Journey to Japan: Sumo Wrasslin' and Kyoto/Nara Trip!

Hey everyone! I have had a busy couple of weeks! I have done some really cool things and experienced a lot of new culture. I also took a weekend trip with my large study abroad group so there is a lot to catch you up on! I’ve been keeping notes on my phone so I know what I do every day and can keep a better timeline for blogging purposes so hopefully that helps!

On Monday, May 12, I went to class all day and then hustled to basketball practice for the last hour and a half of a 6:00-9:00 practice that took place about 45 minutes from campus. The first hour is drills and training and the next two hours are pick-up games and so I just played the pick-up games and had a great time and knocked down some shots. Afterwards I took the super-crowded train for an hour and a half home and did homework and studied. The commutes are so terrible and that one was particularly annoying because it was late at night and I was very tired and I had to stand packed in with tons of people for over an hour after playing basketball for awhile. I am sure they were not thrilled with standing next to me either because I did probably not smell good after practice.

On Tuesday I woke up to an earthquake in my dorm room. It was a fairly small one that was no big deal. I forgot to post in one of my previous blogs about a huge earthquake I felt a couple weeks ago. I was in bed sleeping and it was about 6 am. I woke up to my whole room shaking like crazy! I had my glasses off and I am very blind so I woke up to the shaking and looked up and saw the blurry outline of one of my button-down shirts hung up. I thought it was a person in my tired/blind state. I thought my friend Zach was the one shaking my bed to mess with me and so I yelled at him until I realized it was an earthquake and I was shouting at one of my shirts. That earthquake was like a 6 on the Richter Scale and it originated like 100 miles away from me so it was the biggest quake I have ever felt. Anyways, I just went to class that Tuesday and came home to go to the store. I was feeling sick so I went to the drug store and used my Japanese skills to find appropriate medicine, which made me feel accomplished.

Wednesday brought more class and another basketball practice. I was able to go for the whole practice from 6:00-9:00 and it was honestly a pretty frustrating day for me. The practice started with workouts and running and pushups and stuff like that. I didn’t mind that at all because I enjoy exercising and I do that stuff all the time. Then we did drills. There were only 11 guys there this day including me and they were all Japanese with no foreigners other than me. So, all of the directions for the drills were given in very fast, slang-filled Japanese. And I didn’t understand any of it. They would tell us which drill to do all together and where to be and I couldn’t understand at all. I did my best to watch and learn, but I messed up the drills a bunch of different times because they were fairly complicated patterns of where to be and when. Finally we started playing the pick-up games, which is usually my favorite part. Today though, they were getting mad that I was shooting the ball from deep/3-point range. Japanese style of basketball is all about making a bunch of passes until someone can get right near the basket for a layup (even if it is highly contested). In America, we play a very different style and it often involves shooting jump shots. Even if my shot was wide open and I made it, they were not happy and kept telling me to move the ball more. It was like they preferred contested lay-ups to wide-open jumpers, which is my whole style of play. They scolded me so I stopped shooting and just made passes but their style basically eliminates my usefulness on the court. It was just a lot of stuff that made me mad at practice so I left feeling pretty unhappy about being on the team.

Basketball Practice

On Thursday, I went to Ikebukuro and saw the new Spiderman movie with my friends. It was a lot of fun and a nice relaxing day after a couple of stressful ones.

On Friday we decided to go out for the night. We wanted to go to the world famous Tsukiji Fish Market on Saturday morning at 4 am so you have to stay out all night and get there before midnight since the trains do not run from midnight to 4:30 am. The fish market has a famous tuna auction where they sell huge tunas that can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars each! They only let in 120 people each day to watch so you have to get there early (4 am). With this in mind, we decided to go out to a night club near the fish market to have fun and kill time all night before we went to the market. It was pretty fun except it was house music, which is not really my thing. We were at a club that apparently has one of the world’s largest disco balls but I forgot to look up and never saw it. At around 3:00, after a night of dancing with my big group of friends, we got in a cab and headed over to the fish market. We got a little lost but got in the big line around 3:45. When they started letting people in, we were worried we would miss the cut and unfortunately half of our group got in to see the auction and half of us did not get in. I was one of the group that did not get in to see the auction which was unfortunate. I was person number 123 and they only let in 120. I have been to Japan before for a week when I was 14 though and I saw the auction then but it would have been cool to see again. I may try to go again when my Dad visits in June! Since some of us did not get into the tuna auction, we explored the rest of the market and got some of the freshest and best sushi in the world. It was truly amazing. It was easily the best sushi I have ever had. After that, we headed home on the 5:00 am train and went to sleep.

Best Sushi Ever

Saturday night and Sunday were mostly spent catching up on homework and sleep after the Friday all-nighter. Monday and Tuesday were also pretty uneventful other than class and studying.

