Congratulations Brazil

Last night at about 2:00AM (Japan Standard Time (JST)), it was announced that the 2016 Summer Olympics will be hosted by Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

The four cities that were candidates to host the games in 2016 were Rio De Janeiro (Brazil), Chicago (USA), Madrid (Spain), and Tokyo (Japan).

Chicago was the first city to get eliminated in the IOC (International Olympic Committee)’s voting process yesterday, then Tokyo was eliminated…which left Madrid and Rio in the running.
At that point, they said that they would announce the winning city in 90 minutes. Was the intermission meant to add to the anticipation?

Anyways, if you click here, you can read the comments that wrote on a post I wrote last month about the four candidate cities. I wrote the comments while I was watching the IOC’s vote.

In 2016, when Brazil hosts the Olympics, it will be the first time that the Olympic Games were held in South America.
So, it’s actually good that Rio won their bid to host the games (even though I would have liked to have the Olympics here in Tokyo!).

Similarly, in 1964, when Tokyo hosted the Olympics, it was the first time that the Olympic Games were held in Asia.

(The logo of the 1964 Olympic Games hosted by Tokyo, Japan.)

回転寿司

Today my wife and I went to a Levi’s outlet sale in 新宿 (Shinjuku, Tokyo).

We bought some clothes for our kids.

While we were in 新宿 (Shinjuku), we had lunch at 三葉回転寿司 (Mitsuba conveyor-belt sushi).

Do they have 回転寿司 (conveyor-belt sushi) restaurants in your country?

At this type of sushi restaurant, the sushi chef prepares various types of sushi and puts them on different colored plates. Each colored plate represents the price for that particular sushi.

Then the sushi is placed on a conveyor-belt and goes around and when the one you want passes in front of you, you can take it off and eat it.

When you’re ready to leave, the restaurant staff calculates how much you owe by counting the colored plates from all the sushi you ate.

You can also request the sushi chef to make a particular sushi that you want, if you don’t see it on the conveyor.

Here are a few photos I took of the sushi and around 新宿 (Shinjuku):

フグ (Blowfish) skin

This building in Shinjuku has banners advertising Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Olympics.

The banner says: 「Tokyo 2016.　日本だから、できる。 あたらしいオリンピック！」 ("Tokyo 2016. This is Japan, so we can can do it...a new Olympics!")

2016 Olympics in Tokyo

This October (2009), the International Olympic Committee will announce which city is chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

The four finalist cities are Tokyo, Japan; Chicago, USA; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Madrid, Spain.

I believe Tokyo should be chosen to host the games…Tokyo is safe and clean, the public transportation is extremely punctual and affordable, their is plenty of interesting places to see in the city, the food is excellent, and it’s a beautiful city.

Here is one of the official promotional videos for Tokyo’s campaign to win the 2016 Olympics host-city bid. Watch it and see why I love living here:

Friday The 13th

今日は十三日の金曜日 (Today is Friday the 13th).

Are you superstitious?

I wonder why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky.

In Japan, the unlucky numbers are four and nine.
American hospitals and hotels don’t have a thirteenth floors (the floor above the twelfth floor is the fourteenth)…in Japanese hospitals and hotels there are no fourth floors.

And old Japanese telephones didn’t have a numeral written on the “four” number slot (old phones were rotary, not push-button). You could dial a “4”…but it wasn’t written.
They don’t make telephone like that anymore, though.

Also, nothing in Japan comes in sets of four (dishes, cups, Chicken McNuggets, etc) are sold in sets of five, usually.
If you give a present to Japanese people…don’t give a set of four.

Unlike “13” in the West, I can tell you exactly why “4” (and to a lesser extent, “9”) are unlucky in Japan.
In the Japanese language, one of the possible pronunciations for “four” (「四」) is “shi“…and “death” (「死」) is also pronounced “shi“.
“Nine” （「九」) can be pronounced “ku“…and “pain” or “bitterness” 「苦」 can be pronounced as “ku“, also.

+++

明日は「バレンタイン・デー」 (Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day ♥).

When I came home from work yesterday, my wife and daughters were all in the kitchen making homemade Valentines chocolates.

It smelled wonderful!

I wonder how much is for me. I’ll find out tomorrow.

