May 24th

On our first day in Japan, we visited the Edo-Tokyo Museum. I really enjoyed the way this museum was designed. Instead of having traditional floors or levels, this was a very "open" concept. I could stand on the second floor and look down at the first exhibitions. I believe the reason that this museum is designed this way is because a few of the exhibitions are very large such as the Nakamuraza theatre, Edo Castle Tower and the life-size replica Nihonbashi Bridge. This design is considered as an "elevated floor" type warehouse design.

Many of the scale models of towns and building come from the Edo (1603-1868), Meiji (1868-1912) and Showa (1945-1989) periods.

The Edo-Tokyo Museum was founded in 1993 as a place where international visitors and fellow countrymen can learn more about Tokyo's history and culture.

The Nakamuraza theatre was one of the three main kabuki theaters of Edo (the former name of Tokyo) that was established in 1624. Over the course of many years, this theatre has moved from Nakabashi to Negi-cho in 1632, to Sakai-cho in 1651 and then to Saruwaka-cho along with the other major kabuki theaters. The theater was either destroyed or severely damaged due to fires over the course of its history. The Nakamura went bankrupt and out of business in 1793 and was ultimately destroyed in 1893 in a great fire and it was not rebuilt.

The Nihonbashi was a district in Tokyo that was built around the Nihonbashi bridge. This bridge linked the two sides of the Nihonbashi river together. The wooden bride was first constructed in 1603 and had been the "mile zero" marker for Japan's highway network.

1603

Present

Tokugawa Ieyasu, a Shogun of Japan (1543-1616)

Ryudosui: Tools for extinguishing fires

After the museum and having lunch, we headed over to the Kokugikan Arena to attend the Grand Sumo Ryogoku Kokugikan Tournament. 

I was very excited for this. I have always seen sumo wrestling on TV but this time I got to watch it live and actually sit next so someone who knew about the sport was was able to answer our questions about the sport.

There were two divisions: Juryo (the second highest division and set at 28 wrestlers) and Makuuchi (the top division set with 42 wrestlers) ordered into five ranks depending on their ability and performance during their previous tournaments.

I was very excited to attend this event and this was probably one of the most fun events that we were scheduled to attend.

Here a video of Mongolia wrestler and current grand champion Hakuho Sho (12-0, 340 lbs) versus rising star Kotoshogiku Kazuhiro (9-3, 390 lbs). This was the last match of the day and a pretty exciting one too.

After the sum wrestling tournament, he headed over to the Akihabara Electronic District. This area was a vast maze of stores that sold electronic equipment, video games and multi-level arcade buildings with hundreds of coin operated video games. The SEGA building (below) had six stories of arcade video games that can only be found in Japan. 

I'm just glad that I didn't grow up around here because if I did, I would get nothing done.