Janne and Katja visiting Tokyo

We were very happy to welcome my brother Janne and his girlfriend Katja in Tokyo - they were visiting Japan for 2 weeks. Their travel plan was a bit unusual in that their flight landed in Fukuoka (located on the island of Kyushu), from where they took the legendary Shinkansen down to Tokyo (passing by Osaka, where they spend the night).

We decided to meet for dinner in Ueno on their first night, which is where their hotel was located. After some searching around (finding the restaurant serving just the kind of food one wants is not always an easy task!), we eventually found a nice-seeming restaurant not to far from the train station, just of Ameya Yokocho (a busy shopping street in Ueno). Actually, the main reason we picked the place was the English language menu. The food wasn't all that great, in the end...

The next day, before meeting Janne & Katja, we were finally going to see a Sumo wrestling tournament! We've wanted to go to one each time we came to Japan, but they only take place on odd months and as it happens, we've always visited on even months... Until now! This time we managed to get tickets!

So off we headed to the legendary Ryogoku Kokugikan - the sumo stadium located in Ryogoku (not far from Asakusa).

Sumo wrestling is, of course, one of the most popular and traditional sports in Japan. The origins of sumo go back centuries - the sport became professional during the Edo era (so during the 19th century). Of course it's about as Japanese as a sport can get, so it's quite ironic then that the 4 current Grand Masters all come from Mongolia. Unfortunately, only 3 of them were participating today (the others were injured). There is actually a sumo museum at the Kokugikan which I suppose tells more about the history of the sport, but we didn't have time to visit it this time around...

The proceedings started about 3 o'clock, but we only joined around 4:30 (with Matsuoka and his son, who joined us), since the better matches are towards the end of the day (with the grand master having his match last). It was just about as mythical and exciting as I expected. There is a lot of ceremony involved - the ceremonies and build up lasts for a few minutes, whereas the actual match often only lasts for a few seconds (but those seconds do tend to be very intensive indeed). The subtleties of the sport were clearly lost to us, but to summarize, the grand master was defeated in the last match - a big upset!

After the sumo tournament, we joined Janne and Katja for dinner in Akihabara, our restaurant guide Matsuoka had picked a nice Izakaya for the occasion. The quality of the food and drink was, as expected, perfect. And nice to be able to show a proper Izakaya to Janne and Katja as well - visiting a proper Izakaya is of course a mandatory experience during a trip to Japan!

The next day, we were meeting Janne and Katja for lunch at one of our favourite restaurants at Tokyo - the Tofuya. We discovered this wonderful place during our trip to Japan last year. Basically, they've disassembled a sake brewery from the Japanese countryside, and planted it in the middle of Tokyo (just by Tokyo Tower). The rooms are all traditionally Japanese (think tatami mats), the service is impeccable (think Ryokan), the food, crafted around tofu, is delicious (think kaiseki). There is even a beautiful Japanese garden in the middle of the place, which can be seen from the dining rooms. Anyways, the food was just as wonderful this time as last time around, oishikatta desu as the Japanese would say!

After lunch, we sped down to Iidabashi for our courses, after which we headed over to Asakusa where we were meeting Janne and Katja again. After checking out our favourite Tokyo temple, Sensoji (unfortunately it was shut when we arrived, but it does still look very evocative, lit up in red as it is after sunset), we headed off to dine. This time we tried Okonomiyaki, kind of Japanese pancakes/omelettes (actually Okonomi means "whatever you want" in Japanese, so basically the ingredients of an Okonomiyaki are very diverse).