Full speed ahead towards Tokyo 2020 (or a ski resort!) The long nose of a Shinkansen bullet train
Hello everyone! It’s already mid-February and in 162 days the Olympic Games will start! We are now in full swing in the Tokyo 2020 office and I will very soon receive a warning for doing too many extra hours!
The visits of competition managers, FEI, TD’s and others are now increasing and it’s certainly good to see some friendly faces every now and then. Course builder David Evans and his team will come to Tokyo at the end of the month to finish the cross country course and I’m really forward to seeing all the jumps and the carvings.
The construction process in Sea Forest is also at a very good point and the island is slowly transforming into a very special Olympic venue; the Equestrian Park is also almost ready, the Final Warm up and Final Holding Area will be completed in April and, after that, just a few small adjustments will make the venue ready to start hosting horses in July.
The last two projects I had to work on were the muck removal plan in both venues and the toilets location in Sea Forest. I’m a 100% sure my parents are very proud of my capacity of managing crap in many forms …..
As the amount of work will now increase exponentially, I’m trying to enjoy my free time.
In mid-January we went to see a sumo match and it was a real cultural experience. The Ryogoku Kokugikan is an amazing arena and it will be the Olympic venue for boxing; the sumo wrestlers are very similar to horses: they live in “stables” and they are paid by owners.
The most successful wrestlers make about $10,000 per month and, depending on the number of sponsors a match has, they can win quite a good amount of money. The last match of the day when we went had a total prize of $18,000$ and it lasted less than two seconds! (Yes, I do agree with you. I’d really like to be paid for being fat and wearing a G-string!)
Ski-ing in Gala-Yuzawa
Last week we went skiing in Gala-Yuzawa. It is amazing where you can go with a shinkansen (bullet train) in just one hour from Tokyo - I never thought I would ski in Japan. The organization of this ski resort is impressive and is the perfect place for a day trip away from the big city.
As a native Italian, I feel very embarrassed to say that I just found out, after almost eight months in Tokyo, that there are two Eataly stores near Tokyo Station. I absolutely love Eataly and when I was in Rome I was there at least once a week. If the pizza will be good enough my life in Tokyo is definitely going to change for the better!
It’s very exciting that the eventing season will start very soon in Europe! So looking forward to knowing who will ride in Tokyo!
Sayonara!
さよなら!
カロラ
Carola
