Sumo - Nagoya basho 2009

On Wednesday, Ayako and I took a trip to watch day 11 of the Nagoya sumo tournament. We joined some teachers from Aichi University. This is the same tournament we went to two years ago and you can see what happened here. Here we are at the entrance to the Nagoya gymnasium with the display of all the trophies the winner will take home (about 30 in total):
We weren't in the box seats this time but in the cheap seats at the top of the gymnasium. Here's Ayako with some of the teachers that joined us:
You would think that it would be really hot at the top of the gymnasium in the middle of summer, but you'd be wrong. The people near the sumo action were all using fans to cool themselves down, but since we had the air conditioning blowing right on us, we were quite cold. There was even a souvenir vendor who would come by and was selling towels to keep you warm:
I was able to get to the lower level to take a picture of the sumo wrestlers during their entrance ceremony:
Here is a shot of Asashoryu (one of the grand champions) doing his special entrance ceremony:
The last bout of the day was between the other grand champion, Hakuho, and the local boy from Nagoya, Kotomitsuki. It was exciting to watch and since the champion was defeated, everybody threw their zabuton cushions to celebrate.

Shabu-shabu

On Saturday, we went out with friends from Four Seasons. We had shabu-shabu, which I don't think I've had since I had in on Christmas night in Kyoto. Kathleen and Rachel will be leaving Four Seasons soon, so I might not see them for awhile. Here a photo of the group of us:
And here I am using a good shabu-shabu motion with my meat:
(Thank you to Emiko for taking these photos.)

Second wedding anniversary

On Monday evening (July 13th) Ayako and I went out to celebrate our second wedding anniversary. We went out to dinner at Torizen, which is where we had lunch with our families last May. This time, we ate in the main restaurant. Here is Ayako patiently waiting to start eating her food:
We arrived there early and so we had the restaurant to ourselves for the first hour. We had a nice table next to the window overlooking a garden and the lake:
Here is a bird we saw bathing in the small pond:
After dinner, we went for a small walk out in the garden and had our photo taken by one of the waitresses:
We went to see where we had eaten lunch last year and were surprised to find that the room had been renovated. It is now a larger room with wooden floors and tables and is for small wedding receptions.

Smalls animals near the house

I found a stag beetle on the window screen today:
Stag beetles are fairly popular in Japan but not as popular as Japanese rhinoceros beetles. Lots of kids love collecting rhinoceros beetles as pets and you can find lots of them for sale at pet stores. If you find a really large rhinoceros beetle, you can even sell it to a pet store.

There's even a National Rhinoceros Beetle Sumo Championship:

I also found a grasshopper sitting on my bicycle:
These days on my way to work I've been noticing lots of small animals coming out. For the past two weeks, there have been small crabs playing 'chicken' with the bicycles on the bicycle path. And yesterday, I saw a turtle just to the side of the bicycle path. Of course, as the days get warmer, I see more and more mullet (type of fish) jumping out of the water to get some fresh air.

Happy Canada Day!

When I got home tonight, I found that Ayako had made a Canada Day carrot cake for me. After I sang 'O Canada' (using the maple leaf toy that plays the tune when you press its face), we tried some of the cake for dessert: