Tokyo: Japanese Baseball

Imported in the mid-1800's to Japan, baseball is one of the country's most popular sports. The Japanese professional league, Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), has twelve teams, divided into two divisions, each representing (or co-representing) a major metropolis, a region, or, in the case of Hokkaido, an entire island. The rules are essentially the same as in the U.S., but for the avid observer, the NPB differs in many details. Apparently, for example, a regulation baseball and a regulation-sized NPB field are smaller than their MLB counterparts. Being generally apathetic about baseball and only a bandwagon Red Sox fan, I never would have noticed. 

Meiji Jingu Stadium from our seats at the first game we attended. Giants won.

Some of the less technical differences are, for me at least, more memorable:

Each Japanese baseball team is owned and/or sponsored by a corporation and each team's name includes the name of its corporate owner/sponsor followed by the mascot name. Imagine if you will... the Pittsburgh Heinz Pirates or the New York JPMorgan Chase Yankees. (For illustrative purposes only - I know these companies are not the owners of these MLB teams.) Adding a corporate name is, in my opinion, tacky and confusing. For a newbie it requires more effort than it should to figure out what really matters: where a team is from. I don't care what corporate interest bought your uniform. I want to know in which cities I can see a game and what the best rivalries are!

Also, a number of the NPB mascots rival NESCAC's decidedly non-intimidating roster, including: 

• Nippon Ham Fighters - sounds like a vegetarian's dream team!
• Orix Buffaloes - as unlikely a mascot as a camel, an elephant or a lord jeff
• Hiroshima Toyo Carp - an oily freshwater fish

The two Tokyo-based teams are the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and the Yomiuri Giants. The Giants are owned by the media conglomerate Yomiuri Group and are considered the Yankees of the NPB. This is, as best I can tell, because they win a lot, have more non-local/bandwagon fans than any other team and are the subject of much ire and more than a little controversy. (My inner Boston bandwagon fan types furiously, indignantly.) The Swallows are more like the Mets - chances are you aren't rooting fo them unless you're a local. If the Giants are "Japan's team," then the Swallows are Tokyo's team. 

We have been to two Giants-Swallows match-ups at Meiji Jingu Stadium, the Swallows's home field, and saw one victory for each team. Each time we sat on the home team/Swallows side, and I cout I could sum up the experience of being a Swallows fan for an evening any better than an article I read in Men's Journal did, so I won't try to: 

"The non-stop cheering, syncopated noisemaking, and drunken trumpet bleating when the home team is batting make you wonder what the hell kind of game we're watching [...]. Join the fun by buying a tiny umbrella at the stadium. You'll see. Fans break into "Tokyo Ondo," a lovely festival song, for every run scored and the seventh inning stretch. It's a song full of nostalgia, but the rowdier version starts off with a chant telling Yomiuri to go @#$% themselves, sometimes even if Yomiuri isn't the opponent. Beautiful, traditional culture."

Courtesy of Men's Journal 

Go, Go, Swallows!

Grand Sumo Tournament: One thing worth planning an entire trip to Japan around

I have had the pleasure of attending two Grand Sumo Tournaments during this year in Japan, and it is hands down an event that I would recommend any prospective visitor plan an entire trip around.

Each year, there are only 6 each Grand Sumo Tournaments in Japan - two of which are in Tokyo. Tickets go on sale roughly a month before each event and Saturday and Sunday tickets sell out completely within hours of going on sale. This frenzy is with good reason. Sumo is a fantastic sport. Each Grand Sumo Tournament (GST) runs all day with the most junior divisions competing from early in the morning and matches continuing all day until the highest, Makuuchi division, competes to close out the tournament by 6pm.

We arrived to our first tournament in May, with our lovely guests in tow, at about 2pm concerned that we would bore from an entire day of matches.When Hakuho, a Mongolian-born sumo powerhouse who holds the second longest winning streak in sumo history and has the highest number of undefeated tournament championships, won in the final match up of the day, to win the tournament with a 14-1 record, we could hardly believe how quickly the time had gone. I could have stayed for more.

