Only a few more hours...

until my wonderful parents get here!! I am beyond excited!

A Day of Sumo or as Elspeth calls it, 'some thigh slapping goodness'

We took the subway with this rikishi and decided that he must know where he was headed...so we just followed him. The tournament was was held beside Nagoya Castle. I had seen sumo wrestlers all week, in the streets, on the train. Supposedly some are staying at a shrine near Obu. I even saw a wrestler riding a bike down the street....yes, that did look strange.



We asked this cute usher to help us find our seats. He took us to the wrong seats. When Elspeth pointed this out he turned bright red and took us to our actual seats. We spent the next few hours keeping an eye for him. Oh, and Elspeth took spy photos of him and he totally saw her.


Now for some sumo info (thanks English info guide!). The ring is called the dohyo and it is made of a special kind of clay, covered in a thin layer of sand. Over the dohyo, a roof resembling a shinto shrine is suspended and the huge tassels signify the seasons.


A bout is won by forcing the opponent out of the inner circle or throwing him in the dohyo. The rishiki who touches the ground with any part of his body (even his topknot - how would it happen that only his topknot would touch?), or puts even a toe out of the circle, loses the match.


Oh, and no striking with fists, hair pulling, eye gouging, choking or kicking in the stomach or chest. It is also against the rules to seize the part of the band covering the 'vital organs'. Good to know.


Six Grand Tournaments are held a year (this was the only one in Nagoya) and each rishiki fights one fight a day for fifteen days. After each tournament the official ranking list, or banzuke is revised. Currently, there are about 800 rishiki in professional sumo. The upper division, or maku-uchi include the yokozuna and ozeki positions.

Okay, now for a break from all that technical talk to look at some hilarious artwork done by local kids.


My favourites (above & below)

Elspeth's favourite (below)


We went out to get some lunch (the food selection in the area was limited and VERY expensive). When we got back, people were starting to arrive (the bouts start at 8:30am but the more well-known wrestlers are near the end of the day so a lot of people don't come until the late afternoon).






At one point the little old lady sitting next to me told Elspeth that a very famous Hawaiian ex-sumo was sitting behind us. I couldn't really see him (there was a pole in the way) but Elspeth managed a spy photo. People in the stands kept turning around to look at him and girls in yukata kept coming up to him for a picture.


(below) The dohyo-iri (entering the ring) ceremony. Each of the maku-uchi rikishi walk down the aisle wearing kesho-mawashi (ceremonial aprons). Get this - the aprons, which are made from silk can cost from 400 000 to 500 000 yen ($4000 -$5000)!!



The final ceremony before the higher levels compete is carried out by the yokozuna. He wears a massive hemp rope (weighing from 25-35 pounds) that is tied in a bow. Hanging from it are paper strips found in Shinto shrines.


The yokozuna claps his hands to get the gods' attention and then puts out his arms and turns his palms up to show that he is not concealing a weapon. Finally he lifts his leg and stamps, driving evil from the dohyo.




It was amazing to see the rikishi get ready to fight. They throw some salt, stamp their feet and then crouch down into position. They glare at each other....you think they're going to start....and then they stand up, throw more salt and walk around. This builds up the tension for them and in the room. The higher ranks have 4 minutes to glare before they must start (lowest rankings must begin immediately).


(Below) Sometimes during this 'glaring time' guys would run out and walk around the ring with advertisements. Once there was a hello kitty ad but Elspeth wasn't fast enough to get a picture.



The girl sitting in front of us was a fan of the high ranking foreign wrestler (perhaps Bulgarian?). He is very popular in Japan and I've seen him on celebrity talk shows. This girl made a sign for him (we were SO FAR from the ring....I have no idea if she thought he'd actually see it).


(Above) He is the super tall rikishi in the middle of the picture....unfortunately, he didn't win his bout and ended up being thrown out of the ring (below) and into the crowd (those people paid BIG money for their cushions...but I thought it was kind of dangerous....very large men occasionally come flying at you! No thanks, I'll stick to my cheap seat!)


