Blast from the past

Breakfast (see extra) this morning was so complicated, it came with instructions. Unfortunately, the instructions weren’t that clear. We muddled through until we were fit to burst.

After marvelling at how green the grass is in the Imperial park, and getting
 more bites in the East Garden, we moseyed on up to the science museum, where I tested a bright green liquid by ingesting it.

After that, we looked up the Nippon Budokan: it’s an arena for martial arts competitions. There were a lot of people outside and going in: something must be happening in there.

There was one way to find out.

Two thousand yen lighter, we clutched a purple ticket each and went inside. Google translated the event as ‘2023 All Japan Student Judo Weight Class Championships (42 times for men, 39 times for women)‘.

I used to do judo when I was little. I remember doing competitions. I wasn’t very good, but I might have got better if the classes hadn’t had to have been cancelled due to the instructor keeling over from a heart attack. I only vaguely remembered the rules, although some of them came back as I watched.

We’d arrived in time to see the heats or the semi-finals or whatever they were, then the finals for the various weight classes started. For each finals match, Mr Pandammonium supported the judoka in white; I supported the judoka in blue.

Some of the matches involved a lot of grappling, which was dull to watch, but some of them were much more exciting, especially when one judoka managed a slam-dunk throw (not a technical term in judo).

Overall, I won 4–3, although Mr Pandammonium will tell you he won because he called double or nothing for the last match, when I was 4–2 up. However, I didn’t accept these terms, so his claim is null and void as far as I’m concerned.

Surprisingly to us, it was televised, so if you have access to repeats of university-level judo competitions in Japan, you might see us in the audience.