13 March 2025
Travel requires so much more walking than I am used to. Between that and jet lag, I am ready to go to sleep by 5:00PM. Today I managed to stay awake through it until bedtime and watch the sumo tournament on TV.
Speaking of sumo, today's wanderings took me to Ryogoku, the area of the sumo arena. I could see the roof of it from the train station. Even though the sumo wrestlers and everyone supporting them are away for the tournament in Osaka right now and the place is deserted, I still couldn't resist stopping and having a look around.
The train station is decorated with sumo-themed murals.
At the station entrance is a statue of two sumo wrestlers, the chubby way they are depicted reminds me of the paintings by Colombian artist Fernando Botero.
The arena, called Ryogoku Kokugikan, looks smaller amongst all the new high-rise buildings than I thought it would.
In the background you can see the Tokyo Skytree, a tower which can be seen from various spots around Tokyo just like the TV Tower (Fernsehturm) in Berlin.
Speaking of towers, this is the tower in which the drummers sit during the tournament to drum before and after each day's event.
Here is the ticket office.
Even the benches on the street are sumo-themed. There is a museum exhibiting the paintings of Hokusai nearby, so this is the perfect pairing: sumo sketches by Hokusai.
Around the corner from the Kokugikan is this hidden gem. This little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Shimofusa-ya Shokudō is run by an old couple and serves home-style Japanese cooking, nothing fancy.
Service is cafeteria style: you select your main and sides from a glass case and put them on a tray; the owners add rice, miso soup, and tea and you take it to your table. It was like the neighborhood diner, everyone but me appeared to be regular customers. The food was simple but delicious and just what I had been wanting. I was also given a dish of sliced apples for dessert on the house.
After paying my bill, the owner brought me these little handmade origami figures and proceeded to explain to me what each one is (peace crane, samurai helmet, ninja throwing star). According to customer reviews I read online, she gives these to all the foreign visitors, such a sweet gesture.
Behind the restaurant was a little park called the Kyu-Yasuda Gardens with a man-made lake in the middle and a tiny somewhat dilapidated shrine.
There is that Skytree again...
This man in a black suit with a leather briefcase could have stepped right out of any anime.
There were a handful of other people in this small park, but it was quite peaceful. The day was a bit steamy after the rain so I was glad of a bit of shade.
There was a photographer shooting something, I followed her view and there was a fancy duck on the water.
According to the informational sign at the park entrance, the lake is in the shape of the Japanese character for heart
心 and was designed with a system that ebbs and flows with the nearby river.
I was lucky to get some nice photos of a heron and his turtle buddies.
The day's other agenda item was musical instrument shopping, since I wasn't able to bring my ukulele with me. In the first shop I browsed, no one even greeted me, so I moved on. I found a shop called Shimoda Musical Instruments that had fewer ukuleles but far friendlier staff. With the help of a very nice gentleman I purchased my new friend, this inexpensive but sweet-sounding ukulele from Kailua. He told me that he had scouted a number of uke factories in China, and Kailua stood out from the rest because all the workers were not just assembly line but actually played the ukulele and were familiar with it.
It was a good day's wanderings.