Wednesday was pretty awesome! Through my study abroad program, my friends and I were able to get free tickets to a professional sumo wrestling tournament at Ryogoku Kokugikan (The Sumo Hall)! We got in a group after class ended and headed to the stadium on the train. The tournament lasts all day for 15 days and we missed some at the beginning of the one day we were there, but we saw a ton of matches. Plus, the matches are scheduled so the best wrestlers are at the end of the day! For those that do not know, I will explain a little about Sumo. Two wrestlers crouch in a ring and when the match starts they wrestle until one person is forced out of the ring or a body part other than the feet touches the ground. Matches typically last like 10 seconds but they are extremely intense. There are many divisions of wrestlers but the highest division is called Yokozuna and is very prestigious. We saw a couple Yokozuna matches and they were amazing. One Yokozuna lost in a huge upset and the crowd went nuts and many people threw their seat cushions into the ring! You have to be amazing to be a Yokozuna, but there were lots of good wrestlers that weren't of that level. There is no weight divisions in Sumo, so you may wrestle people that are way bigger than you. That is why each wrestler tries to put on as much weight as possible with lots of training and eating! Sumo matches have huge buildups before each round. The two wrestlers will pose and do big steps and throw powder into the ring to build anticipation (I think). Most of the time when they first crouch to start the match, it is just a fake and one of the wrestlers will stand back up to do more posing and stuff. This makes it hard to get a video of a match because you don't know when it will actually start! In between matches, I explored the stadium with a friend and we met a famous Sumo! He was signing autographs and had two other Sumo wrestlers of lower status that held his umbrella and served him (I assume). Sumo wrestlers look huge and they are even bigger in person! The tournament was extremely cool and one of the most interesting and authentic experiences I've had so far in Japan.

My friend Sharon is pretty tough

I was meant to be a Sumo Wrestler

Great Seats! (With Jessie and Tyler)

Big Boys

Professional Sumo Wrestler!

My boys

After the Sumo Tournament, I went to a famous ramen shop and had this giant bowl of ramen with tons of pork and vegetables. It was amazing. It was so much food that I couldn't even finish it, which is pretty rare haha.

Typical Japanese Ramen Shop

Delicious

I had to give up and this is what was left

Friday was the start of my big trip to Kyoto and Nara with my study abroad program and all of my friends. We met at Sophia University at 5:00 and headed to the Shinkansen Japanese Bullet Train to ride to Kyoto. The Shinkansen was really cool. It goes up to 200 miles per hour so we got to Kyoto in about two hours. We got a Bento (boxed meal) on the bullet train that was not very good but it looked pretty. During the ride I mostly just talked and hung out with friends and we watched a movie. When we got to Kyoto, we took our luggage and checked in at the hotel. We were assigned roommates for the weekend but I got lucky and got paired with one of my friends here named Tyler. After we freshened up a little, a group of us went and explored Kyoto some. We got some food and drinks and had a fun time before coming back to the hotel around midnight (even though curfew was 11:00 oops).

Gamecocks on the Shinkansen

Bento dinner

John was all tuckered out

Kyoto night out

Saturday was when the real fun began. We were out of the hotel by 8:00 am and headed to the Kyoto train station. Then we split up into groups depending on what you wanted to see and do in Kyoto. My friends and I headed immediately over to the famous Iwatayama Monkey Park. You hike up a big mountain and at the top is this park where tons of monkeys are just hanging out! They are wild monkeys so the people repeatedly warn you not to get too close or touch them. And you're NEVER supposed to look them in the eye or they will attack you apparently. The monkeys were kind of scary but also really cool. I fed a bunch of them with bananas and they would grab them out of my hand. We hung out with the monkeys for like an hour and then hiked back down the mountain. There was a slide for part of the mountain and it was mostly meant for kids. However, there was no sign saying we couldn't slide down, so my friend Corey and I slid down the slide. It was pretty funny since we both got stuck a couple times on the way down. Even the monkeys were laughing at us!

Kyoto

Iwatayama Monkey Park

Monkeys

This one did not like me making fun of him

Three amigos

Monkey eating an apple next to a koi pond

They would eat right from your hand

We shared a banana

Mama and Baby Monkey

Corey on the slide

Me on the slide

View of Kyoto from on top of Monkey Mountain

After we left the Monkey Park, we had a delicious lunch in Kyoto. Then we walked over to the Sagano bamboo forest. It is a park where there is bamboo everywhere and you walk through it and enjoy the scenery. It was really cool and peaceful. Afterwards, we walked around Kyoto some more and I got some ice cream that was half green tea and half vanilla flavored.

