Sumo in Hiroshima City

This weekend I had the opportunity to go watch Sumo with Setsuko and her family.

Setsuko has helped me with many many things here in Kurahashi ranging from helping me send money back to the U.S.,  to helping me obtain a skirt for a Halloween costume. She graciously invited me to attend a Sumo event in Hiroshima city.

On Saturday we drove from Kurahashi Island to Hiroshima City which is around an hour car ride. Setsuko and I met her family at her brothers office and headed to an Okonomiyaki (fried batter w/ veggies and sauce) shop. Lately the weather has started to cool down so it was very comfortable in the small shop with the cool breeze coming from outside matched by the warm heat off the large Okonomiyaki cook-top.

Out of curiousity, I asked if the option I chose was large which turned into the table assuming I wanted a large meal so they “gratiously” ordered me a 1.5 order of the Deluxe Okonomiyaki option. It was gigantic.

 After appropriately feeling like a sumo wrestler now, we headed over to the building where the sumo was held. It was very exciting seeing some of the sumo wrestlers only wearing shorts standing outside. Once we walked in, I peaked in the gym and got a glimpse some guys doing sumo in real life. We walked past the gym and into the changing and preparation room where Setsuko’s family member would be getting dressed to be the judge for the sumo matches.

It was unreal seeing so many giant guys in a one room and it was oodly quite. We were informed that it was “nap time” for many of them because many had just eaten and they try to sleep after eating to gain weight. 

It was funny how strikingly opposite the Sumo wrestlers were from you typical Japanese person. Instead of a short and super skinny person, they were mostly all taller than me and quite a bit larger J

lots of naked sumo dudes

As we quietly sat in the room, Setsuko and I we all looking around excitingly watching the Sumo wrestlers. 

Many were sleeping on their stomachs and some were on their cellphones. It was kind of ironic to see the traditional Sumo guys on their using a cellphone.  Quite the interesting clash of traditional Japanese sport and modern technology.

We were sitting on tatami mats and a very large man was napping next to us. Snapped a few photos of him.

Setsuko's family let me hold the judge stick that they use during the sumo matches!

 After watching Setsuko’s family member dress up in his formal judge Kimono, we went to the sumo auditorium where they were actually wrestling. It was fun to see such big bodies slap into each other and every time before this would happen my adrenaline would rush before they collided. 

Since Setsuko’s family was a traveling judge for Sumo, he knew many of the guys and introduced us and let us take pictures w/ many of them. How lucky we were!

 After watching the wrestling for a few hours and taking more pics with some of the champions, we got to watch them pack up their belongings quickly and carry their big ancient looking suitcases to a semi that would transport their luggage to the next location. Watched them all load up on the bus and as they pulled away on 4-5 coach buses, the Sumo wrestlers were waving out the windows to us. Pretty funny to think about  now. 

I’m very grateful for this special opportunity and want to try Sumo’ing sometime! 

First Hair-cut in Japan-Miyanishi

First haircut in Japan

With school canceled today (oct 25th) again due to typhoon advisories, decided to get the hair cut after attending public services duties at the Board of Education in Kure city.

Held off getting hair cut for probably too long but happy to have it cut and short now.

Went to a place called Miyanishi in Kure city based on Setsuko’s recommendation. Walked into the place and was surprised at how nice it was on the inside. 

Started out with around a 15-minute hair wash and massage by a cuter girl and I was surprised by how long it was. Felt almost more like a Spa than a place to get your hair cut. Spoke a little bit during it but just mostly relaxed and enjoyed the good feeling, maybe too good. 

Next was introduced to the hair dresser Takashi Kurihara.

 He was rocking a simple hair style and was a bit taller than me. (Later found out that his sister is a 2x Olympian Volleyball player from Etajima, Japan  Megumi Kurihara. Takashi also talked about volleyball and how he plays in Etajima on Mondays. Thankfully I didn’t ask to play with him!

