Turning the big 3-Oh with big, half-naked guys?

Yep, I dunno what's more shocking: turning thirty or seein' big, nakey (nearly) guys wrastle! I'd like to think of it as a tie.

But first, I absolutely MUST share with you the day before my birthday. Since my birthday shares the same day as a holiday (Veteran's Day), and it fell on Tuesday, I intended to take Monday off. I mean hey, four day weekend man! But Daniel convinced me to take the Friday after Thanksgiving off instead. He reinforced it by saying, "Whattr u gonna do with Monday off anyway? you're prolly just going to stay home, laze away and work on your blog..." Oh how right he was! He pretty much nailed it right on the head ;)

The thought of having a full day to do absolutely nothing sounded divine! But then the thought of having the day off after consuming an ungodly amount of turkey and stuffing sounded absolutely neccessary!

Anywho, with that said, I went to work on Monday. It was like any other day... until

the lady with the flowers and balloon came. Me, thinking this was a mistake asked the lady if she was sure it was for me. In her best Engrish, she said, "

Are you Matsuosan? [I nodded]... den deesu for you!" I could feel the heat spread throughout my face, I knew it was all red.. I just KNEW. My co's, watching the whole ordeal, confirmed it as they laughed :\

I opened th

e attached card: "Happy Birthday to you! From your hubby" Awww how sweet... but wait a minute,.. this isn't Daniel's handwriting! This left me with some questions. I called Daniel...

[me:] "Hi babe, thanks for embarrassing me at work! Nah nah, thank you for the flowers, you totally caught me by surprise."

[him:] "Yah, that's why I really wanted you to go to work today! That woulda sucked if you took the day off!"

[me:] "Ohhh okay, well you did a good job convincing me.. but hey, what's with the card? It's not even in your writing!"

[him:] "Oh, yeah, so what's it say?"

[me:] Hu-whutt?! you don't even know what it says?

[him:] "Uh.. well, I just told her I'm your husband...So what's the flowers look like?"

[me:] WHAT?!?!?! DANIEL! You didn't even pick out the flowers? What about the balloon?"

[him:] "Balloon? Oh yah, that's right, they said if I paid a little extra I could get a balloon to go with it."

[me:] DANIEL! Damn dude,.. so what part were you involved in all of this?"

[The doodoo head:] "Uh,.. well I asked them to put some purple flowers innit cause you saw that field of purple cosmos at the park on our last field trip and you said they were really pretty..."

[me:] Awww Oooookay, at least you referred to SOMETHING I said.. that's pretty sweet for you to remember...

[him:] "Yeah, see, I'm sweet! But fo reals, they make it so easy! All I did was call them and tell them I wanted flowers and where I wanted them to go and they just picked out everything! I didn't have to really do anything! All I had to do was give them my credit card num...."

[me:] "Ahem, daniel...DANIEL! Just shut up and say, 'I'm glad u like them, Happy Birthday.'"

[him:] "Oh okay, Happy Birthday ~luv you!!"

*sigh*

Anywho, my co's were really sweet too, They sang happy berfday to me with big, lit-up 3 & 0 candles atop a choco-banana cake. It was pretty tasty too! Light and fresh..I helped myself to two pieces. Holy shit guys,.. I'm 30! But as I sit here, with my 30-year-old fingers typing up this blog, I vow to all of you that until the day I die, I will proudly state my real age to anyone who asks. Of course not without asking the asker how old I "look" first! On that note, judging just by my writing ability, I'd say I'm about 13 ;D

Onward to Sumo!

Sumo is actually a whole lot more historical and respected than I ever imagined! but I wont go into the historics -you can find that out on Wikipedia ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumog/wiki/Sumo

What I can tell you is what it was like watching one live!

The tournament started from as early at 8 in the morning. Our tour bus got there at 3:30 in the affernoon. The high-ranking sumo wrestlers were set to start at 4 o'clock, so we came just in time to see to the best guys. I tell yah, these big guys are amazing. Did you know that every one of these guys can do the splits?! We watched a video of them training in their "stables" and doing the splits. Everyone on the bus was like: "Woah...no way!" Apparently, despite their size, they are extremely flexible, and after watching them, pretty darn fast too!

I thought the way they had it set up was pretty trippy. The sumo wrestlers entered the same way the public entered, so people were able to see each wrestler in traditional kimono (actually, I think they're call it something different for guys -but whatever) walk in with his small entourage. They really are big when you see them up close! Such presence!

There was even an opening ceremony for the high rank guys. They all came out and stood around the ring. Each wrestler wore an elaborate (and probably very heavy) mawashi. I think that's what they are called... That's what the regular thong-looking things are called.

For lack of better word, the "ritual" they do before the actual pushin throwin' is a bg part of the sport. The lower rank guys get right to wrestling, but the higher rank guys have up to 4 minutes of tossing salt and staring eachother down until actually fighting. The fight itself lasts for only 30 seconds or less. I dunno if it was our new found appreciation of sumo, or the anticipation of each fight after waiting up to 4 minutes... (maybe it was both) but it was actually pretty exciting to watch!

In the end, the winner of the tournament immediately does a solo performance. I'm not sure if all the winning wrestlers do the same show, but I was pleasantly surprised to see him use what looked like a japanese bow. His movements were so fluid but very controlled. I thought it was beautiful :)

It was dark outside as we left the center, and the wooden structure at the front entrance was now lit up and occupied by a taiko drummer. I wished I couldve stayed to watch him do his thing but our bus was getting ready to leave so I didn't even get a chance to shoot a picture of it. Oh well, that's okay, I was here to see Sumo ...so I was satisfied :)