A Parting Gift

Just finished watching my last sumo tournament in Japan. I'm sad to say sayonara to sumo (don't think the CBC carries it...yet), but at least my last basho did not leave me disappointed. My boy Hakuho won his second straight tournament in dominant style going undefeated, and laying out yokozuna Asashoryu once again. In my post about the Fukuoka basho last November I noted that Asa is unstoppable. Well, he was, but Hakuho was out with an injury that time. Now my boy is firing on all cylinders and Asa looks in need of a tune-up.


With Hakuho's two straight tourney victories, he was rightly promoted to top dog yokozuna (grand champion), and looks set to ratchet up the Mongolian rivalry with fellow yokozuna Asashoryu. Finally somebody's cracking Asa's dominance and making sumo really exciting, and I gotta go...drat!
Maybe I should have recontracted...
Yeah, right.

Congrats Hakuho!

Saturday Surprise

A few weeks ago I was coming back from the drug store, with a new pacifier for Ez in hand, when I noticed a white bearded foreign looking man coming down our small street. It took a few seconds to register his identity as he wasn't in his usual surroundings. Sure enough it was Miss Yaki's dad making a surprise visit to meet his new grandson on the eve of Mother's Day no less. Apparently he'd bought his plane ticket the day after Ez was born, and had made it from Toronto, through Vancouver, to Osaka, through Okayama, and then finally right to our door without so much as a hint of his imminent arrival. It was a stellar surprise.

Ez and his grampy took to each other right off. Grampy was so taken with the young man that he was more than happy to take him off his parents hands at three in the morning near everyday. It seems grampy's clock left T-dot time, but never really made it to J-land time. He was stuck somewhere in the middle with heavy eyelids at 7pm, and waking refreshed around 3am.


Anyway, it was great having him here. It was perfect timing. He got in some early bonding with his grandson, and did dishes like a man possessed.

Thanks again Craigers!