But, let me back up. Each GST is a 15 day long event. On each day, each sumo wrestler has only one match so that by the end of the tournament they have accumulated a win-loss record totaling 15 matches. It is a sort of round robin, however, not every potential match-up takes place as there are many more competitors in any one division than there are days in the tournament.

Sumo has a rich (and also notorious) history in Japan. Its roots originate in Shintoism where sumo wrestling was originally a way of praying for a bountiful harvest and these connections are evident at each GST. Hovering over the sumo ring is a canopy with Shinto iconography and decoration.

Before entering the ring for a match, the competing  wrestlers throw a handful of salt into the ring. The history behind this tradition is a belief that the salt would serve to purify the wrestlers and the ring. (PS I have read that women are not allowed to enter sumo rings because they are inherently unpure. Sadly, this doesn't surprise me, as many aspects of Japanese culture contain a not-insignificant dose of ridiculous sexist garbage. Moving on... )




Upon entering the ring, the wrestlers clap their hands in order to attract the attention of the gods and then raise their arms out to the sides, palms forward, to demonstrate that they are fighting without any weapons.








Then, in defiance of their own stature, each wrestler will lift his substantial legs, one and then the other, out to the side and up until they are around or above the level of their heads and then drop them quickly to the ground. The purpose behind this exercise is to stomp out any evil spirits.

Each of these rituals will take place multiple times before each match as there are almost always a few "false starts", which I think serve mostly to "psych out" the competition.

As seen here,
not all wrestlers are created equal in the leg lift department ;)

With these rituals taking place between each match, the speed of sumo is similar to the speed of American football - lots of set-up and anticipation for relatively short "plays" that can last anywhere between a few seconds to maybe a minute. Yet and still, it is worth the wait.

It is hard to describe the match itself, but I understand now that it is a sport of strength and significant technique. Avid sumo fans could rattle off significant information about each wrestler, his style and favorite techniques, all of which of course have names.


The fan base is dedicated, zealous and vibrant. I managed to capture a small bit of the energy surrounding sumo, when, at the September tournament, in the last bout on the 13th day, Ichinojo summarily and anticlimactically defeated his opponent Kakuryu in the final bout of the day by using a tactic called "henka" Henka, by all accounts, is a widely criticized tactic that is effectively a side step. If executed properly, as it was by Ichinojo in this bout, a henka move leaves your opponent running himself headlong out of the ring, bypassing the intense physical battle that typically characterizes a sumo match. The astonished and surely disappointed crowd erupted in cheers and jeers, launching their seat cushions wildly into the air:

This is the most unruly thing I have seen in Japan all year (by a Japanese person, obviously the guy who depanted himself at that bar crawl otherwise takes the cake!).

How to Get Tickets

As I mentioned, tickets for each GST go on sale about one month prior to the event. If you want tickets for Saturday or Sunday, you need to buy them the first morning they go on sale. If you are flexible about the dates you can attend, you can typically still get mid-week tickets a week or two before the tournament.

Buying Tickets in Person

You can buy tickets by going directly to the stadium. The Ryogoku JR stop is just steps from the Kokugikan ticket office. The Ryogoku subway stop is about a 6 minute walk to the ticket office and there are a fair amount of signs and maps to point you in the right direction.

The upsides to buying your tickets directly are that you can pick your seats yourself and you can get your tickets for face value (Western seats are around $60-70 USD, box seats, which fit 4 people, are about $320 USD, variable with exchange rate of course). The downside is, of course, that this option requires a physical presence in Japan.

Buying Tickets Remotely

For those not present in Japan, there seem to be two options: 1) the official sumo ticket site (http://sumo.pia.jp/en/) which provides sales information, online sales (Japanese only) and a phone number to call to buy tickets (not sure if the operators speak English but hotel staff will almost certainly help with this) or 2) use a third party vendor (e.g. buysumotickets.com) that levies a service charges of about $10-15 per person for the convenience.

