Andy’s lightning fast, 2-week vacation to Japan is in the books. It was an amazing trip and I am already nagging my wife about when we can go back. I have proposed this coming winter but she’s pushing for next winter. We shall see. Tokyo is the same old Tokyo I fell in love with in 2003 but much has changed in the seven years since my last trip. That means new places to discover or new reasons to re-discover familiar old haunts.

This series of posts will deal with our trip to Japan. Not all of it will be strictly sumo related as a large chunk of it will be about traveling to Tokyo and hopefully suggestions for how newbies can get around, and particularly the non-Japanese-speaking newbies. I’ve got 10 pages of content so far and I can’t stop typing. There are plans of maps, data visualizations and loads of pictures. We will see what makes the final edits. But I will make this first quick post about a very simple question:

Why Go Now?

The primary reason for the visit was personal. We had not seen my in-laws, Teams and Zoom excepted, since before the pandemic shut Japan’s borders. When the borders reopened there was a boom in tourism which has been boosted by the absurd yen-dollar exchange rate. That has made flights expensive and available seats difficult to find for the past couple of years. Add in the fact that inflation has been very low in Japan over the past twenty years and it becomes a bigger draw — even with the recent 2.5-3.5% post-pandemic inflation prices over there are remarkably similar to, but just a little higher than, what I remember from the early 2000s. So, it seemed the entire planet has spent the last couple of years booking flights to Japan.

I don’t like to throw out an argument without showing a bit of data to support it. This data is taken from the World Bank and shows consumer prices in the US and Japan, based at 2010. On the lefthand side of the graph, the dramatic uphill climb for Japan illustrates the rapid inflation of the 1970s and bursting of the bubble economy but look at the remarkably flat prices from the 1990s to the late 2010s. Ultimately, I look at this and see that I can spend a little bit more on yakiniku and yakitori that I was spending 20 years ago while making with a higher salary to boot.

Anyway, the low prices may not be around for much longer, as you see that uptick over the last several years. The comparison is not meant to illustrate $1 of ice cream equals $100 yen of ice cream. It is to simply contrast overall trends in consumer prices, especially since inflation has been such a big topic everywhere. This graph gives us a look at those trends in the US versus the trend in Japan. I could add more countries but most readers seem to be Americans and that is what I know but I can definitely try to add more countries to the graph if others are interested in seeing it. The World Bank’s website has great data like this.

If you have not gone to Japan yet, and you’re still on the fence, you might want to hop off that fence soon and take the plunge. Economically speaking, your dollar will go pretty far and ticket prices for flights are starting to come back to Earth. Inflation is starting to kick in a bit over there so the time to party appears to be now, while the exchange rate is massively in our favor. It has already swung from over 160 to 147 in the past few weeks.

On the other hand…

Why Not Go Now?

We very nearly passed up this opportunity because we knew that summer in Tokyo would be hot. We had heard temperatures were regularly in the upper 90s to up over 100. That sounded similar to what I had experienced 20 years ago but friends had been telling us, “this year’s worse.” As it turned out, our entire trip featured highs above 90°F with lows around 80°F. Scorching!!

To combat the heat, many people would wear rings that you can put in the refrigerator or freezer and wear around your neck. You can find them easily in stores. The cheap, old-school, “ojichan” method that I saw in use was to wear rolled up tenugui around the neck. Tenugui are hand towels, basically what you wave around at sumo tournaments. They can be used to simply block the sun or to hold the ice/cooling packs. Or, as Daieisho demonstrated, you can use the tenugui to just look cool. I would not advise going out on the town in only a towel, though. As tempting as it may be.

Popular consumer electronics this year seriously include portable fans to wear around your neck. When we were at Disney, I saw some people walking around with full-blown desk fans. Recently there have been consumer warnings that damaged fan batteries might explode while the user is wearing them. I like to beat the heat in edible, and non-combustable, fashion. Many vending machines on train platforms were selling ice cream! Those out in the sticks near Nishonoseki-beya were unfortunately sold out.

I enjoyed this one on the Tachikawa monorail while heading to the Jungyo (more of which in later posts). As you can see from the picture of the vending machine below, it cost me 200 yen, or roughly $1.35. Most were 180. There were a bunch of good choices.

A buck-and-a-quarter for ice cream in the heat. It is not exactly a massive pint of Breyer’s but an acceptable option in the heat. A pint from the grocery store back home would set me back $5.50 so I could buy four of these. I should have bought four of these. Damn it. Ah, we have to live with the decisions we make. Anyway, I swear, this country is magical. Why can’t we have ice cream vending machines?

Bottom line, I have successfully turned one reason NOT to go to Japan into a reason to go. So, what’s next? As a sumo fan, there’s no sumo tournament in August…well, at least no hon-basho. Our trip would begin as the Nagoya tournament ended and only last for two weeks. So that’s another major strike against going in August.

There is the Jungyo, though, so I wanted to check that out for myself. I did that, and the proof is in these pictures. There was also amateur sumo to enjoy, in the form of a middle-school championship at Kokugikan and a women’s high school tournament in Tachikawa, which I unfortunately missed.

I wanted to actually discover as many of the heya as I possibly could, as well as possibly meet sumo wrestlers. Check! I was also determined to support Shohozan and his yakiniku restaurant – and support many other suppliers of delicious sustenance. Check!

Lastly, I had an interview set up with the head priest at Ekōin Temple. Check! And that was a very interesting conversation. Mr. Honda is a lovely fellow and I hope you all will enjoy learning what I did about the temple and its role in the history of Grand Sumo.

Summary

So, in spite of no hon-basho, I felt that I peppered my trip with enough sumo for a two-week visit. Much more on these in future posts. Clearly, for us the yays outnumbered the nays with regard to going to Japan. If more of you are there now, or planning to go, or have been recently, feel free to share your experiences in the comments…especially those that are along the lines of, “I wish I knew this before I went.” My lessons learned about Jungyo covers an entire post in and of itself.