Haircut took around 40 minutes and it was pretty similar to cuts back home but it was fun conversing in half English and Japanese. He said I was his 4^th foreigner’s hair to cut and first foreigner dude. He said our hair is much softer than Japanese hair. I remember asking him if it
was going to be difficult to cut my hair with it being different than Japanese hair and he cooly and confidently said "Daijoubu". 

The haircut was followed up with another wash and massage but this time from Takashi w/ much stronger hands.

He styled the hair up again and that completed the first cut it Japan.

Definitely will go back here next time the hair becomes long.

Haircut ￥3700

JET Placement: Hiroshima Prefecture, Kure City, Kurahashi Island

Time to share where I am living and "working" in Japan:

Here is a picture of the country Japan:

As you can see, the country spans latitudinally and has climates varying from that similar to Hawaii (Okinawa) ranging to that of Northern Minnesota (Northern Hokkaido).

Fun facts:

Japan is about the same size as the state of California.

Over ½ of Japan is uninhabitable because of how mountainous it is.

Japan has about half the population of the U.S.

So you can infer: Half the # of people that live in the U.S., live in an area half the size of California….Crazy

For the JET program, we do not get to chose where we were placed, however we did get to put 3 requests. I put: 

Hokkaido (cool temps similar to MN)

Nagano (snowboarding+relatively near Mount Fuji)

After already committing to the JET Program and only 1 month prior to departure we were notified of our placement location.

Here was my placement:

Hiroshima

I was quite surprised at how far south I was placed and worried about how the temperature was going to be, being a Minnesotan who <3s cool weather. 

I was also worried about how close it was to the Iwakuni Marine base and almost decided to decline the ALT position even after already formally accepting it. Seeing Hiroshima as the placement, I was also worried about how the local people would view American's with the WWII history.

However, I am very happy after choosing to accept now seeing where I live. 

More specifically the city within Hiroshima prefecture I am in is Kure city. 

By chance, it is actually the same city my Japanese teacher at the University of Minnesota Matsumoto-Sensei is from. 

Within Kure city, I am the furthest south on an island called Kurahashi. 

Kurahashi Island (my apartment is at the "A")

I spent much time on the computer back in the U.S. Google mapping Kurahashi and surveying the landscape. The island is 50km around and I was excited to try and run around it sometime.

After arriving in Kure city before going to Kurahashi, I asked my predecessor Ollie if there were any Starbucks there. He gave me a sly smile that made me nervous and made me realize there would be no Starbucks in Kurahashi. With the mornings not feeling like 120 degrees anymore, can finally brew own coffee and boy is that a treat with oatmeal in the mornings.

The rural village within Kurahashi I live in is named Uwagi. Always wondering what it would be like to live in a rural area, I think this is a good opportunity for me to see some of the unique benefits of living the inaka (rural) life.

Pros:
Get to see the same people often

Kind people

Save money

Lots of introspective time

Views

Cons:

No people that run (being here 2 months I have seen 1 woman running near the bridge connecting Kure city to Kurahashi Island)

No stores

Far and expensive to get to town

Not so exciting for friends/family to visit

Burning garbage

No young people

No girls in apartment (Board of Education Rules) {neighbors shouldn't be able to see girls come into my apartment is how I interpreted the rule}

Here are pictures of near the apartment:

 apartment is just to the right of the grave

bus stop

view from bus stop

path leading from ocean to near the apartment

Pics of the apartment:

view when walk in

living room  (view out this window in pic below)

living room screen view

extra bedroom for visitors

kitchen

It is much more spacious than I was anticipating and is only 1 year old so it has modern features such as:

when someone rings the doorbell a monitor in the living room displays a video of whoever is outside

can fill the bathtub and control the temperature of the water from inside the kitchen..

and some other fun features:

 largest shoe rack ever. except shoes don't fit 

trap door in kitchen to hide treats from myself

I am very grateful for a modern spacious nice apartment and look forward to making it more homey.

What is convenient about my apartment is that there is a Fuji-san grocery store only a few minute walk away and I visit there nearly everyday. Whenever I am bored or need human contact I find myself going there to just look around. There is a very nice cashier there named Hiraki-san and we always have silly small-talk.

