my surrounding us with sumo reference. She has her own sumo reference, now, as well. Notice, under the potato chips, the magazine that I refer to as "our hymnal", the english language program from the 1998 LA jungyo that started it all for me.

 

I don't get together with friends much at all these days. I miss entertaining. And this sumo watching is something that happens in a low-stress fashion that works for both of us. I really appreciate this new friendship. And mrguy is our AV tech, and he can come enjoy or not as he pleases. It's good.

Sumo News, 2019 Edition

One day during what my Facebook friends who draw call "inktober", I posted a photo of my own inktober, a tattoo in honor of Akebono, the 64th yokozuna. About twenty minutes later my patented slow walk (tm) took me past the house of a friend and neighbor. He must have seen my post and he came out of his house to greet me. "Is it true that you know about sumo? Could you please step into our kitchen for a minute and make my wife really happy?" Turns out that his wife, who I already really like, really wanted to know about sumo.

And now she does. We've watched three bashos together, eaten piles of Japanese snacks and consumed the blissful aroma of cold sake in cedar cups. So much fun.

I'm not sure how I haven't taken photos of our crazy bonanza of snacks, but it's been really awesome. Our friend is really hooked. She has the books and the t-shirts and the questions and knows so many of the things. It is super fun. I never imagined, after having been introduced to sumo by a woman that I would find another person besides mrguy who would have an interest in watching sumo. And that it would be another woman. What?

Yesterday she texted me photos of a random person she met at Baskin Robbins who wanted to know about her Tachiai shirt (Tachiai is one of the main English language sumo blogs). They had a great conversation during which he revealed that he's a journalist and then he texted her selfies of himself with well-known sumotori. He thought it was pretty funny that we eat clam dip and sembei and watch the basho together.

I am a lucky person. Thank you, world.

Sumoversary

This weekend a momentous life event passed un-remarked: my tenth sumoversary.

It started with the ladies' sumo weekend in LA in 2008. After that I really came to like sumo but, ironically, the friendship that brought me to it fell by the wayside. Since then have come a subscription to TV Japan, a viewing of sumo firsthand at the Kokugikan, celebration of Sumo Sunday for my 50th birthday, and a deep appreciation for sumo by mrguy (the best!). It's kinda lonely being American sumo fans, but there are always the message boards and, recently, the english language sumo blog Tachiai has come to the scene.

Ten years after the ladies' sumo weekend, almost all of the rikishi we saw that weekend have retired. However one of them, Tochinoshin, has just battled back from injury to achieve his highest rank to date, ozeki, and there are always new grapplers to meet and appreciate.

We'll see what the next basho holds.

Harumafuji's RGE

Resume-generating event, that is.

I've always wondered if his ability to build mass and his bad complexion were the result of steroid use. His recent behavior would tend to indicate this.

I am frustrated by the bad press that will follow, just as sumo is having a huge surge in popularity.

But it is what it is.

Thank You, YDC!

Thank you, Yokozuna Deliberation Committee, for nominating ozeki Kakuryu as sumo's next yokozuna. He's good, he works hard, and it'll be fun to have three grand champions at once.

Thank you YDC for giving up on your great Japanese hope, Kisenosato. Lowering your standards in the hopes that Kisenosato will prevail only makes you look (more) xenophobic. It isn't a gift to him, either. Who wants to be the grand champion who got in on a technicality?

Thank you Kisenosato for repeatedly choking when the YDC sets low standards. Maybe they'll leave you alone now and you can shine as a really good ozeki without all of the additional pressure of promotion.

Thank you, Endo, for being the next great Japanese hope. Your hair isn't even long enough for a mage yet, but you're a comer and probably have the chance.

I love you, sumo!

Bucket List

Now that I'm vastly old, it seems only appropriate to have a bucket list.

The purpose? To always have goals to move toward, odd though they might be. It's in the forward motion that comes the satisfaction, I think. Some of the list items will be easy. Some will not. Half of the fun is in thinking them up and memorializing them here.

In no particular order:

1. Take an exercise class with Richard Simmons
2. Ride a camel (not a location-specific goal)
3. Sit in the booth with Doreen Simmons while she comments on a sumo basho for NHK
4. Write a book
5. Meet distant family in Ireland
6. Play Carnegie Hall or Royal Albert Hall
7. Be a balloon wrangler in the Thanksgiving Day Parade
8. Volunteer in the Bishop Museum archives
9. Have our Hawaiian band sponsor a match in a sumo tournament in Japan
10. Play music at a retirement home (as added and commented here) 
11. Learn to tie knots (as added in 2015)

I wanted to accomplish #1 last week, but ran out of time. Imminently doable. #2 is inspired by miss wartz, who went on camelback in Morocco and slept in the desert in a tent with camels and complained about how loud their tummies were. Now that's an amazing adventure. Unlikely for me. I just want to ride the camel.