Tips for Attending Sumo at Kokugikan

Choosing a Seat

There are two types of seats available, Japanese style box seats (in sections A, B and C), which are typically priced to seat 4 and Western-style stadium seats, which are higher up and farther from the ring. I have sat in a section C box seat and in the Western-style stadium seats, and I highly recommend the box seat experience. Tickets in Section A are essentially impossible to get unless you are someone or know someone and seats in Section B are elusive. Section C sells out but not quite as fast, and it is still sufficiently close to the action that you can hear the sounds of the wrestlers making contact and get great pictures withe a decent camera.

If you opt for Western-style seating, try to get a seat in the first row, so you look cleanly over the balcony edge. This is the vantage point from which I took the video above. Keep in mind that video is not zoomed, so it accurately reflects the distance from the ring.

Sustenance

YOU CAN BRING IN FOOD AND BOOZE. And, anyone who knows anything (aka all the Japanese attendees do it). I saw bento boxes and beers and each Japanese style box has a bottle opener attached to it.

If you decide instead, or also, to go out to eat afterward, find a place that serves "chankonabe", a Japanese stew that is a staple of the sumo wrestler diet and can be found all around the stadium.

Robot Bar: the Pinnacle of Kitschy Acultural Chaos.. and it's awesome

I heard about Robot Bar within a month of our arrival. It seemed to be a right-of-passage for foreigners and was routinely described exclusively with the use of adjectives that have both positive and negative connotations (e.g.ridiculous, insane, etc). Based on those descriptions, I couldn't suss out whether this was a tourist trap or some quirky oddity that was uniquely Japanese and a mandatory part of my cultural education. In short, I was skeptical. Fortunately for my skeptical side, one of our earliest visitors was unapologetically enthusiastic about checking it out. What I found was 77% kitsch, 83% tourist trap, 54% quirky Japanese oddity, 4% bar, 1% cultural... and unapologetially I profess: it was worth it.

Robot Bar is a 3 (or 4?) story performance space in Shinjuku's Kabukicho neighborhood. It caters to foreigners and unabashedly intends to drown its audience sense out with its over-the-top exploitation of the stereotypes of Japan as a land of ever-present if half-conscious eroticism, as the homeland of the impossibly youthful and doll-like and as an innovator of all things high-tech. 

Practically speaking, Robot Bar offers a 2+ hour show featuring north of a dozen, highly enthusiastic and dramatically dressed (or undressed?) young women; about a half dozen robots over 10 feet tall, and a bevy of costumed hype men prancing, play-acting, parading and posturing around a central stage in a uninterrupted marathon of genre-defying entertainment and mind-altering energy. It is so insanely over-the-top (notice my totally inadvertent use of said positive/negative adjective), that anything short of the 2+ hour experience might be enough to turn anyone off. Here's how it works:

Before the show, the audience is ushered into a third floor lounge area the size of a fair-sized restaurant that is covered from floor to ceiling and wall to wall with lights, jewels, glitter, embellishment, gold plating, mirrors and velvet. In this area, the audience is treated (?) to a pre-show show. On the day we went, it featured these two bedazzled, mostly Romanesque, yet slightly burlesque, singing angel girls. 

Pre-show entertainment.

After a significant rest in the lounge, the audience is ushered into the main stage area in the basement to get the evening started in earnest. Let the show begin:

Opening montage of fierce drummer gangs.

More girls with smiles and more appropriately-choreographed dancing, fist-pumping and general enthusiasm about that which is Robot Bar

And this thing (what is this thing?!?) that I must have

And the robots

And this woman flying on a pterodactyl?

Ridiculous.

I left feeling as happy as this girl (though with considerably more clothes on).

