Day Twenty: Ryogoku

im up that day and feeling slightly disgusted at the foreigners living in Tokyo. I ended up smacking myself with my umbrella all the way to to the subway station which connected me to ryogoku, the location of kokugi-kan.

now it just so happens I picked the right time to come to this country, cause the sumo tournament is going on right now, maybe not at this very moment, but It was going on when I was there in Tokyo for that couple of days.

I made my way towards the sumo arena and waited in line with the rest of the foreigners who had not bought tickets previously and were hoping for a shot at the nosebleeds or the standing room only tickets. I was able to get myself a ticket in the nosebleeds for 2100yen, and felt pretty good about it.

that was sometime around 8 in the morning. the dudes got all greased up and ready to go at about 9am. during the first half of the day, it’s the lightweights and the up and comers facing against each other for the chance to be ranked among the greats.

lightweight, here being a very loose term not to be taken too literally, every single one of the sumo had to weigh in at least 50lbs more than me, and even though I think I have a big head, these guys heads were something like watermelons set on top of a mound of wet blankets about to be put into the dryer.

I haven’t been this excited to see men wrestle in thongs since my high school days.

sumo seemed to have many spiritual and ritualistic practices involved. before they squared off, they would throw salt into the ring as a way of purifying it for the new matches. the ring is made of this thatched barley I reckon. the ring creates a perfect circle.

so the guys wait for the instruction of the other man that’s in the ring-- kind of the referee, the mills lane of sumo. mills lane looks great in not only his referee clothes and his judge robe, but hes got nothing on these guys.

when the guy says its time to go, the wrestlers go at it, loud and proud, pounding into each other with loud grunts. sometimes they slap each other before grabbing each others diaper and trying to throw one another out of the ring.

the matches seemed to last, on average, about thirty seconds. some of the better ones went on for over a minute.

there were times when they would throw one another out with such force that they would cause their opponent to fall out of the raised area in the center of the arena altogether. he would fall to the side and land among the crowd, and in one case, he ran square into one of the judges. he ended up being okay though, he acted as if it happened all the time, only because it probably did.

I looked around the arena, checked out the museums and whatnot, and eventually found my way downstairs to an area that was selling sumo wrestler kibble.

I reckon it’s the stuff that they give the sumo seven or eight times a day to bulk them up. it was called “chanko”.

how could you not be as happy as this man here while eating chanko.

it is a physical impossibility.

I bought myself a bowl of this stuff and sat down with two new Japanese friends. they of course were very nice like most Japanese folks, and the food was amazingly good. apparently it was also supposed to be very high in calories and would turn me into a sumo wrestler if I kept eating it.

which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

every time I scoped out a honey walking around, the first man she went up and talked to was a sumo. these sumo wrestlers have, by far, the best looking wives and lady-friends. even though they were usually about double the size of these women, they were still being spoon fed chanko by them and the women were laughing at the sumo wrestlers corny jokes.

being a sumo wrestler might not be so bad, I thought.

you have to live your life with a constant difficulty to breathe as well as having a very high chance of dying much younger than everyone else.

but on the upside you get to eat chanko everyday and have Japanese women laugh at your lame jokes.

but my friends my friends, don’t get me wrong, every single one of those sumo wrestlers was a stud. I went around and talked to a few of them and tried to make friends. they were nice and even let me take some pictures of them.


this one is one that can be added to the great awkward pictures list of 60cities60days. the dumb American and the dumbfounded sumo, living together as one. something about that seems like it would make a great sitcom.

and this man here was maybe the largest sumo I saw that day.


if you are ever in the area during the month of may, I would strongly suggest you go check out this sumo tournament. it was something unlike anything I have ever seen, it was just as amazing as so many of the other things I have wanted to see in this country for years.

I left and rode the shinkansen toward a city called nara.

on the way, I felt an obligation to take more pictures of mount fuji as we went through shizuoka prefecture.

here is a good one

and another one


and


drat! and double drat! sweet irony how could I let this happen again!

