My first full day in Tokyo and I didn't have any plans when I woke up. I thought I would play it by ear and that worked out just fine. On my way out I bumped into Sharon Houck and Dan Hartmann who were planning to go to Ginza. I asked them if it was okay for me to tag along and they said sure so we were off to Ginza. Sharon and Dan were looking for English-Japanese dictionaries and Ginza has some good bookstores which carry English books. Ginza is one of the major shopping districts in Tokyo. Even people who have never been to Japan have heard of Ginza. It has many department stores and boutiques with famous labels. By the time Sharon and Dan purchased their books and we had wandered through a department store or two, it was time for lunch. We ate at a small restaurant on a lower level of a department store. I had tendon which is short for tempura (batter fried food) donburi (meal on a bowl of rice). Specifically, I had two tempura prawns and vegatables on a bed of rice. It was the first time I had tendon, but it certainly wasn't the last--tendon because my favorite food.
After lunch Dan wanted to visit a temple in the Ginza area. I said I wanted to go to Akihabara--the electronics mecca of Japan. If it runs on electricity, you can find it in Akihabara! Sharon wanted to see Akihabara too, so we parted company with Dan and hit the subway. Akihabara is a unique place--all the TVs, CD players, and computers you could ever want to find plus good old-fashioned sex appeal to lure male shoppers into the stores. Almost every store has a skimpily-dress young lady out front inviting customers to enter the store or extolling the virtues of the store's products. This kind of blatent sexism is pretty much gone in the U.S.A., but in Japan it is still going strong. Once you are in the stores, you are presented with several floors of merchandise from which to choose. New wide aspect ratio televisions were on display, as well as the latest computer equipment, and every kind of electronic gadget imaginable plus washing machines, refridgerators, and electric fans (a necessity in Tokyo). I thought about buying an electronic dictionary, but I decided not to because everything was in Japanese. After a couple of hours of window shopping in Akihabara, Sharon and I returned to the Asia Center where I watched Sumo highlights and rested my legs.
July 5th was the first day of the Nagoya basho (sumo tourament). I had seen some sumo during my last visit to Japan and I thought it was an interesting sport. At first it seems absurd to American eyes, but the wrestlers are dedicated to their sport, they train very hard, and the (what seems to us as) excess weight is a tool of the trade, so to speak. Sumo is a very old sport in Japan and there is much tradition and custom in its practice. The stomping of feet on the dohyo (the ring where the bouts are contested), the throwing of shio (salt) to purify the dohyo, and the several preliminary poses before the actual bout begins are all unique traditions in this unique sport.