Snow, Sumo, Students and Scenery

I’ve realized I haven’t included any winter shots of my town. It did snow here, and it was quite beautiful. Here are two photos from Ochidani (one of my elementary schools up a bit in the mountains). Those are kindergarten kids playing in the snow, it’s pretty adorable. The snow would usually last for 1-3 days then melt. It would snow about once a week for about a month, that was it. (hahahaha)

Also, on March 2nd I went to the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium and watched SUMO! There are 6 official Grand Sumo tournaments every year. Three in Tokyo, and one each in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. Luckily I live close to Osaka so that’s where I went. The tournaments last for 15 days and we went on the first day. Knowing only a little about sumo tournaments, we went really early and consequently, not many spectators were there, as the lower your ranking, the earlier you go on. Most people just want to watch the famous wrestlers slap and shove each other and around 3:30 things started to pick up and for the last few fights it was packed. You could feel energy in the air, and even though I know very little about sumo and even less about the specifics of certain wrestlers, I was excited. There are even a couple foreign sumo wrestlers (which surprised me) and one of them was in the top 10.

These guys are really as huge as you think they are. Some of them weigh an easy 300lbs and are usually taller than your average Japanese. Little known fact, they also smell like baby powder! While we were waiting for friends outside the gymnasium, they would walk by to get into the building, and a distinctive smell of baby powder lingered afterwards.


In Japan, they also have a different semester system than in Canada, so last week was graduation for my Junior High kids. Here is a photo of some of the graduates, in particular three of the boys who are brave enough to talk to me every now and again. I’ll miss them. This week I have my elementary graduation, so photos of that will appear in the future.

Lastly, this past weekend I stayed in my town (the first time in a while I’ve done that) and went for a hike. I recently found a mountain trail and on Saturday I walked part of the circuit. Japanese mountains are very steep, so trails are mostly a series of switch-backs up and down the mountain side.

I’m excited to have found this path as I’ve wanted to climb a mountain for a while, and I hope to do this trail more often as a reason to get outside, and also to appreciate the beautiful spring weather we are enjoying. Randomly I got a pruned branch of a cherry tree, and now it’s in my house just getting ready to bloom. April is official cherry blossom season and my town has a mountain side that has been cleared and then replanted in cherry trees, which also has a path through it. Photos will come once the blooming has properly commenced.