The recent January 2010 Sumo Tournament held in Ryogoku Kokugikan (Tokyo) held great promise of being one of the most exciting sumo competitions in a while until the last few days. Why? Because Ozeki-hopeful Baruto defeated all of the Ozeki and Yokozuna Hakuho (白鵬). There were several scenarios which showed Baruto winning the tournament, a rare achievement for a non-Yokozuna, non-Ozeki. There were other exciting possibilities, such as a five-way tie for first place which would have resulted in a mega-playoff on the last day, something I was hoping for since I had a ticket for the final day of the tournament.

However, Baruto was defeated by Yokozuna Asashoryu (朝青龍) and Toyonoshima (pictured above sitting down in the background) late in the tournament. Also, Hakuho was defeated by Ozeki Harumafuji and Ozeki Kaio. Both ozeki used henka (変化), a rather lame move in which the wrestler steps aside instead of confronting their opponent, to defeat Hakuho. I suppose Hakuho should have been looking for the henka technique a bit more. In any event, with Hakuho’s three losses, the only way a five-way tie for first could be achieved would be for Ozeki Harumafuji to defeat Yokozuna Asashoryu on Day 14 and Hakuho to defeat Asashoryu on the final day. The latter was very likely as Hakuho routinely beats Asashoryu these days. Harumafuji couldn’t pull off a Day 14 win, though, so there was nothing on the line on Day 15 with Asashoryu’s one loss compared to the three losses of the others.

Here is Asashoryu receiving his trophy for winning the tournament, the 25th time he has done so. I’m guessing it may be his last as both Baruto and Hakuho seem better at this point in time.

And here Asashoryu is, beginning his victory parade and smiling for my camera, before heading back to his stable. Asasekiryu (朝赤龍) is by his side.

Below is a video I took of 白鵬 vs. 朝青龍 from very far away. Not only did the TZ7 do a decent job given the distance, but the battery died before I stopped recording. I thought the video wouldn’t record but it did! I guess the TZ7 has something built in that causes it to save the video with the last bit of juice. The battery really was dead. The camera wouldn’t even turn on, let alone show me if the video had recorded. I was very surprised to see the video saved on the SD card.

Posted on January 30th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: asashoryu, hakuho, sumo, tz7 zs3, video. Comments: 2

The first thing I noticed when I made it to the Tama River on my walk was the airplane, apparently coming from (and/or going to) the Yokota Air Base, a few miles to the north.

The plane flew fairly low, was very loud, and was the first of many during the day. I wonder if the air traffic and noise pollution is like this every day for the nearby residents. Even though the occupation of Japan by the USA technically ended in 1952, this day in 2010 felt like Japan was still occupied with the constant fly overs.

As I followed the plane with my camera on its course to the base, I caught this image of the most litter I saw all day, next to the only sign I saw all day saying not to dump garbage. Perhaps less is more.

Posted on January 29th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: hiking, signs. Comments Off on Tama River Walk – Part 2

Today’s first picture is an example of how to not do night photography. I only had my TZ7 with me at the time. Although the TZ7 can accidentally take pictures at night with the correct exposure, it doesn’t usually. I couldn’t get it to take any with an exposure length of more than 1 second or less than 15 seconds, and you can’t manually set it for exactly 4 or 5 seconds, which is what this view needed. The above is the 15-second version, which turns the train into a nearly complete ghost. I’ll get a better picture of the Toden Arakawa Line (都電荒川線) at night with my LX3 (which does allow for any exposure of my chosing) one of these evenings.

The Arakawa Line is the closest train system to our apartment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go where we usually need to go and is slow compared to the Tokyo Metro and other train systems we can choose from. But it is a fun train to ride when you aren’t in a hurry and have no place in particular to go. You can ride it all day, getting off and on as many times as you wish, for just 400 yen. Kids (under 12) pay half price to ride.

This old, streetcar, tram type line feels a bit like riding the San Francisco Cable Car. The controls all seem to be mechanical. There are no computer displays or buttons to push. Instead, levers are pulled and switches are flipped. This is the last of its kind in Tokyo, even though the city was covered with them in the first half of the 20th Century.

There are several interesting neighborhoods near the Minowa end of the line.

Here is a video I took of a little stretch. Unfortunately, no streetcar passed us going the other way while this was being taken. Other than having to wear a tie, I think this would be a very fun job to have–at least for a year or two.

Posted on January 28th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: night photography, Tokyo, trains, tz7 zs3, video. Comments: 1

As mentioned a couple days ago, Tokyo experienced some January temperatures in the 60s (upper teens by local Celsius measures). To celebrate, I took another of the Day Walks Near Tokyo. Walk #9 is called Tama River.

Most of the content in the book about this walk is too dated to be useful. For starters, the book (copyright 1992) states the Komiya Station (小宮駅) has only one exit. Sometime in the past 18 years, a second exit was added to the station, and, of course, that happened to be the one I took which left me instantly lost for the first of a dozen or more times during the day.

Eventually, I found myself in the neighborhood pictured in today’s entry. Parts of this neighborhood didn’t exist in 1992 (although much of the above photo probably did), but this area is along the route of the suggested hike.

There is now a firefighter training center near the Tama River (多摩川), and a group of kids were on a field trip to watch the action.

Did I mention the weather was lovely? You can see part of the kotatsu (炬燵) in this home, but the residents wouldn’t need to use it on this warm day.

Posted on January 27th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: hiking, japan pictures, people. Comments Off on Tama River Walk

Toki no kane (時の鐘) is the name of Kawagoe’s original bell tower, which is still used four times a day. We heard the noon ringing. The original is about 400 years old. This one was built in 1893, after the great fire that burned most of the town. If you look closely at the bottom, right part of this picture you can see some newlyweds having their pictures taken.

The bell and tower are also featured on Kawagoe’s manhole drain covers. (Kawagoeshi = かわごえし = 川越市 and shi means “city” in Japanese) (おすい = 汚水 and osui means “sewage” in Japanese)

There are all kinds of interesting shops and restaurants in Kawagoe. The one pictured above is called the Garden Cafe, run completely out of an old VW van, which I’m guessing isn’t from the Edo Period.

Posted on January 26th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: buildings, drainspotting, jinrikisha, kawagoe. Comments Off on Little Edo – Part 2