Well, despite horrible night’s sleep last night (all those matcha lattes clearly coming back to haunt me….), I was still up bright and early this morning for a long-awaited trip to watch the local morning sumo rehearsals. I’d have ideally rather have gone to a proper sumo match, of course, but there are no tournaments on at this time of year – so figured this would be a ‘good enough’ close second while I’m here.   

Now, I’ve been around the block long enough on the travel front to know that anything you book via Viator is unlikely to be the truly “authentic” local experience you might personally wish for – which, in my head, would be quiet and respectful observance at an historic dojo, watching on in silent admiration, as a group of novice sumo wrestlers trained and rehearsed together in their ‘natural state’ (or something vaguely akin to it at any rate…).

Even going by my already low expectations, however, what actual unfolded was a protracted scene of pure, unadulterated, almost physically painful bullshit. Suffice to say that a very broad interpretation of ‘sumo rehearsals’ had been applied here, which in this case actually translated as a bunch of about fifty very gung-ho Americans (both in terms of the tour leads themselves and 99.9% of tour participants) – plus two token Japanese sumo practitioners roped in to perform for the occasion – gathering in a mundane modern sports hall, and then going on to spend the morning non-ironically pantomiming / parodying sumo for the sole benefit of the tourists present. Between you and me, I have my doubts that the supposed “sumo champions” in attendance even qualified as that, personally – I mean, I carried more weight in my teenage puppy fat days than either of these guys, quite frankly…

And so I did a bunk. No drama or anything – but I’ve got better things to do with my time in Tokyo than to waste another two hours on this undiluted bull crap, that’s for sure…

‘What kind of things, Sarah?‘, I hear you ask… Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you: only the MOTHER FLIPPING TOKYO POOP MUSEUM – that’s frikkin’ what! Which – despite being an institution brought solely into being in the noble pursuit of honour, tribute, dedication and devotion to the humble turd (unko in Japanese) – was, in fact, markedly less shit than this morning’s sorry excuse for entertainment. At least here I knew what I was signing up for!

I’d expected ‘bonkers’, and the Poop Museum (PooMoo? – I seriously think that moniker could catch on) certainly did not disappoint on this front. In fact, this place constituted a veritable assault on the senses (bar – ironically enough – smell…) from the moment you walked through the door. By way of example, here’s a sense of what psychotropic absurdity awaits you just within the first three minutes of your visit alone:

What more can I tell you about the sheer wonder and awe that is the Poo Museum…? Mere words fail me here in doing the place justice, but picture this if you will:

A museum that, on entry, has its staff immediately cajole you into sitting atop a rainbow toilet (in a row with other recently admitted guests), and charges you with making various mock strain grunts and grimaces, while employees film and photograph you in the imitative – hopefully! – act.

Where said toilet then ‘magics’ up a plastic poo (in assorted colours) – as dropped in through the u-bend from behind a wall. Where staff then order invite you to stick a wooden stick into the bottom of aforementioned plastic poo, then to carry it round with you all throughout the installation (in fact, they even let you take it home with you afterwards too…).

Which features its very own rainbow poop volcano (“collecting poop energy from all over the world as it prepares to erupt“, according to the brochure…); a ‘draw your own poop’ section; an arcade dedicated to all things faecal matter; and an offshoot room where all the kids are worked up into a giddy frenzy of screaming ‘UNKOOOOOO!!!!’ at the top of their voices every 5 seconds or so (as if they needed any encouragement…!).

And which, at the end, has you exit the building via a gaping, anthropomorphic (not to mention vaguely menacing-looking) toilet. Almost as if – through this 30 minute transformational experience of frenzied, disorienting, turd-inspired noise / madness / colour / sheer and utter insanity – you yourself have now become the poo. It’s actually all quite meta really, when you start to think about it…

In short, the Poop Museum was everything I’d hoped for and more – and I know you’ll want to see some of the pics. I did think the inclusion of the cherry blossom (a subtle nod to the season, if you like) was a particularly classy touch here… 😉 .

Anyhoo, that’s holiday presents for the kids sorted from the gift shop, at the very least!

Emerging back to reality for now, another big plus of the Poop Museum was its location over in sunny Tokyo Bay, which I’d reached earlier that afternoon via Japan’s equivalent to London’s DLR (though unfortunately I didn’t get to be ‘driver’ on this occasion… 😦 ).

In fact – even without the bonus presence of the PooMoo – Tokyo Bay definitely represents my favourite part of city so far. This was in part due to its wide waterfront cityscapes, sunny vistas and the generally more relaxed atmosphere here – in comparison to the frenetic pace of Tokyo downtown, at any rate (though, in fairness, most places would fall into that category!). This being said, the fact of the random giant robot and replica Statue of Liberty also situated here (for reasons I could only ever hazard a guess at…) certainly did no harm to my positive first impressions of the place either, I suppose…

Anyhoo, fast forward to later in the day – and turns out I’m not doing at all well today on the organised tour front (a timely reminder as to why I usually avoid this type of thing like the plague in the first place!).

In short, I had booked a small group night-time walk through the bars and food stands of Shinjuku’s hidden back alleys for this evening, which I thought looked like fun. Not because I couldn’t easily seek these spots out for myself, of course – but more just with a view to the sociability factor here, given the fact I’m flying solo for this 3 week trip. I’d had this item booked a while now, and had been getting various reminder emails right up to the day prior – so was admittedly a bit taken aback when, in the event, absolutely no one or nothing turned up at the designated meeting spot (and, yes, I did double and triple check I was definitely in the right place at the right time on the right date!), with no return contact at the time or since… I’m putting it down to a very uncharacteristic lapse in organisation from the usually meticulous Japanese (that or the operation in question has very suddenly gone out of business…). Which means I’ll now be progressing a refund request on both this morning and this evening’s activities as a result…

So there you have it – shit served three ways: “sumo”, Poo Museum and tour no-show… 😉

In all seriousness, it was only a little bit shit on the latter front though – and I just ended up making my own fun* instead! Before too long, I’d ended up parking myself in one of the teeny tiny little bars that collectively make up Tokyo’s Golden Gai area – and with room for only about 8 people along the counter, I soon got chatting to fellow guests (a mix of both fellow tourists and locals), and even took turns singing a bit of karaoke with them too…. Tragically, there was no Eminem on the song list (only about 30 songs worth) this time round – so had to make do with Yesterday by The Beatles. Which is likely why I look just about as pained here singing it as others must have been listening!).

* Disclaimer: By ‘fun’, I of course – for the moment – mean of the moderate, low-key, sober variety, whereby one nurses a single non-alcoholic beer for 90 minutes and is safely tucked up in bed by ten.

After this diverting little interlude, I then had a bit of nose about all the many and various little ‘hole in the wall’ food joints up and down the nearby Omoide Yokacho (otherwise affectionately known as “Piss Alley”), before grabbing some pork ramen at one of these along the way (in a place so “local” that no English was spoken or written here, so ended up just communicating by pointing at the soup – which did the job in fairness!).

Which just about left time for a final wander around central Shinjuku by night, before hopping on the metro and heading back to Shibuya for the night and to bed (where – 3 hours later – I find myself still writing up this entry, rather than catching up on last night’s missed sleep… 😉 ).

But that’s it – am done for now. That’s it for now after another manic instalment – will check in again in another day or two’s time…

Sayonara till then from me!