And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...it's VIDEO time!

I finished it.

The Trace, the Trace!

How can so much excitement come in one little box? Oh and it arrived at work at 12:30...which means I got my book about 1/2 hour before you gals in TO. But no exciting line-up...I want to see pictures!

Do you know how hard it is to pose with a box? Seriously (Oh and I'm getting my haircut tomorrow, so don't worry). I wasn't allowed to open it until Elsepth arrived....so...I just waited....and stared at the box....and took pictures of the box....

Finally, after dinner (we were afraid if we opened it before, we wouldn't actually eat dinner) we opened our boxes and started reading!

How long did it take before I started crying? Only 69 pages.

Happy Harry Potter weekend everyone! I'll be back when I'm finished the book!

There's no place like Taipei, there's no place like Taipei

Where: Taipei, Taiwan
When: June 3-5, 2007
Who: Birthday Girl Laura and Becky
Info: Becky had been expecting to go home in July (she's now staying until Dec - woohoo) and she wanted to go somewhere outside of Japan for a long weekend. We initially thought about going to Korea but then Shinobu suggested Taipei. After doing a bit of wikipedia research we both agreed Taipei looked more our style (shopping + food + sights = a good trip)


We took Cathay Pacific, which is one of the nicest airlines I have ever been on. No dust cake here. No snippy flight attendants who tell you they've run out of blankets when you're freezing. The best part? It was only a 3 hour flight but we got our own tv screens and there were like 15 channels of movies/tv shows.


We were met by our tour rep and she took us to the hotel. We exchanged some money and then figured out where the metro station was. We were off! Shilin Night Market, here we come!

It started pouring rain when we left the hotel (May/June is the rainy season in Taiwan) and we were soaked after a few minutes at the market but it was so interesting that I didn't even notice after a while. It was colourful and busy and full of new sounds and smells.


I, of course, had done research about the market and found out some of the favourites (fried chicken, oyster omlet, mango ice, stinky tofu). It was overwhelming. Fresh fruit and vegetables were stacked high (some kinds I had never seen before!) and wonderful aromas (ok, the stinky tofu did stink) were wafting over us. Where to start?

Hmmm...A fresh fruit smoothy or a Jesus Loves You dumpling/cake thing?


We went for the famous fried chicken. I can absolutely never eat KFC again. This huge piece of crispy, juicy, spicy chicken was something ridiculously cheap...maybe $2?



Next we tried the crunchy dumpling inside a soft crepe thing. I got the coconut...it was a little dry...not my fave.


Ok. So we did see a cockroach. But considering it was the rainy season, the humidity level was insane and we were at an outdoor food market, I thought seeing one roach wasn't so bad...although it did freak me out by scurrying near my foot.

For dessert we decided on the strawberry/mango ice. Lets just say that the combination of fruit, ice cream, ice and condensed milk is the perfect thing to eat late at night in Taipei. Delish.


We spent a few hours wandering around the market, checking out the cheap shoes (more on them later) and the street vendors. We hopped back on the safe, high-tech metro and made our way back to our hotel. The next morning we got up early and found it had stopped raining. Obviously, the rain gods decided to let there be nice weather for my birthday.



I loved the metro in Taipei. From the beginning it was convenient, safe and high-tech. For a single journey you put your money into a machine, picked the amount from the computer touch-sensitive screen and out popped a little plastic token. This token you put into the turnstile and collected on the other side.

The trains came often, weren't crowded and were super clean. You aren't allowed to drink or eat anything on the train. We took it to the National Palace Museum. From the train we could see the lush green hills and interesting looking buildings...I was falling in love...



The National Palace Museum - This is museum holds one of the largest collections of Chinese artifacts and art in the world. A lot of the collections were removed from the Forbidden City in Beijing and brought here during the Chinese Civil War. Two of its most famous pieces are the jade cabbage and meat shaped stones. Go HERE to check out some pictures of them.



On the way back to the metro station we accidentally missed the stop (too busy looking out the windows) and at the next stop we found a really amazing market. I found some 400yen shoes, Becky bought jewelry and I was harassed by a woman who wanted to tell me how to get rid of my freckles.