I arrived in nara about the time the sun was going down. I had to go through Osaka, home of the swine flu, but luckily I was able to escape again and make it out of there with most of my body still intact.

I checked into the nara tree guest house, owned by a man from Nashville named bob and his girlfriend, a down home kansai girl named mayumi.

they were two very nice and wonderful folks.

I slept the night in a room by myself looking out onto a street in the center of the town

Day Nineteen: Roppongi

tim lin wakes me up at 5am. I stand up in the middle of the room and contemplate whether or not I really want to go to Tokyo at 5am to see the sumo match.

I lay back down and its back to dreamland.

sometime later I get up and its about 11am. I stand up again, except this time I stay standing. tim lin is already up playing video games in the middle of the one room apartment, barely big enough to hold the two of us. at this point hes probably sick of me having me around.

so I pack up my stuff, give him a hearty handshake, and continue on my merry way leaving mr. tim lin from Singapore all by his lonesome.

I make it all the way to the train station, still refusing to wear a mask on my face, literally staring imminent swine flu death in the face and laughing right at it.

i'm on a train bound for Tokyo so I can have my head on straight to see the sumo wrestling matches for the next morning.

in the blog for an englishman in osaka, he recently wrote on there about the phenomenon of the "fuji from the shink" picture.

what happens is that for about ten minutes during the shinkansen trip through shizuoka prefecture, mt. fuji is seen nice and big, so everybody and their mom on that side of the train takes out their camera and takes pictures.

since i'm not better than anyone else, i decided to do a few of my own.


but like the englishman also mentions, you gotta watch out for obstacles. when you're in an object moving over 200 km an hour, there's gonna be stuff fly beside you that you never saw coming. you gotta watch out for poles, power lines, sometimes people. who knows what obstacles lie ahead?


Oh no! a huge set of powerlines! why do bad things have to happen to good people!?

I find my way to the Tokyo terminal and board the subway system towards asakusa, a place i've already been, but didn’t have a chance to experience fully. I wanted to stay in a capsule hotel there. i took some more pictures of the kaminari-mon, this time at night when the giant lanter thing was lowered so you could actually read the kanji on it.

I made my way to the lobby of the hotel and I see that the signs say the rates are something like 3500yen a night. I don’t feel like paying that much money at the time, so I stare square at the old Japanese lady for a little bit after she tells me the price. I could remember the rate being much cheaper on an internet site that I had checked out. it was supposed to be something like 2500yen.

I smile, point to a computer, and I say the word “internet”.

she stares at me for a moment. takes out a piece of paper and writes the numbers 2000 on it, and I give her two 1000yen bills. she gives me a key and walk up to my capsule.

i definitely won that match, she thought she had me.

I hang out in there for a good two hours taking care of some business, trying to figure out where to live for the next couple days, and then take a little nap.

i'm up at about 8:30pm and decide i'm gonna head out and do something.

I had heard that roppongi was the part of Tokyo where foreigners went to hang out. I don’t know why I was in any way at all enticed by this place, because the last group of people I want to be hanging out with when i'm in japan is other Americans.

so for some odd reason, this place was created to give refuge to the poor downtrodden souls looking for strip clubs, bars, and dance clubs to go to with other white skinned folks. honestly, why would any foreigner actually want to come to a foreign country and then go out and do things with its native people? the thought of such things happening make my brain want to explode.

when I got there, it was just as I had heard. it was a bunch of old white guys walking the streets looking for women, and the women there that had men, were wearing next to nothing and smiling like they didn’t really look like total prostitutes. the place was swarming with strip clubs that were made to look somewhat classy, even though classy strip club is probably just an oxymoron anyway. it was also covered in these meet-market type dance clubs.