After 4pm, the daily produce (sushi, sashimi, and other prepared foods) go on sale and at around 8pm you can find many foods for 50% off. It is unreal to be able to get 8 pieces of sushi for 2 dollars or 6 pieces of Daifuku for less than a dollar (back home 1 piece is almost 2 dollars at United Noodles.

Will talk about some of the foods I cook in another blog.

My apartment is about a 15 minute bike ride to one of my schools and a 10 minute bike to another.  It’s kind of funny how surprised my co-workers are when I tell them I bike to work. Biking does not seem to be as popular as it is back in hipster Minneapolis.

Despite it being October 10th,  today is 82 degrees and it is still super humid. Have became accustomed to the heat (doesn’t mean I like it) but am eagerly, eagerly, eagerly awaiting winter here. Kind of scared for the first winter without snow but plan on making a trip up to Hokkaido to experience a real winter. 

The views here are unreal. Am still taken by surprise everyday at how beautiful the mountains/sea look.
It takes me about 3 minutes to jog to the sea and want to try swimming and diving of some large concrete docks that they have.

not too far from apartment
Another thing I love about the apartment's location is that it is right next to the mini-mountain Hiyama. 
Here is a Garmin data post from one of the runs up it:

this was a 90'F day w/ 65% humidity. heart and lungs pounding!

Trying to see how many times I can get up it and am shooting for at least 100 before heading back to the U.S.  Average once or so a week but will be starting to do it more often with the temperature becoming bearable. Excited to do it 10x someday. With the days starting to be less humid, the views are becoming more and more beautiful being able to see more of the surrounding islands. 

super hazy day. yesterday was the clearest day yet but usually don't go up w/ a camera
1,200ish ft

It's been tough to blog since I only get internet at one of the schools I am at and the internet is streaming from my cellphone to my laptop so it's not the quickest. 

Will post more!

Haven't ran with GPS for over 3 weeks. Jogged once in a while but legs feel broken. 

General Updates

Holy smokes, I’ve waited way too long to update this blog. Crazy to think I haven’t even wrote anything down since arriving here. Since I don’t have internet at my place, I wrote everything down for this blog post on paper before typing it up. Unfortunately, after waiting so long to update, this will be a incomplete recap.

What feels like almost a year ago, July 26^th, I took off from Minnesota to Chicago where the first of many JET orientations would be held.

Saying goodbye to Minneapolis

It was awfully sad saying goodbye to family and friends in the days leading up to departure and unfortunately it already feels like so long ago I was with them. Even after just being here a month and a half, despite having new experiences everyday/making a decent amount of money/living pretty much on the sea with mountains as the backdrop/delicious food, it still feels incomplete without family and friends.

Kayla and Kyle drove me to the airport and Kayla and I took a commerative picture to when I left to Japan in 2008.

Arriving in Chicago, I met Uncle Mike and Grandma at the airport and had breakfast together. Said goodbyes to them and was able to check into the hotel early. It was nice to get all situated and decided to go for a little run around the hotel before orientation actually began. Funny how much a run can clear one’s head.

Don’t remember a ton from orientation but saw Zach Krause and a few others from the University of Minnesota there. It was so exciting talking w/ others and learning about their placements throughout Japan.

The next morning, 100 of us or so representing the Chicago Embassy took off to Japan. Arriving into Narita airport and being herded through customs, we took a bus to the Keio Plaza hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It was a very grand hotel and we shared rooms with two others. My roommates were..interesting..but connected better with others throughout the 3-day orientation.

The orientation ceremonies and presentations were very structured, engaging and inspiring. The smaller elective sessions were either hit or miss but still overall very helpful.

At Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku for Tokyo Orientation

I remember not being so JET lagged from the first day in Japan and it was nice automatically waking up in the morning before 6am.

The first night, just went around Shinjuku with several others and ate some curry udon. It tasted very similar to Marukame in Waikiki Hawaii.  The second night Matt and I went out to Shibuya and Akihabara for a bit. It would have been nice to be able to meet up with friends in the area!

