Fun Activities of Recent Months

When I was in Brazil, I wrote an email newsletter every month for the first year, and then every few months for my second year. By the third year, life was fairly routine, and when things would happen, I would procrastinate, and the next thing you knew, I'd only written two or three emails in the entire year. And now I'm in Japan, and we see the same thing happening. But at least I remember eventually!

So basically I've spent the last four months just living life. But there have been a few items worth blogging about. Sadly, it took me so long, that I'm going to lump things into groups and give a shorter version than you might otherwise get. 

In February, I went to the 39th Grand Sumo Tournament. You may remember that I went to this tournament a couple years ago and greatly enjoyed it. Once again, it was a lot of fun. But this time, I remembered to bring my longer zoom lens and tried out the "sports" setting on my camera! It meant that I could get some "up close" shots:

And some fun action shots:

Those two pictures were from a semi-final match. I have about 10 pictures between when those two pictures were taken, but in the interest of space, I'm just including these. It was an exciting match though. Right after this second shot, they both fell out of the ring. The judges had to meet to discuss if anybody saw who touched down first, but nobody could tell, so they had to re-do the match. The guy on the inside is one of the yokozuna - the top rank in sumo - Harumafuji. He won the tournament.

In March, I went to AnimeJapan 2015. It used to be called the International Anime Festival (or something like that). Basically, it's the Comic-Con of anime - the largest anime trade show in the world. It's HUUUUUGE. I don't really know anything about anime, but I'd been wanting to go as part of my effort to experience the culture of Japan. And, wow. Just to give you a small sampling...

There were huge displays, balloons, and signs:

 Character appearances:

Love her wings! 

 People advertising:

 Interactive stations:

Incomprehensible English:

Still not sure what "vitreous flower and destroy the world" means.

I later discovered that this should be "Assoc." (for "Association").

 And of course, cosplay:

Obviously, I took a ton more pictures, but this gives you an idea of what it was like. It was basically sensory overload. I discovered that there is anime for kids, for teenagers, for adults, for people that like to see half-naked teenage anime girls, for people that like to see violent war-themed anime... Something for everybody. Now I feel like I need to watch some anime so that I can go again next year and recognize some things.

Other events of the last few months included a reception at the Ambassador's residence where former President Clinton made an appearance and gave a very nice, short speech, and a visit by First Lady Michelle Obama. I used my cheap camera for President Clinton's visit (because it's small and will fit in my purse), and all the pictures were blurry. (Argh!) But I can give you this picture of Michelle Obama.

I have a few more things, but I'll leave those for another (shorter) post. Hope you all are enjoying Spring!