#7 goes way back to the time when I was a volunteer at a museum of advertising characters. One afternoon I took a nap and dreamed that I was a giant Mr. Salty:

and I was on my way to the Empire State Building for a date with Dolly Madison:

I was walking up 5th Avenue on my way for this date. I began to levitate and became a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I've written this down before, right?

Best dream ever, if you ask me. Except for the dream where Maya Angelou taught me how to drive an 18-wheeler.

They're all dreams, really.

'Tis The Season

The mrsguy birthday season, that is. Ordinarily we have a quiet dinner somewhere and go home to open pressies. But this being the "kick, stretch and kick" birthday, it seemed foolish to let it pass without doing something more. I took two weeks off and people called it my staycation, but I did anything but stay. And now I'm recovering in my sick bed (more accurately sick couch) and waiting to go back to work. Whew.

Phase One: Operation Meeting of the Moms
Seems odd that we've been together for over 20 years, married for 17 and our moms have never met until now. We finally made it happen. Picked up the grand mamoo and took her for a ride down the coast to meet the tiny mamoo. Of course they liked each other. We ate lunch and took a tour of tiny mamoo's home town, which was super fun.

Phase Two: Pretend You're Huell Howser
Earlier in the year, big sis, the mamoo and I talked about meeting in the middle of the state to visit the sights seen by the estimable Huell Howser on one of his shows. We finally did it, and it was very fun. We went to the oldest A&W Rootbeer and had carhop service. What are you supposed to do with your milkshake once you have it?

We went to Micke Grove and saw the Japanese Garden. Not as tranquil as we had hoped! A photographer, his buddy, a child and two ladies made up as I-don't-know-what (flappers? it involved a lot of tulle, sequins and cloches) were doing a photo shoot there. The ladies would sit on a rock and stare at each other theatrically for the camera, notice that the child was not in viewing range and shout "Buddah! BUDDAH! Get back here where I can see you". Buddah, the child, had been happily assaulting the koi with small rocks.

Anyway, Micke Grove also has a zoo with little deer called pudu. I really want to see my cats play with a pudu. After the zoo, we looked for the crane habitat but were unsuccessful, so we went back to our hotel. Perfection. Three beds in one room, and a plastic and very dusty olive tree. But I loved it. Successful trip.

Phase Three: Sumo Saturday
Birthday was celebrated with friends on Sumo Saturday. This consisted of my ordering tamales from a neighbor and decorating the house with sumo-themed bunting (yukata fabric created for sumitori or their sumo stables, that I bought on ebay). People seemed to like sumo more than I thought. They asked great questions.

Phase Four: Disneyland
Yeah. Had to do it. Spent all day and part of a night at California Adventure. Ate at Napa Rose. Saw an adorable little kid named Daniel using the guardrail in line at Soarin' as a personal jungle gym. Then he liberally tongued the handrail. Yep. We're doomed. Stayed with mrguy south one evening, which was delicious, and I spent as many hours as my battery would allow cropping photographs in our moving vehicle as we sped back home for Thanksgiving.

Phase Five: Guygiving
But it wasn't Thanksgiving this year. It was guygiving. A one-time-only event celebrating my birthday and my brother-in-law's. The family gathered, the brother-in-law and I put together an overly-long slide show which people seemed to like, and then we went out to dinner. I'd fallen victim to the handrail-lickers earlier, and by guygiving I had almost no voice. It felt like I had cystitis of the throat (imagine gargling with broken glass and tabasco), but I had such a good time. Private room, much good cheer, no birthday singing. It was awesome.

Phase Six: In Which I Retire To My Sofa With Cold Preparations For Days On End
I'm still here. Been here four days. Wicked cough. Voice still very wiggly. Except for the illness, all-in-all a success. Plus, a friend sent orchids yesterday, extending the occasion.

I will never do this again, but man was that enjoyable. OK, parts of it I'll do again. Ordering tamales from my neighbor and having people over for sumo I'll definitely do.

January Basho

Now that the March basho is upon us I'm ready to share the photos from early in the January basho.

You are not fooling anyone, Man In Afro Wig:

And you are the least likely sumo fan and commentator, Demon Kakka. Pleased to meet you:

 I haven't watched last night's sumo, but I hope that you will return to opine on Baruto's attempt to earn the tsuna.

