Yakatabune

This weekend we went with a group of 38 others to Central Tokyo for a Yakatabune river cruise. The boats are essentially a floating doubledecker restaurant/karaoke bar that cruises the Sumida river in Tokyo. 2.5 hours of all you can eat and drink, and really good service. The sightseeing was pretty cool as you basically cruise the rivers around central Tokyo. This weekend happened to be the tail end of Tokyo's Hanami so there were lots of folks partying under the trees and in the parks along the river. Unfortunately since our camera is pretty much a piece of shit so the photos of the sights outside the boat were pretty weak. Anyhow if you ever have a large group party and are looking for something different to do I would definitely recommend taking one of these cruises. All of the photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157616276753451/

Charlene and Rita visit

Last week we were visited by my mother and her traveling pal Rita. They stayed for 11 days and visited all of our favorite Utsunomiya haunts and local sightseeing spots like Nikko and Mashiko. We were able to introduce them to many of our freinds and give them a taste of expat living. We finished out the week with a day of wine "tasting" at at CoCos and finished with a couple of days in Tokyo. We enjoyed really thier company and hope we were able to provide them with a memorable trip.

Myka Visits........

For the last 10 days we were paid a visit by our daughter Myka on her first trip to Japan. We (hopefully) entertained her with many of the local attractions around Utsunomiya and the Tokyo area. We hope spending time with us, meeting many of our friends and colleagues, and seeing the local sights as as enjoyable for her as it was for us. Now it is time for her to head back to School and begin her 3rd year in pursuit of her nursing degree.
Gambatte Myka Chan, we miss you!
Above is a sampling of the pics she took, and about 500 more can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157606886845353

Sumo 相撲

Saturday, Heather and myself joined my Japanese Sensei Shinobu, and Skeet, in a trip to the Tokyo Ryōgoku Kokugikan to see the ongoing Sumo Tournament. In all the years of Japan visits, it was the first time I had seen Sumo live and I must say it was pretty entertaining. There is a bit of pageantry surrounding the tournament that was mildy entertaining, but the fighting was clearly what people were there to see. The Ryōgoku Kokugikan itself is used exclusively for Sumo, and was a very nice venue to see the fighting from even the highest vantage point. We were about half way up and still had a very nice view. We probably could have bought seats in the lower bowl section, but this is all Tatami seating which means sitting on your knees and ass for 3 hours, something none of us were into. There was a total of 35 matches and they were all pretty good with both of the Yokozunas, Hakuho and Asasyoryu easily winning their matches at the end. It actually can get pretty exciting when someone gets thrown clear off the ring and falls into the crowd, usually mashing the fans in the first couple of rows. Having seen these 300-400 lb. guys in person, I would not want them falling on me from any height. Heather and I will definitely take the opportunity to go again, and I would recommend it as a great way to spend part of a day in Tokyo or one of the other large cities that the tournaments are held. The film above is the final match of the day between Hakuho and Miyabiyama and as always there are a few more pics in the flickr folder.
Click here for Sumo Wikifacts.