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Last Japan Post

Monday, May 26th, 2008

Sorry for the delay, been busy and have not posted the final photos from our Japan trip. Here they are, the last pictures from our trip. Also, another post will soon be coming with photos from Colorado I didn’t have time to post before we left for Japan.

These pictures are from our last two days, we stayed around Tokyo and tried to catch up on things we hadn’t yet had a chance to do although all the museums are closed on Mondays so that turned out to be a bummer.

I tried to upload a video I took at the sumo match and was unable to. This blog is supposed to support video uploads but so far I have been thwarted in my attempts to use the function.

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Me in front of the Imperial Palace. They make you keep a fair distance away, the grounds are huge, but at a few locations you could get a peek inside.

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Statue of a famous samurai and his faithful dog in the park where the zoo and a few museums (all closed Mondays) are located.

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I called this area ‘cat corner’. Just a corner in the park where like 10 fat cats were hanging out. I guess the lady on the bicycle feeds them. There sure were a lot!

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Tokyo tower.

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View of the city from the observation deck of the tower.

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So looking out of the tower I saw these kids, apparently in PE class. I got to thinking, it’s no wonder a lot of Japanese kids take to dressing up in strange outfits on the weekends. They spend their entire life in uniform. All schools wear uniforms and if you graduate and get a good job what you wear to work is about like a uniform as well. Maybe not so much for the women, but for the Japanese businessman a dark suit, white shirt, and conservative tie is pretty much about your only clothing choice. I can see why you would want to dress up as a goth or cartoon character on the weekend.

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And just to leave you on the right note here is the control panel for one of the more high-tech toilets.

Japan – day 9

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Sumo day! Well watching the sumo match certainly was facinating. I was interested in the fact that a lot of wrestlers are not Japanese, or even Mongolian (there have apparently been a lot of Mongolians doing sumo for quite a while) but a lot of Eastern Europeans as well. We got to eat traditional sumo food for about $2 a bowl (one of the best bargains in Japan). The food was good, it was something like beef stew with potatos, carrots, onions, and also seafood and beef. I don’t think it would make you big like a sumo wrestler right away, it seemed like very healthy food. There was one skinny sumo wrestler but I didn’t get a picture of him.

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All the top-level contestants in their ‘dress outfit’ before the match. On match day events start early in morning with the lower level wrestlers and throughout the day the contestants are higher and higher ranked. All the contestants come out in their traditional apron-style garment before the match, and these are the top tier.

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This is a traditional demonstration before the matches begin.

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Another traditional demostration with a bow. This occurs after the matches are over.

Japan – day 8

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
Saturday we had a good relaxing day. I think we were starting to get 'toured out' so with Steve off work we thought we'd do some simple things. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Japan – days 6 and 7

Saturday, May 17th, 2008
After our day in Hiroshima we got up bright and early and headed to Osaka. On the agenda for Osaka: check out the aquarium (one of the few aquariums in the world to house a whale ... [Continue reading this entry]

Japan – day 5

Friday, May 16th, 2008
Well, Steve had to go back to work so we decided we would take the shinkansen, yes the bullet train, down to Hiroshima and Osaka and see some ... [Continue reading this entry]

Japan – day 4

Friday, May 16th, 2008
I did a good job of taking lots of pictures, so I have a lot to post. On our fourth day in Japan we really didn't have a plan for the day but thought we'd go down ... [Continue reading this entry]

Japan – day 3

Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Our third day was another day of serendipity. Steve did not have to go to work since it was a holiday there so we went driving around the countryside in his amazingly cool car (pictured later). We wanted to up ... [Continue reading this entry]

Japan-day 2

Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Our second day in Japan we tried to go to a flea market since it was Sunday. I had heard they are great places to get cool Japanese stuff on the cheap. However, there was no flea market going on ... [Continue reading this entry]