Hawaii 2011, Day 7

We're getting into the final stretch, here!

On Tuesday we went to Kailua via Waimanalo. We made our pilgrimage to the Akebono statue. Then we went to the nuts and ukulele store next door. The sweet guy who owned it wasn't there, and it just didn't have the same vibe. I don't need to go back (except to see the statue).

Then we went to Kailua Beach Park, which we'd been hoping to do for years. It was lovely. We found some shade in an area that had a minimum number of screaming children and relaxed for a bit. It was sooo beautiful.

They also use a beautiful font to mark the women's room:

Hunger overtook us, so we went into town to look for Ba-Le, the Vietnamese sandwich shop that we had loved so much last time. Waaaah! Not only closed, but also fenced off.

Reaching into his new/old book on okazuya, mrguy decided we needed to go to an okazuya in Kailua. It was in a strip mall far away from town. It was just empty store fronts, the place where you go to get your vehicle registered, the okazuya and a bakery. We went into the okazuya and they hardly had any food left. Just some oden items bobbing around in broth. Clearly it was going to take us a while to find something to eat, so I suggested we go to the nearby Nene Goose Bakery for a beverage. mrguy noticed this review that said that their specialty was mochi anpan. No idea what that was, so we bought some.

We took a seat outside a salon on some plastic chairs. And then the ladies who were ahead of us at the bakery struck up a conversation.

Roughly 40 minutes later we parted after having had the BEST conversation of our trip. They were very surprised to see us in this out of the way spot eating mochi anpan, and extra surprised when they figured out that we were tourists. One of the women was from Waimanalo, so I mentioned that we had just made our pilgrimage to the Akebono statue. Then we explained that we were big sumo fans. Turns out that this woman is Konishiki's sister-in-law, so that started a long conversation about Hawaiians in sumo (one of my favorite topics), Jesse's (Takamiyama's) entry into sumo, how much this woman thought of Chiyonofuji, and the kindness and smarts of the local guys who went to Japan to enter sumo. I can barely have a conversation about sumo anywhere I go, so it was a real pleasure to hang out with these ladies and talk about sumo and local goodness. We asked them what they like to do when they're on vacation and the woman from Waimanalo went into a hilarious monologue about booking a hotel room in Waikiki for her family, using every amenity and never leaving the hotel.

They were curious about the other kinds of stuff we do when we're on the island, so we talked about music. Turns out that one of the new joints next to the Akebono statue in Waimanalo is owned by the family of one of these ladies. It is a bar with live music and we have their blessing that we'd fit in o.k. This will be on our list for next time.

Our ladies also knew where Ba-Le had gone. It's one of their favorite places to eat also, which further blew their minds. With their help we found it and had a yummy lunch. Coconut taro tapioca? Yum.


Then we went to Hungry Ear Records, always great, and the antique stores. I never need to go to those stores again. Happy to sit in the car while someone else does it. That one guy is still extra grumpy and the lady who owns his place and the other place has TOO MUCH STUFF!

Later that afternoon, the farmer's daughter met us over at the Ilikai Bar & Grill for a few sets of Waipuna. They have been joined by David Kamakahi in this incarnation, and were really great. Much better in person because they're so dialed into each other and you get Kale Hannah's dry wit. He's the bass player from Project Kalo Patch who, at the end of their set at Aku Bone last visit, heckled us from the stage, saying "We played an extra twenty minutes because you was late". This time his between-song banter included trying to auction off young David Kamakahi. Funny.

We felt inspired after seeing Waipuna. Can't wait to see them again, and hope to catch the farmer's daughter the next time as well.

Yaocho

Yaocho.

Bout-fixing.

The next sumo basho has been canceled over a yaocho scandal. Sumo fans (at least the ones on the sumo chat lists) know about yaocho, and match-by-match it seems like small potatoes. In aggregate, however, it seems like a bigger deal. The next basho has been canceled, as the sumo association tries to figure out who is doing it and punish them.

What bothers me more than the widespread yaocho is the response by the Japan Sumo Association to it, to every scandal. The JSA is only moved by external forces. It never moves to change because it's the right thing to do. Yaocho, pot smoking, beating of young wrestlers by their stablemasters, these were all activities that the JSA knew about and didn't move to stop. These may be relatively common activities, but these aren't parts of the sumo tradition that the fans who pay to see sumo value.

In the upcoming days there will be a typical response. We'll cringe through dozens of apologies. Someone high up in the JSA will be canned. An internal investigation by JSA cronies will excise the smallest number of responsible parties possible and just one who has some name recognition, in order to validate the process. They will hope that the fans come back, but as many of the die-hard elderly fans begin to pass away, the younger fans will expect sumo to become more sport-like.

