The morning after the baseball game, we departed Chen’s place for a hotel — in the middle of typhoon No. 18.  We encountered a little driving rain and a lot of wind on our walk to the train station. As always, we thank the brave photo journalists would value getting “the good shot” over their own personal safety

Video of Typhoon No. 18

The weather turned beautiful later in the day, and we attended some of the “big” matches during day 2 of the 15 day Sumo Grand Tournament.  These were the best wrestlers (no weight classes exist).  There’s a lot of ritual that went into each match, about 4-10 minutes, while the match usually only lasts about 5-10 seconds.  Here are some highlights:

Ryogoku Kokugikan Arena:

The “pros” circling in a ceremony:

A wrestler bending over to get some chalk: 

Oddly enough, physics did not govern the result of this match:

Physics did govern the results of this match:

After an exhausting afternoon watching the Sumo tournament (eating french fries, ice cream, some cheesy doughy things…), we ventured out to find a Shabu-Shabu restaurant as suggested by a few of our friends who have been: Nicoleo, Emily, Peter, and RDB, and I think John and Shelley?.  It took a while but Kelly found the right stranger to ask on the street for a recommendation, who subsequently guided us over to Nabezo, a 4th floor shabu-shabu gem!  (the locals are so friendly)

Similar to a Fondue restaurant, you cook your own thinly sliced meats in a communal pot of simmering broth (and veggies too).  Then you dip it in soy sauce and consume.  VERY TASTY!  I think a place like this would do well in downtown Austin.

(Note: restaurants are packed into many street front buildings and multiple stories making them difficult to find sometimes.  For this reason, I think, there were lots of people approaching us at the train station pitching their restaurant, and getting us to follow them there.  Creepy.)

On the Sunday night that we got back to Tokyo, we met Chen and headed out to a baseball game: Hanshin Tigers @ Yakult Swallows.  Before leaving on our trip, JJM informed us that a player on the Swallows, Wladimir Balentien (from Curacao / Netherlands), was on pace to break the Japanese baseball single season HR record (I don’t know how he knows this stuff!?).  Well, guess what: he did it at the game we were at, and even added another in a 9-0 shutout against the Tigers!  Here are some pictures from the game (I’ve got the video of his at bat, but too big…)

The rest of the game was good fun.  Maybe 33% of the stadium were rooting for the away team.  Every player had their own well-coordinated cheers coming from the stands.  The Swallows had a cheer that involved small umbrellas that nearly everyone in the stadium had.  Kudos to Chen for scoring us tickets to the game!!

For the Sushi Zushi crowd, guess which one I had?

– The correct answer is both.  I normally would only have the Sapporo, but after seeing this portable keg backpack contraption, I had to try the Kirin as well.  Although I should note, Asahi probably has the soft drink / beer market in Japan, and their Super Dry is a damn good beer

On the exotic food note… Since meeting Edwin on Nicole’s trip to Argentina, she has not stopped talking about the chance to eat Takoyaki.  Octopus balls.  No, they are just a deep fried dough ball with a piece of octopus in the center.  She finally had them…and they were “delicious!”

Around 5am the next morning we woke to the sunrise (took a while to formulate a logical hypothesis for why the sun might rise at such a different time than in NY City given they are at the same latitude). With Udon-filled stomachs, we navigated our way to the 5th station on Mt. Fuji where we started the climb to our 8th station hut for the night.

We met a very friendly couple from NY City, Willa and Dan, and traded picture taking duties and email addresses along the ascent.  They were so nice that Kelly “wishes we were friends with them in real life.”

Arriving at the hut, Nicole skipped dinner and went to bed promptly at 5:15 due to a headache. Ryan forced down some of the “western dinner” (salisbury steak, potato salad, and rice), only to see it a second and third time later that night. The headache and shortness of breath eventually led to a self diagnosis of mild altitude sickness. Kelly and Jason enjoyed the meal and felt great. The hut accommodations were, shall we say, minimal. We felt like sardines with 100 of our closest coughing, sneezing, snoring, stinky friends. If only there were a Nyquil for that…

The next morning we started our final ascent to the summit around 3:30am to catch the 5:15 sunrise. The last stretch was very much a traffic jam of hikers with headlamps illuminating switchbacks up the mountain. The sunrise was spectacular even though it was cold and blustery with wind gusts upwards of 50 mph (says Ryan the weatherman). The picture of Nicole and video from Jason say it all

Jason’s windy Video

After a peek into the mouth of the volcano, which in geological terms should be erupting any day now [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_eruptions_of_Mount_Fuji], and a successful walk around the rim (we weren’t blown off), we started our descent down the officially closed Gotemba trail. 8km of unrelenting switchbacks through a Martian landscape. The terrain was all part of a centuries old lava flow with almost no flora or fauna to be found. The crushed rocks did make for fun sliding (ice skating style) down at times.

Upon reaching the bus stop at the bottom, we were met with the realization that when the trail is officially shut down for the season, so are the weekday bus routes. A few unsuccessful (and pricey) cellphone calls to local cab companies eventually had us reaching out to our saviour Chen to arrange a cab to the local bus station.

Days into trip: 4, Shower count: 1

On to Hakone…

Our 27 hour journey to Tokyo took just 13 hours aboard the 777. Night time chased us west around the globe, but never caught up. Thankfully everyone closed their window shades. 2 movies intermingled with long naps helped pass the time. Chen, a good friend of Jason’s from grade school met us at the airport and guided us through the maze of trains to our first meal and his apartment floor for the night. Here’s the tomato-based Ramen that everyone ate (except Ryan, due to the mystery peanut ingredient we were warned about, thanks to Chen). Nicole says it was “just eh.”

Today feels like yesterday. That’s because we didn’t sleep last night with all the last minute preparations. After a smooth ride to the airport in John’s new Grand Cherokee (sweet ride!), and a 2 minute flight to O’Hare (measured by minutes spent awake on the plane), we were greeted at the gate in Chicago by Kelly & Jason who are joining us on the 12+ hour flight to Tokyo for the first leg of our trip!

Here’s our 777 waiting for us to board. Looks clean and in good working condition to me (although I must say our MD-80 from AUS was probably the most worn looking plane we’ve been on in a while)

And here are Kelly and Jason just minutes before boarding:

See you on the flip side.