The last day at orientation in Tokyo, we got situation with our prefectural groups. It made me envious seeing the Hokkaido JETs gathered and knowing they were going to such a cool place. Us Hiroshima JETs took a plane from Haneda airport to Hiroshima. It was nerve racking landing in Hiroshima because after being in the Chicago/Tokyo orientations, now we would be meeting out co-workers and fellow JETs who we would be spending the next year with.

While Stuart from Ireland (found me through this blog before even going to Japan) and I were waiting for our luggage, saw a large yellow sign that said “Welcome to Kure! Stuart and Jordan”. We then met 5^th year JET Ryan Fowler and our Board of Education supervisors Kawahara-sensei (Ami) and Hayashi-san (Yuko).

Arriving at Hiroshima Airport

We drove from Hiroshima airport to Kure city where we immediately went to Softbank to get our iPhones. It was a bit suprising getting a cellphone this quickly because I had not even made the decision to get a phone or not in Japan. Hah who knows if I would have even got a phone or not by now had we not been “forced” to get a phone so quickly. Wonder what the experience up until now would have, had I not got one.. Definitely on it too much now but it is invaluable with directions and being in contact with others, especially family back home. However, it does become more special to send/receive snail mail when that is the only method of contact. Seems like we are all in more “contact” than ever before but actually less in “Contact” than ever before.

Regardless, now equipped with an iPhone, we all went out to eat at a prefectural speciality Okonomiyaki shop (like a fried pancake type of thing with noodles and veggies).

We proceeded to hit up several bars in Kure followed by a karaoke. Nothing like a good ol’ karaoke session in Japan.

Stayed at my predecessor from England, Ollie’s apartment in Kure city the first night. The next day Ami took us to Kurahashi.

It was kind of a bizzare feeling taking the car over the new bridge to Kurahashi Island and seeing the old bridge which I had previously saw so many times online. If you Google Kurahashi, it’s one of the few pictures that show up and after all the anticipation we were now there!

After Ollie formally handed me over the key to the apartment and allowed me to enter first, we threw on our running stuff and went for a run. What better way to arrive at a new residence and explore the area. After getting back to the apartment, we went to the nearby Fuji-san grocery store. It is not so big, but has many food choices and enough to not get bored. As we took the short walk to Fuji-san, coming from someone’s house was a slow sound of someone playing the drums for the Obon (celebrating the death of family memebers) season. It really set the mood on the island for me and was a surreal moment.

The next week was spent at the Board of Education (BOE) at the Tsubaki Kaikan in Kure city. It is a bit over an hour bus ride there from my apartment, however it would be faster to bike. The bus ride goes through small fishing towns along the coast and picks up many elderly passengers slowly attempting to get on the bus. Commuting from Kurahashi Island to Kure city costs 700円 (about $7). Kind of silly how much it costs .

 It got quite uncomfortable at the BOE spending 7 hours in a small room with 10 or so other JETs in business clothes sweaty from the commute in.  Compared to the Japanese workers that worked there, we arrived late and ate breakfast there, took a mid-morning coffee break, early lunch and came back late, a mid-afternoon coffee break, and left early. Pretty shameful in comparison actually. 

All of us Kure city JETs went to meet all of the other Hiroshima JETs for orientation. It was a fun change of pace going from an island with the average age of 65 (might not be exaggerating) to a more young populated area. We stayed at the Comfort Inn and the first night we had a Nomihoudai at a place called The Shack on Hondori Street.

Believe the following night Stuart and I decided last minute to go out that night and had some beers on a set of stairs somewhere. Hah. Met a pretty cool guy from England who was traveling Japan to visit his sis and he ended up hanging out with us the rest of the night. We ended up doing another karaoke/nomihoudai and putzed around town after later meeting with Ollie and some others.

Was starting to feel nasty from all the drinking/eating in addition to the lack of running. In Hiroshima city, Ryan helped me buy a bike at a placed called P&G. I was very excited to ride the bike home to Kurahashi after the orientation. Unfortunately, the bike shop was closed for Obon the day I went to bike it home and ended up having to take the bus back to Kurahashi. Well over a 2.5 hour trip.

