Japanese Little League Baseball
We have recently found an enjoyable walk from our apartment to the Iidabashi area. There you can find the Tokyo Dome (home of the Giants) and these smaller baseball players in the mini stadium next door.
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Suwa Jinja (諏訪神社)
I have yet to get past part one in my Suwa Jinja Matsuri series. Someday I’ll return to those pics. Fast forward six months to a neat-sky Sunday in February. I was out for a walk with my camera and decided to visit this Shinto shrine again to see if there were any plum blossoms on the grounds. There weren’t, but the sky made for some good photos anyway.
Normally you approach a shrine from the front, passing under the torii. I came from a park in the back (which is the order of today’s pictures). The kids’ park has been overrun with homeless men. There wasn’t a kid in the place, but there were about a half dozen homeless men hanging out or sleeping in their makeshift, blue-tarp, tent homes.
Ironically, there were boy scouts putting away their own tents on the shrine grounds when I arrived. A chain-link fence was the only thing between the homeless campers and the boy scout campers who were about to head home. I thought it was a strange scene. I wonder if the boy scouts or the homeless dudes felt the same way.
At last I exited, through the normal entrance.
Japanese Booth Babes
Cute girls in Japan are not a scarce commodity. At trade shows they specialize in having their pictures taken with the product.
In Japanese they are called イベントコンパニオン or “Event Companion.” That almost sounds like a term given for an escort. I suppose it is more classy sounding than the most common English term of “Booth Babe” though.
Back in the day, when everyone didn’t bring a camera to trade shows and car shows, they were to attract attention to the booth. They still fill that role, but they spend most of the day posing for photos now.
Some amateur photographers were taking dozens of photos of a single girl in just as many different poses.
Mutant Girls Squad?
They seemed quite happy to strike several different poses for someone who wasn’t paying them to be a model.
Such is the life of a promotional model at the Tokyo International Anime Fair.
Ozeki Sumo vs. Tokyo International School kids
Just 12 more days until the March Sumo tournament begins in Osaka. Between tournaments various demonstrations are held. One was in February in Tokyo. Tokyo International School students and parents attended. We didn’t, as a demonstration didn’t sound that interesting after seeing the real thing. Plus, the tickets were expensive, and Ryan wasn’t willing to enter the ring with the professionals anyway.
Since I wasn’t there, I didn’t take today’s photos. Another TIS parent took these pics and did a fantastic job.
Ozeki Kotooshu (琴欧州) and Ozeki Kaio (魁皇) look like they are having a better time than the kids.
Kaio, by the way, has the most wins in the top division of any sumo rikishi in history.
Plum Blossoms (梅)
The Japanese plum blossoms have been blooming in Tokyo since about February 5. Unlike the cherry blossoms of late March and early April, they aren’t quite as spectacular. They do have the advantage of lasting longer though.
They come in both pink…
…and white, but my favorite come with…
…a little green flying creature.
Tokyo Marathon 2010
The day was cold. The day was wet. But it is difficult to pass up a marathon running through town even in the most adverse conditions. So I got on the Tokyo Metro for a couple of stops to arrive at Iidabashi (飯田橋) to view the race.
I got a position in the front row right next to a curve. I figured it would be a great spot to take pictures as I thought runners would be coming from my right before turning the corner. Unfortunately, my sense of direction got reversed by coming out a station exit I was unfamiliar with and runners actually came from my left which meant I couldn’t see them until a split second before they were past me.
The male winner was a Japanese man, Fujiwara Masakazu (藤原正和), for the first time in the Tokyo Marathon’s short, 4-year history.
Once I could no longer feel my feet (I stepped in a deep puddle early on) or hands (I had an umbrella in one hand and my camera in the other) I decided it was time to go home where I watched the last hours of the race on TV.