now I like a good dance club myself, but these joints were different. these clubs are made so that these male anglo-saxon, Abercrombie and Hollister wearing foreigners can get hooked up with some young Japanese chick that wants to giggle with all her co-workers at the fish market tomorrow morning about how she got good romance last night from some guy that doesn’t even speak her own language. the stench of yellow fever and david beckham cologne was everywhere.

they also have these “love hotels” cleverly located nearby so that once you fall in love with that special someone at the meet market, you can take them to one of these hotels for a few hours and tell them how much you love them and maybe watch tv. 2 hours is about 5000yen, and the room comes with useful amenities such as a sink that used to have water in it and a lamp. there really is no better way to say I love you.

it was wretched, I knew I had to escape

the worst part was these black dudes swarming the streets of roppongi. no, they are not African Americans, nor are they African Japanese, they are African Africans. when I asked these dudes where they came from, Nigeria or the like was their usual response. but hey, the fact that they were from Africa has nothing to do with my disgust for them.

these dudes work in the Tokyo streets as busboys, smut peddlers, and low-class pimps to rich old white men. theyre standing on street corners with their own African women trying to sell them off to well…white folks like me

in my country, people of African descent have struggled for decades to try to rid the nation of false stereotypes against its people, the kind of attitude that they can shuck and jive their way into the heart of the rich white man by workin hard and suckin up to him as much as he can. you know what, black folks in America have done a great job at this, a fantastic job really.

but these dudes are in the streets of the biggest city in the world, displaying this for tens of thousands every night, standing on the streets finding any way they can to bring pleasure to these no class white businessmen in the heart of Tokyo. instead of the Japanese getting their own out here to do this dirty work for these white-collar dimwits, they bring in African imports. they reinforce the same stereotypes every night in front of thousands that Africans in America have fought for years to destroy.

is this not disgusting?

the worst part was theyre extreme relentlessness. normally if I don’t want something corny some guy is trying to persuade me to get on the street, I wave my hand at him and hes gone, but no, these guys weren’t gonna do that. they would follow me on and on until eventually I was spitting on their feet and screaming in their faces. I eventually had to tell one of these dimwits that I was gay and even if I wasn’t, I still wouldn’t pay a dime for a second with one of his used tricks.

I don’t think ive ever wanted to punch someone in the face so bad.

the only decent part of this place is the store at the hard rock café. I bought a shirt from a Japanese chick with about six piercings in her nose. she definitely doesn’t have to worry about swine flu.

so roppongi was a bust. I would recommend going there if you fit under two or more of these categories:

1. you have lots of money

2. youre an idiot

3. you have no self respect

4. you desire a venereal disease

I went back to the capsule, barely making the last train at midnight. I got into my capsule.

it was boring, not like the type you would expect to see on a primetime movie or something. it was a little different, rather than get in from one of the ends, you got in from the side and closed yourself into it with a curtain. so, no pictures of this one kids, it was lame anyways.

I got up and took a little walk around the neighborhood at about 1am. when I got back, I saw there was nobody in the bath-house area of the hotel, so I went down there, washed off my dirty body, chilled out in the tub for a good long while and then sat in the sauna till I felt better about life. it was all so very japanesey, the whole bath-house atmosphere. and it was good.

I got into my capsule afterwards and was grateful for the things I had seen and learned that day. I closed the curtain and tried to sleep.

nobody snored that night. nobody made a sound.

Day Eighteen: Umeda and Osaka

tim kicked me out of his house at about 8 in the morning. I walked around trying to find something to do.

why not hit up the downtown area?

while on the way there, I saw everyone was wearing those cool masks to cover up diseases and whatnot. I just figured there were probably a lot of sick people walking around.

