Day 5： Edo-Tokyo Museum and Sumo Museum

Today we woke up feeling good, and headed into　meet Taka in the city. We went to visit Akihabara, or "Electric Town" as　It is called, lots of little rats-nest passages with wires and gadgets and things for sale. Did not find anything we needed though . . . i bought some batteries. Cliff couldn':t get a good deal on a camera, oddly enough -- there was a better deal back　in aus.

argh this Jap keyboard is playing up on me, excuse the typos.



This seemed funny, like the train-tickets machines were really just fronts for a little man behind the curtain who passes through the tickets



Taka took us to the huge Edo-Tokyo museum. Lots of good exhibits about how life in Japan used to be in ages past. This sword was my favourite bit. We'll go to a war museum tomorrow to see samurai exhibits, I hope.



there was a great model of the city, with little figurines laid out, and binoculars so you could get a closeup view of it. Like peering into the past, neato.



This doesn't show up so well in the pic, but we walked over a glass floor, ｗｉｔｈ an exhibit underneath. Also very strange, as if we were giant ghosts, floating in the sky over a castle.



Next door is the Tokyo Sumo Stadium. Unfortunately there are no events on right now, but the little museum at the front was open. This is the mural at the front.



Here is a display of some old sketches showing some techniques. Wish I could get some undies like that!



A record of the grand champions



ｃｏｏｌ wood-carving eh? I'd love to have that in my house.



Then we made our way home for an afternoon nap. I took the chance to photograph my favourite toilet in the Kodokan. Nice eh!? You squat with your feet either side, facing the hood - its a very comfortable design, so easy to clean -- I wonder if I could get it in Aus?



This is probably a good time to show the amazing toilet from our hostel "Kay's House" in Kyoto. The seat was very nice, electrically heated from the inside. Check out the faucet at the top of the cistern -- every time it flushes, the clean water coming in is available for you to wash your hands in. Very water-efficient.



Check out all the buttons! You could press one to create a flushing sound (to hide embarressing noises), another to get an upright spray, another to get a jet of water. Why do we scratch dry paper over the delicate bits? The Japanese are much more civilized than us, they use fresh soothing water to properly clean themselves!



Here is a photo from the end of the Kodokan's children'ｓ session. Oh, that reminds me -- I actually met Koji Komuro today! He was walking down the street towards　the Kodokan, where he instructs the children. He is a little guy though very burly, and I sorta recognized his face - then when I looked at his ears, I knew his face, I knew it was him. WOW! This guy is famous, he is one of my heros I suppose you could say. He is one of the uncommon few, a serious fulltime Judoka who has competed quite a lot against other grapplers and mixed-martial-artists in non-Judo events. His is known for his great skill at sode-guruma-jime, which is probably my favourite newaza strangle too.

So I　went over to him, and said "Hello! Excuse me, you are Koji Komuro I think?" He looked up in surprise, but agreed. I explained how I thought he was a great man, and very famous. He asked if I was training at the Kodokan, and when I said yes, he replied, "Good, then I will be able to train with you." Woo whoo! Very exciting news for me. This will happen soon I hope. Here's a highlight clip I found




The seniors session that started afterwards was very much an unstructured event. You just bow on the edge, and look for someone to practice with. I got to train with many people, foreigners and Japanese. This one Japanese guy cut through my guard like a hot knife through butter! Really surprised me, as I usually think mine is pretty good ... its all relative though. Another Jap complimented me on my newaza, so, who knows. Cliff and I had a standup randori, and jeez his confidence on his bung knee is coming back -- he was throwing me around so good, I really couldn't do a thing. Mainly just randori over the night, though I did manage to ask one of the supervising instructors to help me finetune some throws, and he did a great job of fixing me up.



The session ended, so we went down to the sento down the block. It is close and cheap at 430 Yen ... but no sauna　or cold-bath, which was disappointing. Still, we got to use the electric bath again, which was wonderful. I'm really starting to like these things! Though we suspect its turned down weaker than the one in Kyoto. We left there, and went to the web-cafe.

On the way we saw another very interesting bike. See the front child-seat? It also converts to be a very useful luggage compartment for groceries or whatever. The battery is a vertical rectangular box behind the seat-tube, with the motor hidden just beheath and behind the bottom bracket. A clear, open cockpit eh? Very easy to climb aboard.



Then Cliff went home to bed, while I stayed up typing here. Unfortunately I got locked out of the Kodokan! So I've been awake all night, lucky this place is open 24hrs. Its 6am now, so I should be able to get back into the building soon. I'll sleep well, as each bed has a curtain you draw around, to keep it very dark. Earplugs in, curtains drawn, and I'll be asleep very soon. Don't need to rise until 1030ish, when we're heading downtown to see Takashi. Ok, bye!