Click here to read my “Valentines Day” FAQ. And click here to read another post in which I wrote about “Valentines Day” in Japan.

+++

On October 2nd of this year, the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games will be chosen.

Tokyo is one of the four finalist cities. The other three are Chicago, Rio, and Madrid.

Here are the the four 2016 Olympic Applicant City logos:

2016 Olympics Applicant Cities

If Tokyo is chosen to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, I might volunteer my help. It would be fun.

文化の日

Last Monday was 文化の日 (Culture Day). (You can read a very short FAQ that I wrote about Culture Day if you click here).

On 文化の日 (Culture Day), the Emperor awards medals to people who have contributed to Japanese society that year. My wife’s grandfather was a volunteer firefighter in Tokyo for over 50 years when he was young. On his 50th year with the Tokyo Volunteer Fire Department, he received a medal from the Emperor on 文化の日 (Cuture Day).

There are also many festivals in Japan on 文化の日 (Culture Day)…東京時代祭 (Tokyo Era Festival), 流鏑馬 (Horseback Archery), etc.

We went to the 東京時代祭 (Tokyo Era Festival). This festival is every year on 文化の日 (Culture Day) at 浅草 (Asakusa, Tokyo).

This is a fun festival with the main part being a large parade of people in costumes representing different eras in Tokyo’s history.
There’s Samurai, Geisha, traditional Japanese dancers, U.S. Commodore Perry and his crew and many more.

Here are some of the many photos and videos that I took (if you wanna see all of the videos I took, they’re on My YouTube Page. Click here):

This sign says 「東京時代祭」 (Tokyo Era Festival):

The 天狗 (Tengu):

歌舞伎 (Kabuki):

神輿 (Portable Shrine):

Common people, including children, brought huge stones across the country to 東京 (Tokyo) (called 江戸 (Edo) back then) to build the Edo Castle:

Japanese firefighters:

七福神 (Seven gods of fortune):

芸者 (Geisha):

This group represents Commodore Perry and his crew of the U.S. Navy who, with his fleet of black ships, forced Japan to open up and trade with the West:

At the end of the parade, they carried this sign to promote Japan’s campaign to host the 2016 Olympics. It said 「日本だから、できる。　あたらしいオリンピック！」 (“We’re Japan, so we can do it. A new Olympics!”):

Sports News

I’m not a big sports fan, but a few sports-related items were in the news recently. Some good and some bad news.

• Japanese professional wrestler, 山本尚文 (Naofumi Yamamoto), has just been hired by the American World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) company.He’ll begin his training in Florida this month.
• 浅尾美紀 (Miki Asao), the 17-year old younger sister of Japanese beach-volleyball star, 浅尾美和 (Miwa Asao) just died on Friday, 5 Sept 2008, from the serious head injuries she sustained when she was hit by a car while riding her bicycle last August 12th.
• The 2008 Paralympics Games will end today.
  As of this moment, China has the most medals and Japan is in 18th place with 24 medals (5 Gold, 12 Silver, and 7 Silver).

  All of the athletes, whether they won a medal or not, are stars!

  But, Japan’s fifth gold medal was won by 国枝慎吾 (Shingo Kunieda) for wheelchair tennis.

  

今週末

The 2008 Summer Olympics in 北京 (Beijing) have ended.
Did you watch the closing ceremony?

The top ten countries for medals:

1. 中華人民共和国 (China) – 51 gold (100 total)
2. アメリカ合衆国 (USA) – 36 gold (110 total)
3. ロシア連邦 (Russia) – 23 gold (72 total)
4. グレート・ブリテンおよび北アイルランド連合王国 (Great Britain) – 19 gold (47 total)
5. ドイツ連邦共和国 (Germany) – 16 gold (41 total)
6. オーストラリア (Australia) – 14 gold (46 total)
7. 大韓民国 (South Korea) – 13 gold (31 total)
8. 日本国 (Japan) – 9 gold (25 total)
9. イタリア共和国 (Italy) – 8 gold (28 total)
10. フランス共和国 (France) – 7 gold (40 total)

Speaking of sports, a Russian 相撲 (Sumo) wrestler in Japan named 若ノ鵬 (Wakanohou) was recently arrested for possession of marijuana and dismissed from the Sumo Federation.

Japan has very strict drug laws. If he is convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and / or deportation.

What a stupid mistake.

+++

Last Saturday (2008/8/23), lightning struck the 醍醐寺 (Daigoji Temple) in 京都 (Kyoto, Japan), which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, causing a fire which destroyed part of the centuries old cultural asset.

+++

Also on Saturday we took our oldest daughter to an exhibition of Tokyo high schools and colleges to help us decide which one should attend next school year which begins in April in Japan.
She’ll be starting high school (10th grade).

Here’s a picture I took of the event. It was pretty crowded:

+++

From there, we went to the 米国空軍有効祭 (U.S. Air Force Friendship Festival) at the U.S. Air Force base in western Tokyo.

This is the only time that the U.S. military bases are open to the public. Actually, going on the U.S. bases is almost like going to America. The food, clothes, and the way everyone speaks loudly (and in English) are all very American. It’s kinda a culture shock for me (and of course, my family)…I guess I’m not used to America anymore.

It was a little bit rainy the day of this year’s festival, so it wasn’t so fun (but it wasn’t hot, so that was nice). We went to this festival three years ago…it was nice sunny weather on that day (although quite hot).

I couldn’t get any nice pictures from this weekend’s festival at the U.S. Air Force base because of the weather…but here are a couple pictures from the event when we went in 2005. They had a sky-diving show and let the public look inside the aircraft:

+++

And yesterday (Sunday), I volunteered to help set up and run a booth at a local summer festival near our house.

It was still raining (and it’s still raining today 😦 ) but a fairly large number of people still turned up. I helped run the drinks and かき氷 (flavored shaved ice) booth.

The weather was pretty cool, so not many people wanted shaved ice…but we sold alot of drinks. Especially beer!

It was a 盆踊り (Bon dancing) festival…but I was surprised that so many people still did the dancing despite the weather.

I was busy helping out so I didn’t bring my camera. But I took a picture with the cell-phone. It didn’t turn out so good because it was rainy and evening.

It was fun.

Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo, as well as 26 or so other cities, had put a bid in to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
From those 27 cities, the list of candidate cities has just been reduced to four…Tokyo, Madrid, Chicago and Rio de Janeiro.

As of right now, Tokyo looks like it may be the most likely choice for host city because Tokyo’s “score” is 8.4 (the highest of the four cities).

The final decision of which city will host the 2016 Olympics will be decided on October 2, 2009 (over a year from now).

If Tokyo hosts the 2016 Olympics, I think I might volunteer as a guide or something. 2016 is still eight years away, so I’m not giving it too much thought right now, though.

The last time (and only time, so far) that Tokyo hosted the Olympics was the 1964 Olympics. It was the first time a “non-Western” country hosted the Olympics!
The “National Olympic Stadium” that was built in Yoyogi, Tokyo for the ’64 Olympics will be re-used as one of the venues in 2016, if Tokyo is chosen as the host.

Have you ever been in a city when it hosted the Olympics?

In 1998, Nagano, Japan hosted the Winter Olympics.
We didn’t have tickets for any of the events, but we wanted to see an “Olympic city”…so we took a 新幹線 (Bullet Train) from Tokyo to Nagano (it was the “Asama” Shinkansen Line that was just built at the time especially for the ’98 Olympics).

Even without event tickets, it was fun.

While we were in Nagano during the ’98 Olympics, we saw Andy Hug before he died.

If you live outside of Japan or you weren’t in Japan in the 1990’s, you probably don’t recognize that name. But he was a very popular K-1 fighter in Japan from Switzerland.

He was in Nagano helping to support the Swiss Olympic team.

He was very polite and was often on TV in Japan in the late ’90s. So it was quite a shock to Japan when he died suddenly at a young age just two years after the 1998 Olympics.

Compared to the other three candidate cities for the 2016 Olympics, a relatively low number of people in Tokyo support the Olympics coming to this city. Many are afraid it will get even more crowded than it already is here and the morning train commute to work will have many tourists filling the trains.

I think, though, that if Tokyo is chosen, it will force the government to build more train lines in the city to accommodate them…and that will benefit those of us that live here in the long term after the Olympics are over.

So I support Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Olympics.