PS If you plan to visit Robot Bar, pick up one copy of the current Metropolis magazine for each person in your party. There is an ad in every issue for a 1000 yen (~$10) discount per visitor per magazine brought to the door of the bar. (Limit one magazine per visitor)

花見 --> hanami --> flower viewing

In late March to early April every year, countless cherry trees in and around Tokyo go into bloom. Expansive swaths of Tokyo's greenscape rapidly morphs from green and brown to white and pink. The precise color of each bloom seems to depend on the stage of the bloom and can vary by time of day. The  number and beauty of the flowering trees is remarkable, but more wonderful still is the culture surrounding hanami. Every year Japanese people come out en masse with friends, family and co-workers to picnic, drink and relax outside. Entire lengths of public parks are covered corner to corner in picnic blankets. Hanami season is by far the most festive and lively aspect of Japanese culture I have seen so far. (This statement was true as of hanami season. Now, two months later, at the time that I am finally making this post, it has some stiff competition.)

Relative rankings aside, it was spectacular! I will cut to the photographic chase.

The above photos were taken at Chidorigafuchi Park, which overlooks the outer moat of the Imperial Palace. After walking the length of the park, we happened upon our first outdoor food festival.

There were dozens of different Japanese snack and dinner foods available as well as all a variety of libations -- in Tokyo there is no prohibition on open containers in public. Noteworthy food options included:

Shishamo --- a saltwater fish (called a smelt??), specifically a pregnant one, that is grilled or fried whole with its roe intact. Served on a skewer.

Takoyaki --- A ball-shaped wheat flour-based snack (about the size of a golf ball) flavored with ginger and green onion and filled with a hearty piece of octopus in the middle. Imagine if you will a savory doughnut hole with octopus instead of jam filling... I obviously did not partake though it was cool to see how they are made.

    The mix of takoyaki ingredients before they are cooked and shaped.

    The chef flipping the takoyaki balls as they cook in the specially-designed takoyaki pan.

After we had our fill, instead of going straight home, we returned to Chidorifafuchi to see the hanami by night.

That was a very good day.

Tokyo: Tsukiji fish market and its bounty - Alive, Dead, Eaten.

Tsukiji fish market is the world's largest wholesale fish market.

Craving some fast facts?

1935	The year Tsukiji opened
1.6 million	The highest price ever paid (in USD) for a tuna sold at the tuna auction [The fish weighed nearly 500lbs giving it a price north of $3,200/lb]
4 million	The number of pounds of seafood and fish pass that through Tsukiji each day!
18 million	The approximate amount of money in USD that exchanges hands each day
2.47 million	Approximate square footage floor space of the market
To put the size of this market in perspective: The floor area at Tsukiji is larger than the following:
Heinz Field		1.49 million sq. feet (the footprint of the entire structure)
All of the rentable space in the Empire State Building		~2.25 million sq. feet

This is all to say, Tsukiji is a tremendous operation and a real spectacle to behold. It is also obvious however that the facility is old - it lacks modern amenities (eg climate control) and is not designed to handle the chaos or volume of people including the fast-moving workers, the forklifts and the ceaseless waves of tourists.

Relocating Tsukiji

The End of an Era

Owing to these and other issues, there has been talk of relocating Tsukiji for decades. The current proposal for relocating the iconic site, which was put forth in 2001, has met with significant opposition, troubling obstacles and extended setbacks since that time. Some opposition voices have objected to relocating the iconic operation on principle and expressed concern that the new, modern and sanitized operation would not have the same tourist appeal. There has also been significant criticism of redevelopment plans for the site as luxury high-rise condos, a plan which now seems to be on hold because the site is being proposed as a tourist hub for the 2020 Olympics, which Tokyo will host. Perhaps most troubling of the issues facing the relocation is the discovery that the soil at the new site (which formerly housed a gas refinery) is contaminated with well beyond acceptable levels of cyanide, arsenic and benzene. Not ideal. All of these issues put together have pushed back the estimated relocation date from 2012 to 2014 to the present expectations of early 2016, but definitely sometime before the 2020 Olympics.

