Well, where do I start? Our adventures of late have left no time for blogging! Let’s go back to the very beginning, a very good place to start… (yes, The Sound of Music was on SkyPerfect recently!)
For the second time in our marriage, Kept Ninja and I were separated by sea :( He flew to China to holiday with his folks for a week. I was a little apprehensive for three reasons:
1. Our credit cards were cancelled the day before he left as someone was spending our money at Saks in Aberdeen;
2. We weren’t sure if his mobile would work there (it didn’t); and
3. Finally, I hadn’t cooked for myself in 6 months and survival was not a give in!
Fortunately, Kept Ninja made a big loaf of wholemeal, 2 batches of fruit muffins and 3 litre of chicken vegetable soup :)
After a week of moping and watching romance movies, Kept Ninja was due to come home… only a typhoon could stop him! ...and it did. Typhoon Roke cancelled flights for 4hrs and sent me home from work at 3pm.
One day later, Kept Ninja’s aunt and uncle arrived. Two days later Kept Ninja and his folks made it home.
Unfortunately, Kept Ninja didn’t make it back in time for the Sumo on Friday. So I took Keiko, Sabatino and Roberto from work. It was quite an experience.
In a nutshell:
- The amateur’s (Jonokuchi) wrestle first – their sizes varied from little guys to 250kg jumbos. I felt sorry for these guys cos they don’t get to wear cool hairstyles, they have more cellulite than muscle, and they have to clean and cook for the higher ranked wrestlers (rikishi).
- The dohyo (ring) is covered with sand, which they sweep constantly.
- During the actual bout, a rikishi can use a number of manoeuvres, except pulling his opponent's hair, hitting his opponent with a closed fist, boxing his opponent's ears, choking his opponent (although he may push at the throat), or grabbing his opponent's mawashi in the crotch area… first to touch the ground or step out of the ring looses!
- There are 6 referees (gyoji) – one who jumps around the ring with the wrestlers, the other five sit on mats near the ring and sometimes get hit by falling wrestlers. They only jump up if they think the main man got it wrong.
- The Juryo were next up – they are the middle-men – the bouts last longer as do their warm up – they get to throw their weight around, AND throw salt.
- Finally the Makuuchi battles were up – they throw salt til the cows come home, then receive a moist towel, throw some more salt and then fight! The Big Kahuna or Yokozuna, had been undefeated for several years and lost for the first time the day before… we witnessed his second loss in as many years… which lead to cushions thrown into the ring (you predicted it Kz!) It’s a round-robin tournament so he still won overall.
- Most competitors were Japanese but there were some from Russia, Mongolia, Brazil and Estonia!...
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| Surface prep |
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| Aw, the little guys wrestle |
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| Warm-up stretch - hello boys! |
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| The Yuryo - who feels good about their physique now? |
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| Yuryo 'Hello Boys' is remarkably more flexible! |
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| Nothin' like a good salt throw... |
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| Man-love - sumo style |
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| Legal throat attack |
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| The Makuuchi... check out the bright blue boy... he's Russian |
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| Yokozuna (aka "Big Kahuna") |
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| David Vs Goliath |
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| David won - does everyone agree? |
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| watch out for the flying sumo wrestler... |
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| The dummy-spit - Yokozuma crumbles under pressure! |
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| Baystars fans - unimpressed with their performance! |
We had Tris’ parents, Aunt and Uncle stay with us for 10 days so we showed them around Tokyo and Yokohama. Few pics below – highlights were:
- Baystars game – ok they lost, but we got Baystar caps :)
- Oktoberfest at Red Brick Warehouse – 1 litre stein’s and bratwurst
- Going up Landmark Tower – 69 storeys’ – great view!
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| Landmark Tower View |
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| Landmark Tower View |
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| Oktoberfest - Red Brick Warehouse |
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| PROST! |
On Sunday we went to the Rakuten Tennis Open in Tokyo – it was a charity event day – we saw Bernard Tomic, Milos Raonic, and Mardy Chicken (aka Mardy Fish), each played Japanese players. Then David Ferrer played David Nalbandian, and Juan Monaco hit with Rafael Nadal. Half time entertainment was pretty interesting… see video below!
We had our 11th Japanese lesson on Monday night – we can now say when we woke up, what activities we did during the day and what we ate – the lesson feels like confession! Even more disturbing is that we learnt how to invite another person out to do an activity together and Tanabe-sensei was winking at Kept Ninja as he accepted her Karaoke date on Friday! :P ha ha but seriously, he IS her favourite!
Long weekend coming up – which gives me just enough time to cram for my Strategic Management exam in 13 days time!
Xoxo
Karate Kate
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