Halloween in Tokyo

Hi!

Jacob and his pumpkin snowman

I know some of you have been wondering if they celebrate Halloween here in Japan. And the short and simple answer is, yes! There have been and will be several activities that we did in the US, traditions like visiting a pumpkin patch in the Fall, trick-or-treating on Halloween, and pictures with Santa in early December, to name a few, that I have had to seek out in order to continue them here.

Back home in the Fall, we liked visiting a pumpkin patch to see all the different pumpkins and then buying a few to carve for Halloween. The only pumpkin patch I found here was more like a giant playground full of pumpkins, which was such a fun and different experience for the boys! Because the real estate to grow things like giant pumpkins is hard to find around Tokyo, the pumpkins were flown in (or shipped in?) from the less populated area of Hokkaido, an island in Northern Japan. So even though we couldn't buy the pumpkins from this patch, Jackson and Jacob had such a wonderful time, climbing on, pushing, rolling, and gently kicking the pumpkins around. They even built a pumpkin snowman! And we were able to get some great Fall photographs to add to our collection of yearly pumpkin patch pics and continue to build our tradition. In case you were wondering, we ordered our pumpkin from a local florist to make our Jack-o-Lantern for Halloween!

Jackson and a giant pumpkin

As for the Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating, several businesses on a street near our home had trick-or-treating on Halloween. Since Halloween fell on a Friday, we sent Jackson and Jacob to school in their chosen costumes (a fitting police officer for Jackson, he is a real rule-enforcer these days, and a firefighter for Jacob) and they trick-or-treated with their teachers and classmates on this street in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, we all had a fun Halloween party at school including apple-bobbing, a magic show and lots of delicious food.

Halloween fun at school

My Jackson Boy and me

You can only trick-or-treat in certain neighborhoods here, as it is not the norm for everyone to hand out candy. These neighborhoods are full of other Expats and their willing Japanese neighbors.  I wasn't sure what to expect exactly when we ventured out, so I was surprised to see hundreds or maybe even thousands of costume-cladded children and their parents out trick-or-treating in these neighborhoods. Some of the houses were so decked out to celebrate the holiday (can you see the blow-ups in the background of the picture of Jackson and me?)! This particular house even had American candy, like Butterfingers, Twix, and Almond Joy! I was ecstatic as the Halloween candy here consists mostly of "frosting"-covered rice crackers and other seemingly healthy snacks, haha, when all I wanted were delicious preservatives and SUGAR! When I inquired as to where they got the candy, they told me they got it on their latest trip to Guam! Of course they got it in an American territory! We didn't trick-or-treat for very long since both boys were so exhausted from all of the excitement that day. In fact, Jacob fell asleep in the stroller before we even got to the trick-or-treating neighborhood and Jackson only lasted another hour after his brother. Overall, we all had a blast and again, we were able to carry on our traditions.

Enjoying their Halloween spoils

We are headed to Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Kobe (all south of Tokyo) on Saturday for a week so in my next post, I will tell you all about our adventures there!

Until next time, I'm sending lots of love!

Thank you so much for reading. I love you.

XOL

Kawaguchiko and the Grand Mt. Fuji

Hi again!

I'm usually such a planner, of trips, daily tasks, lifetime goals, but one Thursday last month, I decided to book a room in the town of Kawaguchiko, at the base of Mt. Fuji, for the upcoming weekend. Why the sudden spontaneity? I'll tell you why! Because I had never seen Mt. Fuji. You may be asking yourself, "what the heck are you talking about? Didn't you climb it in August?" The answer is yes, I climbed it. Let me tell you, my feet saw that elusive mountain, but I had never seen picturesque Mt. Fuji in it's grandness because the weather that day was so cloudy/foggy/rainy. I needed to "see" this mountain I climbed. This mountain that made such an impact on me.

My first sight of Mt. Fuji, from the train

So, off we went to Kawaguchiko, which was about an hour and a half away by express train. To be honest, I booked a room because I was nervous that the weather was going to be bad once again and I wouldn't be able to see Mt. Fuji... again. Turns out, that was unnecessary. Guess what I saw from the train? The beautiful, the grand, the majestic, the not-so-elusive-anymore, Mt. Fuji. I was so overjoyed that I finally got to see it, and also so proud of myself seeing how tall it is and knowing that I stood on the very top of it. With a huge smile and tears streaming down my face, I said to Joe, "we can go home now".