It was nice to be back in Kurashi after spending those few days in what felt like “Sin City”. While grocery shopping the night back from Fuji-san, someone came up to me and starting saying “Gordon?, Gordon!?”. I thought they were saying golden and realized she was trying to say Jordan. Suddenly she started speaking English and I was surprised to hear someone doing so in the location I was because not many people do speak English here…YET! She introduced herself as Setsuko and ended up inviting me to an Obon festival that night which she took me to a house to get dressed up in a Yukata and before I could process what was going on, I found myself dancing around an elevated wooden structure where students were methodically drumming a beat. It was a goofy experience being the only foreigner at this small intimate group of people celebrating their deceased family. After spending a good hour and a half there, Setsuko then told me we were heading to another festival. It was a “pleasant” surprise hearing we were heading to another Obon festival despite it being quite late the night before having to go back to the BOE early in the AM. Kindly, she invited me 3^rd Obon festival the next day..These festivals were sure close-knit communities of only about 20-50 people in which everyone knew each other. I look forward to meeting the people of Kurahashi and becoming involved in the community.

The next big event was our Saijo Language camp in Higashi-Hiroshima/Saijo. We got to stay at the Hiroshima International Plaza which is a place that helps international workers in Japan transition to working/living in Japan. It was pretty fun taking language classes for 5 days with only 7 people for 5 hours a day. The facility we stayed at was a glorified dormitory which I LOVED.  My bedroom was on the 4^th floor (by coincidence..I think not) and it overlooked the outdoor sports field and gymnasium.

View from 4th floor dorm at Hiroshima International Plaza

After our Japanese language classes finished at 3:30pm, we had free time. The first day after classes, played basketball in the gym for a bit and was surprised nobody else was using any of the athletic facilities. Worked out for a bit and then went for a run and found myself at Hiroshima University. Came back and played tennis with Shane Tummons from Australia, followed by some good games of table tennis, topped with some basketball again. Needless to say, this has been my favorite day in Japan so far. Our meals were buffet-style and were super good. Every lunch had curry-rice and other options. Also had a self-dispensing coffee/latte machine. During the day I ate so much at the buffet, that I decided to not eat dinner. Probably wasn't the best idea after being so physically active during the day but boy did I feel good the next morning. After eating a giant breakfast and lunch again the following day, did another no-dinner evening and decided to get back on the 3 meals a day after that.

The language classes were fun thanks to a super nice teacher (Nishimura sensei) and a few goofballs in the class that would make me laugh over and over again. Our 3^rd day we had a 2-hour nomihoudai w/ food and that was super fun. There was delicious food, tons of beer, sake and who knows what else. Did karaoke again. Drank quite a bit that night and woke up the next morning chotto (a little) drunk. Kind of upset how much I ate/drank the last night, decided to put on running shoes and go out for quick punishment run and to jump start the day. Walked out of the dorm and w/ the sun royally beating down and head throbbing, started to “run”. Decided to do a 1 mile run doing a few laps around a lap that went around a small body of water. Did that in 5:52 and jogged back up the hill to the dorm and shower quick to go to breakfast. The last night, Stuart, Jacque and I biked to Yoshinoya for dinner and some other stores for shopping. It was fun to explore with them and chill out that night. I was actually pretty bummed when language camp ended because after the helpful Japanese lessons, and getting to spend a week with the dorm life again we were heading back on our own again.

Through the orientations and events starting in Chicago, all the way to Kure city, I’ve met many nice people and look forward to keeping in touch with them during the time on the Island.

Future posts will not be this general but after waiting longer that I would have liked to blog, found myself just trying to cram info here to help me remember it in the future.

Sure feels like this past month and a half has world-winded by. I miss family/friends quite a bit and am jealous of the cool weather back home, along with the nostalgic reminders of the season (schools/universities starting classes, pumpkin spice at Starbucks/Caribou, cool nights, even college football at the U..)

Excited to be teaching at the 3 middle schools, and elementary schools and will post info about them soon.