Sumo

Went to my first Sumo tournament this month. This was one of the must-do items on my list and I was dying from excitement.

After you get over the initial "I can see your butt" shock, you start to feel like you're apart of something really special. It's not a diaper shoving contest. It is in fact a martial art with all the rituals and fighting techniques associated with one.

There is said to be hundreds of defined moves but only a few has won a match when used. Actually, I watched the matches very closely to see if I could identify some of those moves.

This is what I came up with:
1. the bulldozer
2. the bear hug
3. the diaper tug
4. the bitch slap
5. the stop, drop and roll
6. the ring around the poesy

But seriously, besides just being heavy and strong, they are surprisingly limber, shapely and flexible. They are also very superstitious. Wrestlers toss powdered salt over and over into the ring to purify it before they fight.

Not only that, but women are not allowed to enter or even touch the ring as it is considered unlucky. I don't know how they came to that conclusion but, with the fear of deportation, I didn't want to be the first to test it out.

That superstition will have to remain intact, at least for now.

Myth or Fact - Part 1- Japan is The Safest Place

FACT - I do feel safer here.

Japan is not without crime, but the crimes here are less random. "Crimes of Passion" is how I would classify them. As long as I don't piss people off, I should live to see another day.

Here are some news highlights from this week's Metropolis Magazine.

• A 37-year-old unemployed man from Osaka admitted cutting up his dead mother’s body, grilling the pieces on an electric hotplate, setting them in concrete and leaving them in the backyard after she bugged him about getting a job. He said he thought if he grilled the body parts they wouldn’t smell.

• The Kanagawa government was ordered to pay ¥5.5 million to the family of a man who died after police left him injured inside his jeep, which had been involved in an accident. The police, who moved the damaged vehicle off the road with the unconscious man inside, said they thought he was asleep.

• A woman from Nara Prefecture who played pop music at top volume for two and a half years to annoy her neighbors was sent to jail.

• A Sapporo Department store planning an exhibition about people abducted by North Korea canceled the event after it received letters threatening its staff and customers.

• A 70-year-old man turned himself into the police after strangling his wife with the cord of an electric water pot. He said he was exhausted from nursing the sick woman.

• A 78-year-old woman and her 49-year-old daughter starved to death in Kitakyushu. Another daughter, age 47, was taken to the hospital too emaciated to walk and said she hadn’t eaten for two months. It is thought that the mother had been dead for more than a year by the time she was found by the police.

• A 15-year-old boy admitted killing his 13-year-old girlfriend in a vacant pachinko parlor by strangling her then hitting her with a piece of wood. He declined to give a reason.

What's in that?

Out of all the things I've told you, maybe this one is the best advice so far. You sort of take stuff for granted in the West. A pizza has cheese and pepperoni and a burger has lettuce and tomato. But I'm telling you, leave nothing to assumption here.

Repeat after me, "What's in that?"
Oh, I'm glad you asked...

- Pizza with tuna, eggs and sweet corn
- Burger with a runny egg, heavy mayo
- Chicken and rice with a raw egg on top
- Tuna fish sandwich with ketchup
- Green tea and pickles over rice

I've had them all and more. Yum! :-s Pics below.

Rock, Paper,... Plastic?

I may lose some of my best Japanese friends for what I'm about to confess today. The truth is, I don't recycle! I can feel the backlash already.

The thing is, I just can't fit 6 different bins in my little kitchen. And recycling in Japan is the most complex system I've ever seen which requires a lot more brain power than I'm able to spare.

Still, I always feel guilty when I go to take my trash down. I try to go when it's all clear to make a swift dump and run.


Sorting includes:
- Paper
- Plastic
- Cans
- Boxes
- PET bottles
- Burnables
- Non Burnables... Did I miss anything?

So let's say you go to Wendy's for a quick refreshing drink. When it's all done, the straw goes in "plastics" but the straw wrapper goes in "paper". Then, you dump the ice and left over drink in "liquids", the cup in "burnable", and the lid in "plastic". Phew!

"How about you just shoot some soda straight into my mouth from behind the counter and let's call it a day..."

Now can you see my dilemma? I can barely get the garbage directly into the trash can without all this added pressure. If you ask me, everything is burnable. Paper - burnable. Plastic - burnable. Weapons of mass destruction - burnable! :-s

Don't get me wrong, I love Mother Earth too. But this is a bit excessive.