Ryōgoku Kokugikan

I was up at the crack of dawn on Friday because I had tickets to visit a Sumo stable and watch a training session. A sumo stable is a place where a sumo master and all his lowker ranked apprentices live and train. The tour I went on was really lucky because there was a high ranked sumo there which doesn't always happen. Only the top 70 sumos in the world are considered high ranked, they wear a white belt instead of black at training and don't live at the stables, they get to choose whether or not they attend training sessions and are also allowed to get married while the lower ranked sumos can't. It was so cool watching the sumo train, there was lots of slapping and grunting and sooo much sweating. The training was like a winner stays on type thing where a sumo will stay in the ring and choose opponents to wrestle until eventually they lose and get kicked out of the circle. The tour guide kept stressing that sumo are in peak physical condition and despite their size theyre actually extremely fit but I don't think that's really true because each match only took about 5 seconds and the sumo seemed to be completely exhausted after about 3 matches. The white belt was a bit of an exception, he was in the circle for ages and was destroying everyone.

After the sumo stable I got some Chunko nabe for lunch. Chunko nabe is a very calorie rich meal that sumo eat lots of to get fatter. It was pretty bland and I didn't enjoy it that much if im being honest but the experience made up for it. The restaurant I went to was very classy and traditional with a lot of people wearing kimonos n stuff like that. Each table in the restaurant had a stove and a big bowl of boiling water in the middle, after you order a waiter comes and dumps a bunch of raw meat and greens into the water to cook. I waited for what I thought was an appropriate amount of time and then bit into a chicken meatball only to find it was still raw in the middle, I panicked and had to quickly spit it back into the soup which was so embarrassing. God knows how many other faux pas I committed in there coz I had no idea what was going on but it was quite a vibe nonetheless.

Next I went to a katana museum which was alright and then went to Senso ji which is a Buddhist temple with an amazing market out the front. I had a great time exploring the market and enjoyed lots of delicious sweet treats (the macha Mochi was my favourite).

That night I met a group of Norwegians and a canadian at the hostel and went out with them for some drinks. First we went to the Tokyo metropolitan building to see a view of Tokyo at night (it's free to go here and it was awesome!!). Then the Canadian took us to a Batting cage to play baseball. I was maybe a bit too drunk for this and got lots of bruises. After those two activities we ended up at the Golden gai Bar district which is the main party area of shinjuku, it has the highest concentration of bars per square metre in the entire world!

For breakfast today I tried a dish called Takoyaki which are savoury balls filled with seafood and weird sticky white and pink goop. It was quite different to what I was expecting but still really yummy. Next I went to check out the gotokuji temple which is famous for having lots of goodluck cat figurines, followed by the Tokyo tower which is like a Tokyo version of the eiffel tower to see a view of Tokyo during the day.

Everyone in the hostel has been talking about the weird animal cafes here so for the evening I went to a pig Cafe. I think Cafe is a strong word for what it was, they had a few options for drinks (tea, coffee or coke) and then you sit on the floor for 30 minutes with some pigs. Everyone had to set up a little eating area next to them for a pig to come eat at and idk if I just did a crap job or if my pig was just a really messy eater but the floor next to me ended up being covered with pig food which meant once the other pigs had finished their food they all came over to my area :)). It was a bit awkward coz I was reluctantly hogging everyone's pigs and all the other guests were just staring at me while I was playing with them all. All in all it was a pretty weird experience but I had to try it. On the way home I checked out the shibuya crossing at night and then had a delicious ramen for dinner. The food here is unreal!Read more