A little more on the pollution: The soil at the new site contained benzene, which is carcinogenic, at 43,000 times the permissible levels under Japanese environmental regulation and cyanide at 800 times a level that is considered safe. (source) Clean up efforts are underway, but there is significant concern over whether they have been proven to be sufficient to ensure that the new market location will continue to enjoy the reputation of bringing in some of the best and freshest seafood in the world, and commanding the prices associated therewith. Read more here. 

What I do know is that I am grateful to have visited Tsukiji at this historic, if totally chaotic, site. I am doubly grateful because I have actually seen it twice - I first visited Tsukiji in 2005, during my first trip to Japan (thanks, dad, for introducing me to this beautiful country).

Back to the Main Attraction

The Sites, Sounds and the Chaos

I find it difficult to describe Tsukiji in words. I have recently seen it described as "the Louvre of the oceans," and I think that description is spot on insofar as Tsukiji is a place, perhaps The place, to see first-hand some of the most magnificent and valuable creatures of the ocean. However, the experience of visiting Tsukiji has next to nothing in common with a visit to a museum otherwise.

Where a museum is enhanced by a sense of stillness, contemplation and quiet, Tsukiji is a world-renowned commercial enterprise, in which all of its (non-tourist) guests are bustling, calculating and assertive. In Tsukiji, the prized edible exhibits are not intended to be long-admired. They are expertly yet efficiently assessed with cold calculation by knowing buyers. The day's catch are poked and prodded for indicators of their quality before they are selected and diced, filleted or bagged whole for the purchaser. 

Where a museum thrives on cleanliness and order, Tsukiji's appeal is in its rawness and chaos. It's cobbled stone floors are haphazard and uneven, ensuring that each brimming container of aquatic life sits at an angle decidedly not parallel to the horizon. Intermittent pools of seawater and blood make polka dots on the narrow paths, resting wherever stones are missing or unevenly set and making it necessary for the squeamish and inappropriately shoe'd to play at least a few games of hopscotch.

Yet, it was well before we entered the bizarre bazaar that is Tsukiji, that we got a healthy dose of its charmingly unwieldy bustle. To reach the inner market we had to pass through a gauntlet of dozens of forklifts and delivery trucks, not to mention the occasional bicyclist and the disoriented throngs of tourists, myself included. In hopes of capturing the scene, I took a brief video clip outside the wholesale area. In this clip, I am standing at the edge of one intersection (near what would be a curb if there were actually a sidewalk). You can see in the first seconds of the clip a near collision between two forklifts blinded to each other by a delivery truck  inching out to make a left-hand turn. 

Keep in mind also that I took this video holding my iPhone just at my chest. That forklift nearly rolled over my toes! 

Once inside, Vince was treated to and I was terrified by an incredibly diverse array of sea creatures for sale. I tried to enjoy the spectacle without screwing up my face in fear, but the aisles between rows of vendors are so narrow that two people cannot pass each other without making accommodations for the other. So, each time I passed someone (a once every 30 second occurrence) I had to lean toward the edge of the aisle, over and around things like this: 

which was totally alive and moving!

and this:

and this:

This is direct from my nightmares to the real world. 

It was occasionally cool but mostly just terrifying. Of course, even with my major fish phobia, it is obvious that the fish trade here is an art as much as it is commerce.

Andy's Shinhinamoto

Tsukiji's Bounty, Plated

Shortly after going to Tsukiji, we joined Vince's co-workers for dinner at Andy's Shinhinamoto, known by expats as Andy's Fish. The restaurant's slogan is "Straight from Tsukiji to you." It is run by a British guy who has developed an impressive reputation for his ability to pick the most choice fish from Tsukiji's many vendors. We ordered liberally tempura vegetables, crab, several types of fish, and Korean squid pancakes.

Building on my trend towards non-vegetarian exploration, I tried the Korean pancakes. For the record, it was not clear to me that they had squid in them when I started. I ate one and a half pancakes (each of which was about the size of a cookie) before that became clear to me. I finished the second one as assertively as I could. All I could think was... GOTCHA!

Courtesy of www.itsberyllicious.com.