Sumo obsession and Weekend in Hiroshima

I just had a pretty good 3 day weekend, as Friday was a holiday. On Friday I just went into Kure and hung out with Peter, Rome and Melody. Had a nice dinner that Peter made and spent the rest of the day cleaning up the apartment and watching sumo. Pete and I spent like 3 hours watching on Friday. It pretty damn interesting and they really lay a beating on each other sometimes. We are going to try to catch the next sumo tournament as a few of us here really want to see it live. The cool thing about sumo right now is that there are a lot of foreign wrestelers. The yokozuna is Mongolian, called Asahoryu and this pass weekend he staged a huge comeback against this Bulgarian sumo wrestler, kotooshu. The Bulgarian has a huge fan following and he was undefeated for most of the tournament. Really interesting and they fought twice during this tournament with Asashoryu winning both matches. In one match he did a 360 and shoved kotooshu down. Both Pete and I got really into it and had a great time watching the matches. http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20050925p2a00m0sp005000c.html

On Saturday I made my way into Hiroshima to meet up with Asuka and three of her friends. She came back from Tokyo on Friday but went straight to Miyajima for the night. I was supposed to meet Masato and Melody on the train to Hiroshima, but they never showed up and I had to make my way to the peace park myself. I tried to contact Masato but he didn’t pick up his phone. Luckily, it all worked out as I actually ran into them at the peace park. They had missed the train but 1 minute. To the shock and dismay of all of Asuka’s friends and mine, we both decided that we aren’t going to get cell phones. In Japan, this is considered crazy talk. But we feel we won’t really use the cell phones that often and the prices here aren’t as affordable as they are back home. The phones that I have seen are super high tech and cool, but we’re thinking it’s a convenience we won’t use too often. But we’ll see as the weeks go on because it was definitely needed yesterday. Picture below: Me, Asuka, Aki, Minori, Melody, Mari and Masato at the peacepark.

After meeting up with Masato and Melody, we met up with Asuka and her friend Aki who lives in Hiroshima and two friends from Tokyo, Mari and Minori. We decided to grab lunch and had okomiyaki and then made our way to the A-bomb museum. The museum was quite extensive and the stories and pain of those who died is really horrific. They had a few wax models and lots of testimonial stories of those who died and suffered the after-effects of the bomb. It was a really extensive museum and I was glad to have seen it.

After seeing the museum we made our way back into Kure and met us with Pete at an izakaya. We had a great meal as the restaurant served really good food. I even tried horse sashimi (horse lovers don’t kill me) and the restaurant had a great setting. That’s one thing you’ll notice when you’re in Japan, the restaurants here are really nice, they have great décor and the atmosphere is always really good. They spend a lot to effort and money to make the restaurants look nice here. After dinner, we made our way back home and Minori and Mari slept over. Picture below: The flea market outside my apartment

Yesterday, we just had a good breakfast in the morning and then made our way back into Hiroshima to say goodbye to Mari and Minori, as they took the shinkansen back to Tokyo. However, in the morning there was a flea market outside of our apartment. We made our way downstairs and got some pretty good deals. Brought some more chinaware for really cheap and a nice plant for the apartment. Asuka as some of you may know is a notoriously slow shopper and she actually went back down to get another plate. Well after dropping of Mari and Minori, Asuka and I did some more shopping in Hiroshima, then made our way home at night. Unfortunately, it took us a bit longer to get home. This leads to Japanese factoid #5. Well in Japan the transit system is amazing. The trains are pretty much accessible everywhere and travel is quite convenient. The transit system can get quite pricey at times but the convenience out ways the cost. I’ve decided not to drive as the price of a car, gas and various governmental checkups can get quite pricey. So train is usually my only way of transport. I got a train pass that allows me to commute from Kawajiri to Yasurra unlimited for about 50 dollars a month.

So the trains are also known for their punctuality. If the trains are even late a minute, the loudspeaker announces an apology. This definitely isn’t BC transit. So keeping trains on time is of the uttermost importance to the train companies as I’ve heard that they even get their wages garnered if they are late. Hence, the tragedy a few months ago in Hyogo prefecture, when I train conductor went to fast and caused his train to derail and slam into a apartment complex killing a 107. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4492267.stm . So yesterday, we were two stops away from home and the train stopped as we heard there was an accident at one of the crossways. So essentially we were stuck in Hiro station. We decided to grab dinner and by the time we got back, the trains were running again. We heard lots of ambulances go by, some hopefully no one got too injured. But since the train times are so important, if you cause a delay, like getting your car stuck their is a hefty fine. Hence, the reduction of train suicides because people knew that if they killed themselves and caused a delay in the trains, their family would still get a fine for the disruption. Well that was my weekend, it ended not too well with my grandma's passing back home. She was quite sick for awhile so it was expected. I heard that she looked really peaceful after her passing.