here, there, everywhere

When two sumo wrestlers randomly walked into the same bar as us on Saturday night, I did something I have never done before and will probably never do again, and asked our Japanese friends to see if it was cool to get a photo together (the other guy in the photo is Scott, one of the previous teachers, who was passing through town). Not only were they cool with it, but the guy of the left even put his yukata back on for the photo. Sometimes I forget how far from home we are, but there's something about a massive sumo wrestler filling up the frame of an izakaya door that instantly reminds you that you're not in California. It was immensely cool (er, pun intended). 

After that was a taste of home, or something like it, at the San Diego bar-slash-surf shop, where Scott is friends with the awesome owner, who has decorated the walls of the bar bathroom with fading photos of his years spent surfing in San Diego in the 70s. It was so much fun to have a night out on the town for the first time in who knows how long, even if staying up too late meant we missed seeing the sumo wrestlers participate in the Crying Baby Festival early the next morning. Oh, well.