This will be a shorter post as we only had a few days in Japan after my last post, but I didn’t want to miss writing about our last few days. Our pace of visiting tourist sites, definitely slowed down but we had a few iconic experiences that I must describe.
One was watching a Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka, one of the national competitions. Getting tickets to this event felt similar to our panic to get Pokemon cafe tickets, but we did eventually succeed in getting tickets without having to pay off a random dude on the Internet, so that felt like a win. The Decarias joined us for the full day event, so we were a group of nine, and although we had tickets spread all over the arena, we were happy to have made the choice to not take floor seating, which in Japan means actually sitting on the floor. For a full day. On the floor. Our aged north american bodies are definitely not as agile as the Japanese! The event was fascinating with many riutals and ceremonies and I was also surprised by the athleticism and agility of the wrestlers. Plus they were also way bigger in person that I expected. We have since gotten hooked on watching sumo so have sought it out online – if you also want to check it out out too, here are the highlights from our competition day with English commentary online. I’ve also posted a short videos below along with some photos.
In typical Waslander fashion, we couldn’t just do one activity in a day, so after the Sumo in Osaka we visited teamLab Osaka at the Botanical Gardens for its nighttime exhibit. Like the one we saw in Tokyo, it’s an interactive digital nature exhibit and was also incredible. The photos don’t do it justice, but hopefully you’ll get the gist:
In the final days of our visit, the boys officially picked their favourite temple/shrine which was the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It’s made up of 10,000 gates that weave through the forest creating a tunnel as you walk up mountainside. It’s the earliest example of corporate sponsorship that I’ve seen with the practice of businesses donating gates that started in the 1600’s. Shaking aside my cynicism on the corporate sponsorship angle, it was pretty beautiful. Steve had a last minute “FOMO” panic and bolted out early on our last morning to see the Kinkakuji shrine to make sure we weren’t missing the best one, but I think agreed that the Fushimi still won out.
We spent our last days also scrambling around to have our favourite cuisines one last time, because while our touristing slowed down, our eating certainly didn’t. The kids voted “conveyer belt sushi” as their winner by far because they loved being able to grab whatever they wanted before us parents could protest. Steve’s favourite was the high quality sushi we tasted only once or twice and my favourite was the Teppanyaki style where the chef cooks on a big skillet in front of us.
On Thursday we said goodbye to the Decarias who were heading back to Tokyo to finish their Japan trip. It was so fun to have friends with whom to share so many of our Japan experiences. Jen, Tony, Rowan and Hunter – thank you for joining us, and for letting us take you to some crazy places for food 🙂
So many more tidbits about Japan that I’ve neglected to mention… but it’s way too much to write. Overall it’s such a wonderful country, with super friendly and kind people, and we feel lucky that we had a chance to visit. The hustle and bustle of the cities was exhausting however, as it did feel crowded all of the time, so we are looking forward to a more relaxed pace for our three weeks in Australia. We just landed yesterday in Sydney and are excited!
Our Family Sabbatical Blog 