How long will it take for Takanohana to rise to the top of the JSA and lead it into the modern era?

Japan 2010, Day 12

On Friday we hustled back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen. When we got to the hotel we watched a little sumo. Then we ate at the sweet restaurant in Akasaka which was the site of our first meal in Tokyo together in 2008. A little shopping in Shinjuku and then to bed. No pictures of note were taken.

Japan 2010, Day 5

We got our wires crossed with friends, so instead of going to a festival in town we ran around and did other things.

We saw the Lucie Rie retrospective at the National Art Center, which was fabulous.

I went in search of the Comme des Garcons store and bought more of my favorite perfume (Incense Jaisalmer) and a bottle of a new favorite (Incense Kyoto).

Before we went to Japan I looked at my parents' old Japan 1984 travel guide. It listed a print shop called Yoseido Gallery. I looked it up, and we went to visit. They have a nice selection of prints on display and when I saw a man looking through a portfolio of unframed prints, I knew what to do. I asked to see all of their prints by Hashimoto. They kindly brought out two thick portfolios of prints, and we spent about twenty minutes looking at all of them. Several were ones that we'd only seen on the Web. We also saw examples of prints we own. Most, however, were prints we'd never seen. One of them "spoke to" mrguy and we bought it.

I caused the family to nearly starve to death in the streets of Ginza after that. Have you ever been so hungry that you can't make up your mind about where to eat? That was me. We found soba because I chickened out about a place whose plastic food looked like slop. I want to know what's in my slop before I eat it. The soba hit the spot.

Since we were still in the Ginza, we went to the Sony store and looked at cameras. Food blogging is so popular that the Sony store has a fake cafe with fake food in it that you can photograph.

Then we went to Akibahara an enormous electronics store that was louder than loud. The cacophony included people enticing you to buy things and the sound of thundering commercials, including one that featured the melody of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. We found the televisions and surprised some locals watching the last few sumo matches of the day when we started rooting for Tochinoshin by name.

mrguy made a total score that night: a Nintendo card that lets you compose electronic music on your DS. He was hoping to find it because it is only available in Japan. Happy boy.

After we got back to Akasaka, we padded down the street toward a Hawaiian restaurant we'd heard about (o.k. it was recommended by Akebono on his blog), called Ogo Ono-Loa Hawaiian. At this point in our vacation it was nice to chill, drink a few Kona Longboards and eat poke. The teri poke was delicious. A little heavy on the shoyu, but it was incredible. Small chunks of diced apple add an interesting twist to their version of the dish. And their guacamole was also delish.

Mrguy could not wait to start playing with his new toy. I fell asleep that night and many others during the trip to mrguy making me bleeps and bloops on his DS.

Japan 2010, Day 4

This was a big day. Mrguy and I went to see sumo at the sumo stadium in Tokyo.

But first, the Tokyo Edo museum. We had wanted to go there because it has dioramas of early Tokyo, and that sounded interesting to see. It was, but lack of much English signage made it harder to appreciate. There were tour guides who would give you a full tour in English, but I didn't want to commit. The best sight of the day in the museum was school girls in uniform giggling and taking pictures as each one of them got inside a reproduction of a litter. And I was proud of myself later when a display about the Tokyo earthquake of 1855 showed various namazu-e and I knew what they were despite lack of translation.

From there we walked over to the sumo stadium. I wanted to walk briskly but mrguy held my pace, warning me not to make any quick moves because there were "seriously old people all around". True that! I didn't want to knock anyone over, so I moved slowly.

We paused at the corner just in time to see Aminishiki and Kakuryu light from their taxis and enter the stadium. Aminishki is one of our favorites. We call him the Japananese mrguy because he reminds us of the *other* mrguy, mrguy south.

We had our picture taken with the sumo mascot, as these people did.

Then we entered the stadium. I didn't know what to do first. Shop? Find our seats? The matches for the lower ranks were in progress, so anything we did would mean missing sumo. Argh. We checked out our seats and then saw people with vanilla soft-serve cones coming from upstairs. Suddenly that was my focus. The soft-serve was so weirdly delicious. Dairy tastes different in Japan, and these cones tasted somewhat like evaporated milk. I tried to be very cool and not stare at the young sumo wrestlers in summer kimonos lapping at their cones nearby. Awesome.

