Things to Do When Your Wallet is Missing

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DAY 339: People came from the left, right, north, south, east, west, northwest and north north west.  Everywhere I turned there was another person speeding along on two legs trying to get somewhere.  I stood in the middle of the random chaos and just observed with no rush of my own, spinning around and shooting them all with my camera.  From above it probably looked like a game of Asteroids or something.

I was at Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, arguably the busiest in the world, a place I went at Liz’s suggestion to experience the concentrated one-hour Japanese morning rush, much more hectic that afternoon rush, which was spread out over four hours.  Commuters poured in from different train lines, kept orderly by red stick-toting, white glove-wearing conductors on the platforms, as they went to their offices in the Skyscraper District or to the nearby architectural marvel, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building—the other thing I went to see that morning.

I HAD HEARD SOMEWHERE that Japan is so crime-free that if you were to leave your wallet out somewhere, you could go back an hour later and it’d still be there with all its contents, because it’s not in the Japanese upbringing to take it—in fact, most people would go out of their way to give it back to you.  As an experiment I bought a second wallet at the 100 Yen Store (A Dollar Store)—where I resisted as much as I could to jokingly ask the cashier “How much is this?”—and filled it up with a frequent flyer card, a passport photo of myself, one US dollar and 2000 yen (about $20).  Liz had a mid-day break from her job as a corporate trainer and English teacher and met me at the Excelsior Coffee shop near the Tamachi station on the JR line. 

“Okay,” I whispered.  “The wallet is on my chair.  I’m just going to leave it there.” After a couple of coffees, we just got up and left like normal people.

I figured if the wallet would still be there an hour later, why not a whole day?  And so my plans for the day were to do things to kill time before I went back to the cafe that night to see if my wallet was still there with the $22 worth in items.

LIZ HAD SOME TIME TO KILL before her next training appointment and came with me to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, established in 1993 to “preserve the historical heritage of Edo-Tokyo” (according to their pamphlet).  Nearby, we watched a couple of juggling buskers that impressed me by rolling a square tea box around the top of a spinning umbrella, amongst other feats.  “Arigato Gozaimaaasu!” they’d say after every feat.

Up the curvaceous escalator that didn’t stop when it leveled off mid-way, Liz and I entered the museum.  The fairly large exhibition hall, right next to the Sumo stadium went through a chronological history from the ancient feudal days of Edo to the modern post-WWII days of Mega-Tokyo, using small models and life-sized reconstructions of buildings and moving shrines. 

“Wow look at her [big] shoes,” I said, referring to a statue of a Kabuki theater actress.

“Uh, that would be a guy,” Liz corrected me.  She went off back to the office, leaving me to my own devices—with a bunch of much bigger guys.

RIGHT NEXT TO THE EDO-TOKYO MUSEUM was something larger than life.  Larger than my life at least.  It was the Ryogoku, the big Tokyo sumo arena, and it was just my luck that the big Grand Tournament in Tokyo coincided with my travels.  You really have to a sport like sumo wrestling; I mean, what other sport does training actually involve the possibility of eating two pizza pies, a whole chicken and a gallon of gravy with pats of rich creamy butter on top—all before filling up on bread before the main course arrives.

I wasn’t a Sumo wrestler myself, but before making my entrance into the arena, I decided to bulk up to get into the mood.  Right across the street there was just the place to do so.

“This one or this one?” the cashier asked me, pointing to two different options on the menu on the counter.

“This one,” I said, pointing to the one with the bigger red box.  “Super-size me.”

SUMO WRESTLING IS NOT JUST AN EXCUSE to get men who could never land a basketball marketing deal a chance to shine under arena spotlights.  Japan’s national sport is actually rooted in Shinto Buddhism, when the sport was actually a ceremonial ritual to appease the gods for a good harvest each year.  The excitement of it transcended religion though and became an entertaining spectator sport of fat guys slapping each other silly and get their revenge for being teased as “the fat kid” as a child—to other guys who probably had the same experience.  Nowadays, professional sumo wrestling involves a league that travels from city to city in Japan where the best, brightest and heaviest rikishis (wrestlers) compete for the title of Musashifuji (grand champion).

