Tatara Bridge 

Fall Leaves 

Pagoda with Fall Leaves 

Octopus Drying 

Shimanami Sea Route

This last Wednesday was a national holiday (Labor Thanksgiving Day) and since the Japanese government doesn't observe holidays to Mondays or Fridays, everybody got the day off in the middle of the week. I took advantage of the holiday by going on a bus tour of the Shimanami Sea Route (shimanami kaido) with some friends.
It was quite a beautiful trip. There are a series of bridges starting in Onomichi that connect the main island of Honshu to Shikoku. Along the way, we stopped at Kozounji Temple and had a nice bento lunch. The town is famous for octopus, so everything in the lunch had something to do with octopus: octopus rice, octopus tempura, raw octopus in a kimchee sauce, and eel (well, the eel was trying real hard to be just like an octopus).
The last leg of the trip involved walking across the longest of the 8 bridges. It was a gorgeous day and I got some nice pictures. The trip was sponsored by a local college's international student program, so there were students from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Some of them spoke English, but mostly we all chatted in Japanese. Quite an interesting day.
As a side note, I had official Thanksgiving dinner with Mel, Jason, and Asuka at a yakiniku place. Then, on Friday, I had a second "Thanksgiving" dinner with some other American JETs (and a few conspicuous New Zealanders) at a Mexican restaurant in Hiroshima.
As another side note, for all you other sumo fans, Asashoryu just won the November basho. In doing so, he becomes the first ever sumo to win all 6 basho in a year, the first ever to win 7 in a row, and the broke the 27-year-old record of 82 wins in a single year (out of a possible 90, he won 84). Amazing stuff.

Sumo lining up (shikiri) 

Sumo entering (Kotonowaka and Ama) 

Jason and Mel outside the sumo hall 

Pete with Asashoryu (not really) 

Sumo

Sorry for the long delay in posting, though until this past weekend, not much new had happened.
On Friday night, Melody, Jason, and I embarked on a four-hour bus ride bound for Fukuoka, one of the larger cities on the island of Kyushu. Fukuoka hosts the last sumo basho (tournament) of the year. I have been a sumo fan since I was in junior high school. It was then that Akebono became the first foreign (American) yokozuna or grand champion. After that, some American television stations carried various sumo tournaments late at night. I watched them when I could and was always intrigued by the sport. Something about 400 pound athletes appeals to me, don't ask me why.
Anyway, when I came to Japan 7 years ago, the July basho in Tokyo had just finished and I was very disappointed that I couldn't go. Akebono had won. Now, I finally had the chance to go. Of course, Akebono has long retired and the yokozuna is a Mongolian-born berzerker by the name of Asashoryu. There are many Mongolian wrestlers in the upper (Maku-uchi) division, as well as several eastern Europeans. One of the Europeans is Kotohshu, who stands at 204 cm and weighs 143 kg. For those of you not up on the metric system, that's about 6'8" and 315 pounds. For a sumo, that's quite a lithe figure. Coupled with his youth and good looks, Kotohshu has earned the moniker "David Beckham of Sumo." (For a comparison, the second tallest sumo wrestler is Kotonowaka, who's 191cm tall, about the same as me, but weighs in at a whopping 181kg - just under 400 pounds).
Anyway, back to the excursion. We arrived at the Fukuoka Kokusai Center around 11 and took in some of the lower division matches. Some featured old wrestlers still trying to hang in there against kids that aren't quite ready. Still, pretty interesting and the matches begin much quicker. At about 1:30, the big boys began to arrive at the arena, so we went down to check it out. We stood there for about an hour and watched the top wrestlers enter with their sukehito (or "posse", to use a rap analogy). These guys are larger than life. Even the ones who are smaller than me carry themselves with such a presence. The crowd was raucous and cheers of "ganbare" (good luck) echoed around. At about 4:30 the big boys began. I won't get into a lengthy description of the rules of sumo or a play-by-play break down of each match. Let's just say it more than lived up to my expectations and I was constantly amazed by the speed, strength, and tenacity of the wrestlers. The day ended with Asashoryu easily defeating his opponent. After that, we met up with some JETs living in Fukuoka and had a nice dinner. If you have any questions about sumo, please consult this website: http://sumo.goo.ne.jp/eng
Thanks again, more to come later. I promise there will be less of a delay this time.