I could have spent all day just wandering around, looking at the food and cheap goods. The people were really nice too. I read somewhere that 80% of younger people in Taiwan speak English. They were some of the friendliest people I've met while travelling. Lots of people wanted to chat, ask us where we were from, etc.



Next we went to Longshan Temple, one of the most famous temples in Taipei. When we got off the metro we were treated to a fountain show in front of the temple. Ahhh...choreographed water displays...you can watch it HERE.




Longshan Temple was crowded and filled with clouds of incense. It was so different from Japanese temples. People were offering baskets of fruit, food and flowers. It was colourful and ornately decorated.








Next stop on the marathon tour of Taipei - The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which was recently renamed the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (if you want to read about this controversial move, check out the wikipedia entry)




If you read the wiki entry, you'll see that this 'repairing of the roof' may not have been actual repair work at all. But alas, the main hall wasn't yet reopened when we were there so we couldn't see the changing of the guard.


I seriously am the queen of amazing race-style travelling...because next we were off to the tallest building in the world, Tapiei 101. But before we went inside, we stopped at Taipei's largest bookstore, a beautifully designed multi-level store inside a very stylish mall.

We checked out the food floor and decided on some freakin awesome pho for a late lunch. The tea here was so amazing that Becky and I were trying to figure out how to get more...or possibly steal the jug...the pho was amazing too...uggghhh...I want that again NOW!!


We couldn't come to Taipei and NOT go up the tallest building in the world (it's supposed to look like bamboo). Becky wasn't convinced that it was the tallest. She didn't think it looked that tall...but when we got up there (I think to the 93rd floor), it was high enough for me.


Even though it was kind of cloudy, the view was great. There aren't many cities whose skyline/views I enjoy but Taipei's city view is beautiful.




The thing in the picture below is one of a 3 huge thingys (sorry, I forgot the name...bumper? hmmm...should have made a note) that hold the building steady and prevent it from swaying in the wind/typhoon/earthquake. Yeah...that's all I know....


Located around the observation area there were these displays of rocks, minerals, etc. This one freaked me out. Look at it's alien mouth/jagged teeth...

After taking the 23 second elevator back down (my ears popped going up and down), we jumped back on the metro and headed back to the Shilin Market. Here, we did major shoe shopping and feasted on delicious market food.



I was too busy devouring these dumplings/buns to take a proper picture. Seriously, these were fabulous. Soft and chewy on top, crispy on the bottom and filled with either pork or vegetables. They were to die for...and 2 large dumplings cost less then 50 cents.


Becky treated me to a Taipei birthday cake of mango ice. So good after a dinner of fried chicken and dumplings. At this point I also had four new pairs of shoes. Maybe that's partly why I'm so happy in this picture! We thought we would have to take a taxi but we ended up catching the last metro back to our hotel.

When we got into the hotel room I noticed an envelope and a plate and fork on the table. It turned out to be a birthday card from the hotel and after seeing the fork I peaked in the fridge and there was a HUGE piece of cake! How sweet is that?!? They must have looked on my passport...(and those are chocolates, not olives...I just realized they look a lot like olives...)


The next morning we woke up, packed, ate our buffet breakfast and were picked up by the tour rep. I guess since my birthday was technically over, the rain gods decided to let it pour. Just going from the van to the duty free store (this 1/2 hr in the duty free reminded me of China) I got soaking wet.


Then it was back to the airport and back to Japan. I am determined to go back. I loved it. Everyone must go. It's safe, clean, interesting, beautiful, the people are SO friendly and of course, the food is fabulous and shoes are cheap. Also, look how lush and green it looks from the sky!

And finally, here are the shoes I bought. 3 pairs cost less then $15 and the polka-dot ones cost $4!




As you can see, I went a little crazy with the red flats....well whatever, they were cheap and so adorable. Now I can feel Dorothy-like whenever I want. I wish I could click my heels and go back because there's no place like Taipei!