More shopping, beer purchasing and then off to our seats. We splurged on a 4-person box seat. It would have been perfect were it not for the ugly American two boxes away. He was being treated by business colleagues, it seems, and this guy had a voice like Caruso. I didn't need to hear him flirting with local girls and making hundred yen bets on matches based on which wrestler is fattest. At one point I looked his way and yelled "Dude! Do you mind?" and mrguy asked him to hold it down. Eventually we moved to empty seats farther away and closer to the ring (many people do this, btw). We could still hear this guy, but not as much.

I find it hard to concentrate while watching live sumo. It was so much fun just to be there and eat a rice bowl and some beer and cheer for our favorites. That was the best. Toward the end of the day we heard women cheering for Kisenosato in a way that told me that at least one of them was American. I looked in that direction and recognized someone from the sumo forums. No way. I introduced myself after the last match of the day. She was extremely kind and friendly and helped us buy some swag we wouldn't have known about otherwise.

After sumo we went to Beer Club Popeye to sample beers and eat hop shoot pizza. My notebook is full of scribbles that say "green tea and potato" and "floral on back end" and cardamom.

New Additions

I know what you're asking: where have I been? Why no news of Japan?

Before we went to Japan I maxed out my iPhoto, crashed my computer, and I have been sorting through photos. Moving ahead, I will learn to use iPhoto Manager. In the meantime I feel stranded amongst my photos with so much to say. It's like wanting to dance but being encumbered by a leg cast.

I'm going to start us off easy with an update on some collections. On our first Friday in Tokyo we went back to Ueno, to visit the denim stores that crowd under the train tracks of the Ueno station. Mrguy found the rare denim he was looking for, and I found a record shop with bins and bins of 45s outside of it. My idea of heaven. Also significantly less expensive than the denim.

I went through all of the bins, secretly hoping that I would find more Japanese Tobacco Singers, but knowing that I probably wouldn't.

Right away I started finding them. What a score! Then I also found 45s depicting men in kimonos with their hair dressed in a mage. Could these be singing sumo wrestlers? Too good to be true.

The owner of the store, probably in his late 60s, came out at one point to make sure that I understood that there were records inside those sleeves, not cds. I followed him inside to ask a few questions (by which I mean gesture and awkwardly mispronounce a few nouns):

Me (pointing) "Mage!"

Nice Man: "Hai".

Sumotori?"

Nice Man "Hai". As I brought out my notebook he told me the guy's name. Kitanofuji. Sounded familiar.

Me: "Yokozuna? Ozeki?"

Nice Man said he didn't know. He told me the other guys' names.

I went home with the sumotori and the smoking singers, and am quite happy.

I brought the 45s with me when we went to see friends in Yokohama. They filled in the gaps.

The smokers are Frank Nagai and Takashi Hoshigawa.

One of the sumotori was Kitanofuji. He reached the highest rank of sumo and is a stablemaster now.

The other, Masuiyama II, reached the second-highest rank in sumo and is also a stablemaster now.

The names of some of the songs (as translated by friends) are fabulous: "A Story at a Bar", "A Mutter of that Lady" and "The Chanko Song" (chanko is a stew eaten by sumo wrestlers).

Now that I've written this, I'm heading to the turntable to give these records a spin.

Japanese Oscars

Went to dream Japan last night, as Dennis Hopper's escort to the Oscars. The whole thing was being taped in Japan and green screened so it would look as if it had been taped at Kodak Theater as usual.

Dennis disappeared pretty close to the time his category was going to be announced. I looked for him in the theater, which seemed pretty empty all of a sudden. Then I noticed that all the male nominees were stripped to the waist and participating in some sort of skit in which they were rowing a huge ship. Again, it was being green screened. I went to check on Dennis, because he was very ill. Everybody knew this would be his final awards season.

While I looked around for Dennis Hopper, I noticed Chiyotaikai walking up the aisle. I was dying to find someone who could tell me if there were other sumotori in the house. An usher helped me find my seat, which was next to that tall gangly new guy on The Office.

Sports Blather

What is it about the murmurings of sports announcers that can make a person so relaxed?

One of my favorite memories of last year involves cruising in my car down a main drag on a Saturday, with the sun warming my car and JM doing the baseball play-by-play on the radio. Yum.

I was thinking about this this morning because I detest football but love hearing John Madden talk. Love it!

Then there's sumo. We watch with the Japanese audio commentary because a) it seems weird to listen to people talking about sumo in English and b) we don't know how to make our television pick up the second audio channel. About half of the time we watch, mrguy starts to drift off. Why? The soothing sound of sports.

In several weeks, we'll be hearing both in Japanese in person.

Can't wait.