I took a train from Osaka station to umeda. in umeda, there is a big building there where you can go to the top onto an observation deck and get a view of the entire city and the surrounding area. they of course charged me a good price to get into that to enjoy the splendid beauty of the city from the sky.

if you look at this building, you can see two sets of escalators suspended in the air going from a lower floor of the building to the observation deck.

im pretty sure that every single one of japans large cities has one of these types of deals. they build a big tower, fill it with offices for businesses and whatnot, and they include a special thing on the top floor specifically to be an attraction to suckers, like me, who are visiting and simply cant resist the opportunity to sit on the top of a tall building and take pictures, lots and lots and lots of pictures.



so I was sitting at the top of this building, called the sky-biru, and I take lots and lots of pictures. for some reason, this area has some kind of a lovers theme.

I was there by myself, so I sat in the seats meant for two lovers all by myself, except for my imaginary girlfriend of course.

and that was that, on to bigger and better things.


Osaka castle is the biggest one I have ever seen in japan. it is surrounded by a big moat, like the castles in the old school knight stories and stuff. it was serious stuff.

of course when I got here I had to take a lot of pictures of it as well, but here are just a few for your viewing enjoyment.


and another


when I got to the side of the castle, I got to stand on the edge of this Cliffside type area and look down. hundreds of feet to a watery grave, or at least that’s what it seemed like, it was pretty high up there.


this couple here actually took his dog and held it over the edge the same way Michael Jackson might do one of his children.


I was horrified at this mans lack of consideration for this poor animal, but there was nothing I could do, the man spoke Japanese, I spoke English, and the dog did not speak at all.

more and more often, I kept seeing people wearing these masks. it seemed to me now that there were more people wearing them than not. I had no idea what was up but was guessing maybe it had to do with how I smelled or something. It couldn’t have been that I thought, ive showered most days and I usually use soap when I do it, and sometimes water.

I found a takoyaki man at the front of the castle. my chance had finally arrived to eat my favorite Japanese food from a legit takoyaki vendor.

he was totally legitimate. he asked me how I wanted my takoyaki, what toppings I desired, and even let me take pictures of him making those delicious little balls with octopus tentacles in the middle.

they were a work or art and I was incredibly excited when he called my name. I went and grabbed my takoyaki, payed the man, and sat down.

Immediately following, a crazy bum came up and started talking to me. he was one of the grosser people I have seen during my trip and subsequently made me not want to eat my octopus balls. I got up and ran away from him, holding on tight to my balls as I ran as to not hurt them.

I found a safe spot and chowed down. oh they were good. they were better than good, they were great.


anyway, from there, I made my way back to old tim lins house, I was gonna take a nap before the fun of the evening. it was beginning to get dark.

then I noticed almost everyone was wearing a mask but me.

i got lost, but tim lin found me. he told me that there was an intense alert out because there had been an outbreak of swine flu, and just to make it better, it had been in the area I was hanging out in all day.

he also told me he hd the week of school off because of the swine flu outbreak, so he could stay up late and play with me when we got back to the house. we could even have a slumber party and sleep in if we wanted.

he forced me to wear a mask, we went and got some food and went to hide at his house until the whole thing would blow over.

we just sat around his house for the next five or six hours eating and dressing up and sleeping and doing our hair and talking about girls, you know, man stuff.

I talked to moniek on facebook and she mentioned that there was a sumo tournament going on in Tokyo and that I should go check it out. how could I possibly say no to that kind of an offer, so I told her I would be up at 5am to catch the shinkansen back to Tokyo, again, and meet her and some folks at the sumo arena at 9:30am.

seriously, sumo in Tokyo…how incredible is that stuff?

I told tim to wake me up at 5.

then we went to bed, just narrowly escaping the clutches of the swine flu.

Day Seventeen: Namba, Tennoji, Shinsaibashi

from then its just Osaka city.

Osaka is known for a lot of its fine restaurants and has been given the nickname “The town of overeating” in Japan. Im currently working on finding the city in japan known as “the city of oversleeping” and from there I can plan my next vacation.