Bamboo Forest

Half/half green tea and vanilla

Next, my group headed over to a Zen Buddhist Temple called Ryoanji. The grounds were incredibly beautiful and we saw some neat Buddhist statues and structures. We also saw the world's most famous Buddhist rock garden. It is a garden with white gravel that is raked every day in a specific way by monks and it contains 15 carefully placed boulders. It is perfectly arranged so you can only see 14 at a time from any angle other than from above. It is said that if you see all 15 at once you can attain enlightenment. We kind of cheated and went way off to the side and leaned over where you're not supposed to be and were able to see all 15! I don't feel any more enlightened though. It was a really cool place and I actually felt very at peace while we were there gazing at the garden. Could've been a placebo effect but who cares.

Oh yeah, I meditate

After Ryoanji, we went to the Japanese Golden Pavilion-Kinkakuji Temple. You have probably seen pictures of the Golden Pavilion building before. It was really beautiful there and we walked around the grounds. I also paid a couple bucks to ring a giant bell and get blessed which was pretty cool. There was a spot to throw coins in a bowl for good luck and I spent like $1.50 in coins but I finally hit one! So I probably left there with some very good fortune!

Up close (That's my finger at the bottom #photographer)

It was heavy!

After that, we took a long bus ride over to the shrine Fushimi Inari Taisha. It is the head shrine dedicated to the Fox God. Inari is also the God of rice and industry so businesspeople from all over Japan go there to pray for good fortune in business! The shrine has a lot of fox statues but the coolest part was a huge path up a mountain with thousands of Tori Gates. Tori gates are the red structures that look like the greek symbol pi. At the shrine, I donated some money for a business blessing so hopefully my future business endeavors will be successful! I also ate some Yakitori, which is delicious grilled chicken on a stick with sauce.

Inari, the God of Industry, Foxes, and Rice

Thousands of Tori Gates

Yakitori!

Finally, we headed back to meet up with the rest of the group at Kyoto station. We then went and had a dinner of Bento boxes again together. The bento weren't very good, so a few of my friends and I snuck out and got some McDonald's and brought it back and everyone was so jealous. After dinner, we all made and painted our own Japanese fans. I made mine Avatar the Last Airbender themed. They are going to be mailed to us soon! Back at the hotel we were pretty tired so we got a group and hung out in a room and watched a movie and talked before going to sleep to prepare for Sunday! Saturday was so much fun. I really loved my group and we did so much in the little time we had.

Kyoto Tower

Japanese traditional hat

Bento (not good)

On Sunday we checked out of the hotel at 8:00 am. Then we took a bus for over an hour to get to Nara, Japan. When we get there I loaded up on sunscreen and then we went to the Toidaiji Buddhist Temple. It is a beautiful place that houses the world's largest bronze Buddha statue (About 50 feet). There are also a bunch of other statues and cool things inside the temple. We learned all about the history and what everything represented and it was a very unique experience.

One of the gate guardians of the temple

Todaiji Temple Outside

Todaiji Daibutsu (Great Buddha) from the front

Daibutsu from the side

One of the guard statues inside the temple

Next, we went to the Nara deer park where there are a ton of wild deer that just hang out with people. You can buy food for them and they will come right up and eat it from your hand. They actually get kind of aggressive and I was nibbled on a few times! My friends and I spent a long time just petting deer and feeding them. The deer are considered sacred there because they are supposed to be messengers to the Gods in Shintoism. It was amazing and a ton of fun! I typically hunt deer with my bow so this was a new experience for sure. A bunch of Japanese people were taking pictures of me playing with the deer because they thought it was hilarious. I was like a celebrity haha. Here are some pictures my friends got of me with the deer.

Eating out of my hands

They were getting greedy

My new buddy

Goodbyes are always hard

Next to the Deer Park is a Shinto shrine called Kasuga Taisha that we went through. It was really interesting to hear all of the history of the shrine and walk through it. We also witnessed a wedding which was pretty neat. After the shrine, we all had lunch together and it was very good. We had a little free time before we had to leave, so I decided to go on a quick adventure with a couple friends. We found this mountain that you could climb to see a ridiculous view of the city of Nara. We didn't have much time, so we sprinted up the mountain which took like 10 minutes. (It was straight uphill too and we were dying) When we got to the top it was worth it though. The view was spectacular and we climbed to the top for some great pictures. Then we had to run back down to get back in time. The descent was easier but we were still hot, sweaty, and tired at the end. After getting some shaved ice, we got on the bus to drive an hour back to Kyoto. At Kyoto, we got back on the Shinkansen bullet train to head back to Tokyo. I did homework and watched a movie on the bullet train and most people slept. We got another Bento for dinner on the way and it was decent. When we got back to Tokyo we had to take our luggage on another hour train ride but then we were finally home! I finished my homework and crashed hard. The weekend wiped me out but it was one of the coolest weekends of my life.