Have you ever had one of those days that no matter what happened, nothing was going to bring you down? After seeing Mt. Fuji, I was on cloud nine. I'm so happy we didn't go home. We arrived in Kawaguchiko after I was able to stare at Fuji san for another 30 minutes, it just got grander and grander the closer we got, and after a lunch consisting of a delicious hot pot of noodles exclusive to Kawaguchiko, we walked 15 minutes to Lake Kawaguchiko where my three boys proceeded to throw rocks into it for a good two or three hours. I found such joy in seeing them have so much fun doing something so simple. As dusk was approaching, we walked across a beautiful bridge (see the photograph above) to the other side of the lake where our hotel was located. Mt Fuji was behind us so it probably took twice as long as it would have to walk that distance because I had to turn around every few feet to "see" it, just because I could.

Enjoying our time at Lake Kawaguchiko

The next morning, I decided I was most definitely going to go for a jog around the lake so I could admire Mt. Fuji some more. I woke up bright and early, put on my running shoes and off I went while Joe and the boys slept. I was breathless before I even started. It was somehow a clearer day than the day before and I was in awe of this great volcano. I didn't make it far when I could see the reflection of Mt. Fuji in the lake. Some people might think, 'wow, that's pretty cool, but it's kind of like all the other mountains I've seen' but to me, the coolness was on another level. Not only is Mt. Fuji beautiful, but it represents a personal journey for me, in so many ways, so this one is so very meaningful to me. I practically sprinted back to the room to get the guys so they could also share in the awesomeness that was Mt. Fuji on that morning. We are all so glad I did.

I was riiiiiight... there!

Such a beautiful sight

I can't wait to go back to Kawaguchiko again to admire and get some photographs of snow-covered Mt. Fuji.

Thank you so much for reading. I love you.

XOL

Sumo

I know, it's been awhile since I've posted again, oh man! But enough about that, let me tell you about sumo!

SUMO

I've always wanted to go to a Sumo tournament to see the sumo wrestlers in action, so when I saw that the tournament was in Tokyo, I bought a ticket for a single day (the tournament lasts all day from 9am - 6pm for two full weeks) and went to check it out! The arena was practically empty when I arrived around 11am, but it filled to the max capacity around 4pm. The reason being, there are many different ranks of sumo wrestlers and the simple explanation is that the amateur wrestlers competed in the morning, followed by the intermediate levels wrestlers in the afternoon, and then the professional athletes in the late afternoon. I didn't care who was competing, to be honest, I was interested in the way they competed. Before their match, the sumo wrestlers sat on a mat on the side of the ring. Once it was time to compete, they entered the ring and they both did a series of symbolic movements, most of the time in unison. They rub their hands, clap them, then move their arms outward to their sides, palms up, and then place them on their knees. From there, they lift up each leg (so high for some!) and slam it down. (If you are lucky enough to be my mom or my sister, you have seen these very movements demonstrated for you, by yours truly, over Skype). If you don't know the background about sumo, this may seem odd! But these specific movements are deeply rooted in about 2000 years of tradition, purifying themselves and telling the gods they are unarmed and ready to sumo. Another part of the tradition, is that the wrestlers themselves are taught to be extremely disciplined, respectful, and honest, which I got to experience first-hand (read on!). After all of the movements, the sumo wrestlers throw salt on themselves as well as the ring, also as purification acts. Then they crouched down on lines in the center of the ring and then, SUMO! Sometimes the wrestling took a few minutes and more often, only a few seconds. Most of the time, the preparation took longer than the actual wrestling! It was all so exciting to watch!

I stayed for about 5 or 6 hours and then went to pick up Jackson and Jacob from school, where I proceeded to tell everyone about how cool my experience was. For once, my chatty demeanor paid off! One of the teachers at the boys' school has connections to the sumo wrestlers and asked Joe and I if we'd like to accompany her to a celebratory dinner on the last day of the tournament. Are you kidding?! YES! So about 10 days later, we went to dine with the sumo wrestlers!

Joe and I with Hakuho san

We arrived and were sat at a table near the front of the room, thanks to Masami Sensei! (the teacher), while platter after platter of food was placed on our table. Soon, about 10 sumo wrestlers of varying rank, including the Yokozuna, or Grand Champion, Hakuho is his name, entered the room. Sumo wrestlers are like celebrities in Japan and in fact, the Yokozuna = Hakuho, is said to be touched by a god. So everyone was in awe, including Joe and me. Hakuho won his 31st tournament just a couple of hours prior to the dinner, so we were all mesmerized by him. There were many congratulatory speeches, all in Japanese, of course, which were fun to listen to and hear the crowd respond to, and then Hakuho himself spoke. Even though we couldn't understand a word he said, I instantly picked up on the fact that Hakuho is very humble, respectful, and just plain nice. He must truly be making the sumo gods proud! We were lucky enough to get a picture with him, another big thank you to Masami Sensei, and I was so giddy just to stand next to him! (He's really cute, too!) All in all, I was able to check another thing off my bucket list while having a wonderful time and learning so much about the sport of sumo wrestling. Because as I like to say, when in Rome...

Thank you so much for reading. I love you.

XOL