Took a walking tour and I was the only one who showed up. So I got a private tour, basically. Nice! The lady, Reiko, taught me a lot about the development of buddhism in Japan. You know I love that stuff.

Lunch was forgettable and made my tummy hurt.

I didn’t really have plans until 4, so I picked a direction and started walking.

You can see so much by just looking around here. All of a sudden some sweet old lady comes up and tells you about a thing, and an idea makes sense at last. I’m as in love with Japan as the first time I was here.

I had dinner with a Chinese gal at a restaurant that served dumplings, it’s what you eat for new years, dontcha know. We then watched some crazy show on Chinese TV. Over a billion people were watching it at the same time. It’s like Dick Clark but for many more hours, stranger, and in Mandarin.

My last day is tomorrow and I’m going to try and do something momentous lol. We’ll see if this actually happens.

Good morning to America and happy Year of the Rat!!

I had a nice walk to the neighborhood where today’s museums were. It’s also back where I was at yesterday at the sumo arena.

So walking over from their stables, to work at the arena, were lots of wrestlers. I of course wanted to take a picture but didn’t in the end. After passing by the 15th guy walking to work it wasn’t so exciting. But still, you know, how you feel when you see a celebrity? Anyway.

Had a pleasant day learning about old Tokyo stuff. Learned some more about the shotguns and stuff.

Lunch was a a very popular ramen chain. It was good but overrated

I went back to the hostel to watch the day’s sumo matches. Its televised live with no commercials so that’s cool.

That’s all. Skipped dinner due to a late lunch

Not very exciting today. I’ll try to do something more fun tomorrow

Well, here is the day I’ve been waiting for. The group met at 1200 noon so until that time I killed the morning at a small museum.

The bag and luggage museum is way more interesting than it sounds lol. It’s free so that helped a lot too. A suitcase manufacturer has the museum upstairs from its customer service area; I guess they had the space?

Anyhoo it was full of beautifully made leather suitcases and stuff like that. Also bags and trunks from all over the world. My favorites were the crocodile handbags. I know its not PC right now, but damn some of them were nice.

After that, upstairs from the bags was a kind of memorial to the manufacturers founder. Someone had a serious crush on the guy. According to the memorial, he didn’t deliver world peace but damn close.

After a giant piece of fried chicken, it was sumo time.

We all trooped over to the stadium together on the metro. Right off the bat I almost ran into a fighter bc I wasn’t looking where I was going

Oops

After passing through bag check and getting our nosebleed seats, we had an hour to get food and look around. The sumo museum was PACKED. I wish I could have taken pictures. The wrestlers wear these apron things before the fights, and the museum had a bunch. Very colorful and wonderfully embroidered.

One of the traditional foods that wrestlers eat is chanko, a soup. Its really nice and quite nutritious. We got to try it. Luckily for me, today was a curry flavored one. Its slightly different every day.

Now for the arena. It’s a sports arena, and the seats are better than I expected for the cheap seats.

You can watch sumo stuff on YouTube and it’s pretty accurate. What it misses is the yelling. Fans constantly yell out loudly the names of their favorites. It’s also very tense for just the few seconds that the match lasts. If you can keep a match for 3 minutes that’s a loooong one.

It was super fun. We only sat and watched for 2 hours, but it could take all day. Get there early, eat, watch the wrestlers arrive, museum, watch all the practice and beginner’s matches, etc.

It was fun and I’m glad I finally saw a tournament in person.

Would I watch all day, every day for 15 days? No.

Tomorrow a couple of museums. There’s a good art museum of only woodblock prints nearby.

Good night

Took the morning off of sightseeing to walk around and try to get lost. It wasn’t easy. So many helpful signs and metro stations. When it was time to be where I needed to be. It was a 10 minute walk lol.

After a good lunch and terrible cup of coffee, the tour started. The guide is a really modern Japanese woman. She works for tips which is amazing if you know the Japanese.

I learned why there aren’t any goddamn trash cans anywhere. She said its because of the Sarin- gas terrorist attack. The religious cult put the poison in trash cans. So, no more trash cans. Lots of people died. Sad.

I had a nice snack dinner and was wrangled into an interview for active show, again.

Almost every night there’s something happening in the lobby common room here.

I’ve seen a cooking class, a sushi class, a calligraphy class, a learning Japanese class, tv shows filming, and a game show. Its pretty neat.

Today is the sumo match!! Finally it is the day.

Have a lovely night