I had a general unreserved-seat pass, which meant that I could sit anywhere there was an empty seat in the nosebleed section—while others that played more for reserved nosebleed seats officially had to stay in the same seat, even if it was bad.  I got to the arena before seats filled up though, giving me time to see the gigantic warriors enter the arena gates to a crowd of spectators cheering them on.  Alone or in small groups at a time, they came in their kimonos and wooden slippers like gladiators the shapes of panda bears draped in silk.  Underneath the glamour, sumo wrestlers were just regular guys though; before the tournament, I had seen them around just running errands, some even on bicycle.

Early afternoon was for bouts of the Juryo wrestlers, the first division which not many people cared about.  For me it was exciting anyway being my first live sumo experience—and the fact that I could sneak down closer to the dohyo (ring) for a while to watch the matches. 

The object of the game is simple:  when the match starts you are to use all your body weight to attack the other guy and either knock him down (without falling yourself), or out of the boundaries of the inner circle of the ring.  If you are lucky your opponent will fall off the dohyo and embarrass himself even more than the fact that he is wearing nothing more than a big baby diaper.

A typical match went like this:


  1. The guys size each other up (picture above) by staring at each other and then slapping their own asses. 
  2. The guys decide they aren’t ready and go into the corner to stretch some more.  There is more slapping of the asses.
  3. The guys go back and size each other up again (after another couple of ass slaps), this time stretching their legs out and stomping their feet like they’re doing a very bad line dance.
  4. The guys go back to their corner to stretch and then back to starting position, this time spreading ceremonial salt on the floor.
  5. Go time! The guys are released towards each other and either start a really rapid bitch-slapping contest, or grab each other in tight wrestling holds—sometimes for four or five minutes—trying to shove the other down.  This second choice wouldn’t be recommended for non-sumo wrestlers, especially for someone like Calista Flockhart.  Can you imagine someone like Calista Flockhart in a sumo match?  She’d be knocked over like a toothpick by a bowling ball.  Anyway, the match ends when one of the guys is knocked over or outside the inner circle.  In the event of that might be a draw, the gyojis (referees) gather in the circle to determine the winner of the match.
  6. A winner is declared by the gyoji who announces the winner by “knighting” him with a ceremonial fan.  The winner has a smug look on his face like he is “the man.” He leaves the ring and pats himself on the ass.


After a while the matches got a bit repetitive—except for the “interludes” placed in the day-long “ceremony,” including the prancing of sponsors around the ring, the introduction of new wrestlers, and the going to the bathroom because of all the beer I had.  In the later part of the day when the Yokozuna wrestlers (grand champions) entered the ring, things got a little interesting.  The crowd really fired it up in the arena to cheer on their favorite wrestlers, much like in WWE but without the signs and foam (middle) fingers.  One wrestler, who I take it was the public favorite, had a sort of catch gimmick like a WWE wrestler:  when he spread the ceremonial salt on the ring, he’d throw a whole pile out, making the crowd go wild. 

At the end of the last series of matches, a winner was declared, who performed the yumitori-shiki, the winner’s ceremonial dance with a big bow to show off his victory and to wish the audience to come the next day for more.

IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME I left the sumo matches (and the monk outside) and I immediately went back to the Excelsior Cafe near the Tamachi station to see if my wallet was still there with all the money.  The seat I sat in was occupied with no trace of the wallet, so I went to the cashier.

“Saifu o nakushimashita,” I said with help from my phrasebook.  The girl gave me a confused look.  “Uh, my wallet.  I lost it.”

“What color?”

“Blue.”

She pulled it out of a drawer and all the money was inside too.  In the end, it wasn’t such an interesting experiment at all—I should have known nothing would have been missing.  I went on my way to explore Shinjuku at night and then to Liz’s place, with my wallet in my back pocket not only holding my money, but keeping my ass protected from any surprise sumo ass-slaps—well, on one cheek at least.


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This blog entry about the events of Wednesday, September 22, 2004 was originally posted on September 29, 2004 on the blog, "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World (Or Until Money Runs Out, Whichever Comes First)," hosted by BootsnAll.com. It is one of over 500 entries that chronicled a trip around the world from October 2003 to March 2005, encompassing travel through thirty-seven countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was this blog that "started it all," where Erik evolved and honed his style of travel blogging. (It starts to come into focus around the time he arrives in Africa.)

Praised and recommended by USA Today, RickSteves.com, and readers of BootsnAll and Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, The Global Trip blog was selected by the editors of PC Magazine for the "Top 100 Sites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without" (in the travel category) in 2005.





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