SUMO!

I saw Sumos!! They're big.

Tuesday I went down to Tokyo on the night bus. It left at 12:50am and got there at 6:00am. The ride was horrible, I only slept an hour or so out of the five hours it took to get there. I had quite a shocking awakening when I arrived as well. When I got on the bus it was dark, of course, and I took a seat next to this person wearing a red flowery top, long pointy white shoes, and long hair. I thought I was sitting next to a woman but when we got to the station at Tokyo I discovered it was a man, oops. Moral of the story: Japanese fashion is tricky.

After I got there I went straight to the fish market. It was crazy! Its so busy there, people everywhere, and if you don't get out of the way they will run you over and you'll end up face down in muddy fish gut muck. Lemme tell you, there is some strange stuff that comes out of the sea. Anyway, around 7:00, I had fresh fish for breakfast, oishii! and then headed to Ginza for a walk through one of the gardens across from the Imperial Palace. It was so beautiful. I got to see a turtle chase a cat, yes you read that right, but you can reread it if you want.

After that it was over to the Yebisu beer museum for a quick tour and refreshments. It was pretty cool there, they had this video about a beer fairy getting captured from a farmer by an evil jester, or at least that was my interpretation, it was all in Japanese, go figure. The beer was excellent. They have one called Black that tastes like coffee.

At about 1:00 I made it over to Sumo town. The whole area around the arena is everything Sumo. Its a really funky little area. Inside the stadium the first level is all "box" seating, which is just sitting on the floor on cushions surrounded by metal poles. Thats where we sat. On the second level there are chairs and its so so far away. Anyway, I was there for about four hours and... yeah... I saw sumo. Its very ceremonious and a lot of the wrestlers are pretty humorous. I took lots of pictures and they will be up soon. The best part was the very last match. Asa Shoru, the champion, was up and he and his opponent were dragging out the whole stretching and grunting and crowd working process when all of a sudden they collided and after a few seconds Asa was thrown out of the ring and the whole arena went insane. Everyone on the first level began flinging their cushions onto the dohyo (ring) where the winner stood and did his victory posing and flexing. Meanwhile, there is a mad wave of red cushions coming down over the crowd. Old ladies are getting knocked in the head and people are tripping and the ushers are going hectic trying to collect all the flying pillows. Apparently its tradition to throw your cushion if the champion is beaten. It was all a bit shocking really and then it was over and everyone was piling out.

Once that was over I ate traditional sumo food at a small Japanese restaurant near the station. It was seafood nabe (stew) and it was flipping fantastic. So good, and you cook it yourself at the table, fun and flavor, can't beat that.

All said, it was a great sumo adventure. Up next, hiking Mt. Bandai.