Day: May 3, 2025

A cafe in Kanazawa seemingly designated for Americans.

Throughout our visit to Japan we constantly come across groups of girls or boys dressed in secondary school uniforms.  We never see the high school age kids mix genders as they walk too or from school.  At first I thought, that’s a lot of private schools!  Then I found out that, “While relationships are common in schools worldwide,…

Tokyo, from the upper floors of towers and high rises, looks impossibly huge, all gleaming steel and glass, all business. Buildings for miles into the distance. On the ground, it’s just people. Each neighborhood its own village. The corner market, local dry cleaners, tucked away flower shops, side of the street niches with ever-protective jizus,…

Yesterday, after the sumo slam and water goblins, I dragged Ella to the famous Ginza strip.  The street was closed off to all traffic permitting only pedestrians.  It was like walking down the La Rambla in Barcelona only instead of stalls there were luxury department stores. I had looked up a conveyor belt sushi restaurant that had…

Following nearly two hours of watching big sweaty men body slam each other, we headed up to the Kappabashi area via subway. Sōgenji Temple, aka Kappa-dera, home to the water goblins (kappa) of Japanese folklore. Founded as a Sōtō Zen temple in 1588, it moved locations several times (who wants water goblins in their backyard?)…

Hotel -> Sumo stable -> Sōgenji Temple -> Ginza (and conveyer belt sushi in a camera store) -> hotel Yeah, we saw these guys up close and personal.

As we rounded a corner heading to the Sumo stable, we caught sight of the wrestlers on the street getting some air. As we walked into the practice area, we could understand why. The smell of sweat was pungent. These guys had already been going at it. A stable, by the way, is a group…

We went to a sumo training stables this morning to watch a dozen wrestlers work out their moves before the big national tournament that begins in a couple of weeks.  It was a two hour drill where black belted trainees faced off before white belted professionals inside a prescribed circle lightly dusted with fine dirt.  When they…