Cultural learnings of Japan for make...

After a sunday night of clubbing you can understand that my monday did not start at 09:00 am. Yuko, a Japanese couchsurf host had agreed to meet me in the afternoon to show me around Osaka (even though she is from Kobe). We met up at the station and visited various cafe's in the Umeda area. While seeing Osaka was nice, it was also very interesting to have another good chat with a Japanese person. Yuko is actually planning on emigrating to the Philippines next week to work for a local NGO. An enormous decision of course so we had some good discussion on that. One of her major reasons is the Japanese working culture: she has no desire to spend her working days only working and sleeping, while getting more and more stressed and burned out. Sounds like a great attitude! We had a good talk about work, life, and the differences between our lives and cultures.
Besides some good talk we also had some great food. Yuko took me to a Japanese confectionary place where we ate some tradional Japanese sweet stuff. I had some kind of jelly + bean powder and she took red bean paste with ice cream. Both tasted very good! Later in the evening we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant where we tried various skewers: amongst others green asparagus, Japanese mushroom and bacon rolls with plum sauce. Once again: everything tasted great!
During the evening we also visited Umeda Sky building, a space inspired building with a great relaxing and skyline viewing area on the top floors. Unlike other viewpoints this place had a very relaxed atmosphere, was so big that it never feeled crowded, and sold cheap coffee and snacks which you could take with you to any of the windowside bars. Just a few pictures of the day because it was a short day and mostly spent talking.

A section of skyline, the red thing on the left is a ferris wheel 

(mounted inside and on top of a building)

Umeda Sky building

Yuko on top of Umeda sky

More Osaka pictures here

Osaka 1: Umeda with Yuko

From the guys at the hostel I learned that there was actually a Sumo tournament going on in Osaka (I had checked this in Tokyo because I wanted to go, but in Tokyo there was no tournament while I was there). In Osaka I was very lucky because a tournament is only held once a year there (and lasts two weeks). To buy unreserved tickets you have to be at the counter at 08:00 in the morning. So with a totally screwed up bio-rhythm and some searching in the Osaka labyrinth I arrived at the 'prefectural gymnasium' to buy my tickets. Cool stuff: there was actually a drummer on top of the building in a little hut, announcing the tournament with his drum:

The building entrance was also outfitted with all kinds of flags and, funny thing, the first sumo wrestlers were also coming in (just by foot, on the sidewalk, no artist entrance here). The way the tournament works is that all wrestlers have to perform each day. The lowest class starts early in the morning, the middle class around 15:00 and the top class at around 17:00. I haven't understood anymore of the details, except that score is kept of your wins and losses and that this determines your ranking. The highest ranking players perform last and the best one cannot be wrestled from his position, but is expected to retire once he starts performing badly.

Anyway, more Sumo later on, in the morning I just bought tickets, but didn't go in to watch yet (one re-entry is allowed). I had more touristy things to do: visit Osaka castle, Tsutenkaku tower and tennoji park.

Osaka castle is a beautiful castle, comparable to other castles of the period (Himeji for instance, which is currently under reconstruction). The castle has burned down a number of times, and the castle grounds have been reshaped a number of times by various lords. What is there today is one of the latest restaurations. The castle grounds are very spacious and beautiful, and is surrounded by the business districts of Osaka, making for some surreal pictures.

Inside the castle is an exhibition about the builder and his family. Most of the descriptions were in Japanese, so I didn't learn vary much. Only that he was the first to unite Japan under one name, but his adopted son betrayed almost everyone he dealt with, resulting in this swift death, and therewith the family name. That is why it is not one of the names we associate with Japanese history. 

The other must-see in Osaka is the Tsutenkaku tower. A tower modeled on the Eiffel tower, in the middle of a eating/snacking area. I don't know why this is in the must-see list: the area looks kind of rundown, except for the food, which looks excellent. The tower itself is not beautiful at all. As the view from the Umeda Sky building, as well as from the top floor of the castle were really fantistic I didn't feel like shelling out more money for a skyline, so I passed the tower by and went directly to Tennoji park, which was a tip from a local I met in the Kyoto hostel.

This park was not so stunning as the parks in Kyoto, but it did have a beautiful balance and restfulness to it. Especially with the busy city surrounding it so close by. I got the feeling that a lot of the (old) people in the park were there to find some kind of solace, most of them looked sad and lost. In one of the small sitting shacks inside the park I had lunch, and as I was eating I noticed a kingfisher ('IJsvogel'). It was sitting on a small branch in the garden above the pond some 5m away. It caught a few fish and moved around to two other spots. This was truly an amazing sight to behold: the golden color of the bird, the flash of azure when it flew up, and this all in the backdrop of a beautiful garden: totally zen. As I didn't want to get my camera with my lunch hands I didn't take it out until it was too late: the bird had moved on, so I can share only the description with you :-(.

After this restful experience it was time to rush to the Sumo matches. At 14:45 the middle class of wrestlers would move in, with all the ceremony that is associated with that, so I wanted to be there at the time. Navigating Japanese metro is now easy, so I enjoyed finding my way and knowing that I would be on time. Getting out of the subway I discovered one of the secrets of Sumo wrestlers weight:

Notice the Sumo wrestler under the 'o'

At the entrance to the gymnasium there was quite a lot of commotion: lots of people, camera's, police. It was clear that people were excited! I stayed to watch a little, missing the first ceremony (I was surely on time for the one with the highest class), it was fun seeing the people cheer for wrestlers and celebrities of which I had no idea who they were (but I happily cheered with them). Once inside I was shown my seat by someone who hardly spoke English, getting me almost lost by leaving me one floor below the entrance door instead of at the door. However, with some exploring I did find the entrance and got to my seat by asking another assistant. Before discussing seating, let me first show you the arena (this is near to the final fight, it wasn't this full at the start).

Seating pricing is cheaper depending on your distance and alignment to the ring (dohyo). Front row seats facing the front can be very expensive, and the further and more to the side you get the cheaper. My ticket cost 2000 yen which is the cheapest you can get ;-). There are also box seats, which consist of four cushions in a small rectangular area. Four people sitting crosslegged can barely fit into it, and I saw some Japanese just laying in them all by themselves. For my 2000 yen I got a normal seat which was a lot more comfortable.

For the rest it was just your normal sporting event: get some beer and peanuts, enjoy the action and the emotion in the crowd, except for this time I understood little of the rules. The rules for the fighting are pretty simple, but actually, most of the time is spent on all kind of ceremonies and rituals of which I understood little. A lot of it has to do with impressing the opponent probably. I can describe a few of the events:

East side wrestlers entering the arena

Presentation (?) of the east side fighters

The best(?) east side fighter showing his strength(?) before this round of matches starts

A fighter throwing salt on the dohyo before starting the fight

Final seconds before the fight starts

Something I didn't show is all the moves and handclapping before the actual wrestling starts. The wrestlers go to the final move position some three times while clapping, stamping, throwing salt in between before they go once again for the final position. All the while there is sweepers cleaning the salt away, singers announcing the fights, and the referee taking up position on one or another stance. Please comment if you know more about it (or had some more time to look it up on the google).

Action!

That's gonna hurt

The final winner of this day celebrating his victory by waving a bow around (very, very fast)

It's fun to zoom in on a few of the full resolution pictures (link at the end of this page) and look at the faces of the onlookers. There's a lot of excitement while the fight is going on, which is great to see and experience, especially as you don't see Japanese display this in daily life. All in all it was a fun night, something to remember for sure.

Osaka 2: Sightseeing and Sumo