Memories of Manju and Mawashi

There are two fond memories that stand out from our dinner at Naruyama. The first is the birthday surprise we gave our friend Rae. Prior to leaving Hawaii, a few of us planned to do something nice for Rae during our Japan trip to celebrate her birthday. The original idea was to surprise her with a birthday cake after dinner at Naruyama. Surprise, surprise, cakes turned out to be hard to come by in the area of Tokyo that Naruyama was located in. So Dean, our always prepared guide and friend, managed to come up with a platter of manju as a last minute replacement. Rae seemed genuinely touched by our gesture and happily posed for this picture with her "birthday manju".

After making a wish and blowing out her candle (a match) Rae happily served up her birthday manju to all of us. It was a nice way to end the evening on our third official day in Japan!

The second memory was "fond" for another reason. It involves a deep dark secret that was never supposed to leave Japan. Blood oaths were made and vows were taken by all of us to never reveal what we saw that faithful night at Naruyama. "What happens in Japan, stays in Japan" we all agreed, promising to never speak again of what took place. Ignoring the anonymous death threats and numerous warnings from close friends and family, I have decided to post these pictures for your enjoyment. I do so at the risk of receiving severe bodily harm from the above nameless person who happens to be an expert martial artist. In an attempt to keep this person's identity a secret, I have gone to great lengths to "mask" his face, thus preventing anyone from realizing who he truly is.

The story is too painful to relive so I will spare everyone the details. Suffice it to say that the nameless person is wearing the mawashi that Taisho (Naruyama) actually wrestled in. A mawashi is the belt/g-string that sumo wrestlers or rikishi wear during their wrestling matches. It is not a very modest garment and is basically composed of a think fabric belt attached to a "thong" bikini. Our nameless friend was lucky enough to be wearing black boxer shorts which helped to "fill in the gaps" if you know what I mean. Taisho shared with me that he has never washed his mawashi . . . I wonder if our nameless friend knew that as well?