Osaka was lined with the homeless it seemed. maybe it was just a sunday night or something, but it also seemed like it was a lot dirtier than anywhere else in japan I had been. the rules that were usually very strict on recycling your garbage seemed completely non-existent.

the sections of the city we were in seemed just as bright as Tokyo. as Osaka is japans second largest city, and something like the 7th largest in the world or something like that, I reckon I had expected that kind of thing.

Osaka is also the home of my favorite Japanese food, takoyaki, fried octopus dumplings.

I didn’t find a joint that sold them that night, but rest assured tomorrow is a brighter day.


so tim shows me the namba, shinsaibashi, tennoji, and amerika-mura areas of the city.


on the way back, just for kicks, tim lin takes me through the red-light district of the city, which basically looks like everywhere else, except for one minor difference.

down this road, each special shop has a white, lit-up sign above it. im not sure what each sign says, maybe a name of a person or a business.

below each sign there was a lobby that you could see the inside of. it was brightly lit, has lots of little flowers and other rubbish, and an adorable pink pillow where a lovely woman of the night was sitting, smiling.

an old woman was sitting beside each young woman, shouting for us to come in. I politely declined each time this happened, which was very very very frequent. there was an entire neighborhood made up of these small openings where old women sat trying to get guys to hook up with their women.

it was wild, and crazy, and pretty sick

at the last door, I was just curious how much it would cost to go out for a coke or some ice cream with one of these women, so I asked the old woman at sitting in the house

10000yen, equal to about $100 gets you 15 minutes, 20000yen, $200 gets you 30.

and you guessed it, for 40000yen, about $400, you can spend an hour with one of these classy young women! thats just enough time to watch “piglets big movie” with them from start to finish

I researched this after we got back to tims house cause I didn’t see any cops, and firefighters, or many guys walking around aside from me and tim.

apparently this is the only legalized red light district in the country. the police ignore it like it doesn’t exist, and you apparently aren’t supposed to take pictures anywhere on the road

but of course I did


I figure if these Japanese ladies are gonna be tricks for a living, they can at least let me take pictures of their neighborhood, and if they don’t like it, that’s fine, I don’t like what they do either.

me and tim walked further towards his house, as it turns out, he lived literally about 45 seconds away from the end of the red light district.

I slept a little more soundly that night knowing this.

Day Sixteen: The Sagamihara Housing Area

up at 3pm, everyone is frantic and getting ready for joe horlachers eagle court of honor. I feel like a bum sitting at my computer trying to secure somewhere for me to sleep on sunday night instead of helping out.

everyone heads out at about 530 and im there by myself. I tool around on the internet some more and find some possibilities of where to stay in Osaka. I leave the house and walk down the road to where the court of honor will be.

ben and takeshi and bens sister meet me on the way. they drive me back to the house.

so the news is that apparently there was going to be a religious revival scheduled in the same place where the court of honor was supposed to be held. they were all going back to get some necessary provisions for the night since some of the other goodies were taken up by the pickin and a singin of the revival that was set to happen in the room right next to the room we would be in.

things went on as planned. the whole she-bang started at 7, there were plenty of people, plenty of food and plenty of good times.

the music next door was so loud that through the entire eagle scout court of honor, we had a soundtrack of gospel music and old timey “hallelujahs” coming to us straight from our friends next door. it rang throughout the whole building.

it was a lot of fun and it was for sure good times.

that night we cleaned up and brought all the stuff back to bens house. I spent the evening from there trying to figure out how I could be able to return back home sometime in the first week of june. as it turns out, the airline people are claiming I cant change my flight plan no matter what I do, so I have to buy another ticket for a one way road back to America. a one way ticket right now to Atlanta now would run about $2400

can anyone else feel my frustration here? is this not ridiculous?

so I got my folks workin on this as well as bens father who seems knowledgeable on this type of thing. hopefully I can go back home early for a price significantly lower and not the same amount of money that I could use to buy a car or about 15 nintendo wii’s

on to osaka