Did somebody say Sumo?

So yesterday we went to go see Sumo wrestling. I had heard a bunch of conflicting opinions on Sumo, ranging from "totally exciting" to "boring fat men" to "what's Sumo?", but I was destined to find out for myself first hand what it was like.

Before going to Sumo, however, we needed to get into the Sumo mindset, which meant literally eating what the Sumo eat, which is, as pictured, a big pot o' stuff. The best part is that is about 1/3 of the size of the actual meals these guys get fed. So after that touristy culture experience, it was time to get down to the real thing.

First, of course, we had the nosebleed seats. Now you'd think that TUJ would get us all seats together, but alas, we were pretty much all spread around the arena in single seats. I sat next to this mother and son who just screamed out the names of varioud wrestlers all afternoon. The arena was probably about 1/2 the size of Madison Square Garden, with regular seats for the upper areas and, yes, tatami-style seats for the lower seats. I'd think it'd be the other way around, because I can't sit on those things for more than 20 minutes without throwing a fit.

So we got there when the amateurs were still going, so it wasn't all too crowded, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. Before each bout, some guy walks onto the stage and blesses the ring and the rikishi (wrestlers) and says something about no grabbing below the belt and stuff like that, and then the match begins.

BUT WAIT NOT YET. The rikishi get 3 or 4 minutes, depending on their rank, to basically crouch over, stare each other down, and then walk away while slapping their thighs. Doesn't sound too intimidating to me, but I guess it works. Finally, the actually bout begins and lasts, oh, about 10 seconds and that's it. Another 10 blessings, etc. etc. and we're done. Pretty boring, huh?
Well it really got cool when the good rikishi went to wrestle, because everyone was cheering out one name or the other and jeering and stuff and these guys were just totally massive and amazing. As the matches got higher in status, another peculiar thing happened -- a bunch of teenaged Japanese guys would actually walk around the ring before the match with 15 or so advertisements for various companies. Quite traditional, don't you think?

The coolest part of all was to see the Yokozuna fight. He's the #1 rikishi in all of Japan. This guy was the REAL DEAL. And he was facing one of the lower ranked rikishi. I'd be scared out of my MIND if I had to face this guy.

So all in all, it was quite cool, especially the atmosphere. I mean there were little kids, families, older men, older women, foreigners -- pretty much people from all walks of life came together to watch fat men bump bellies.

Today we ventured to the Electronics District and pretty much saw a bunch of nerds drooling over these Japanese women dressed as Anime characters. Weird stuff. They had these 10 floor arcades as well, which were unreal. Outside one of them, this guy was playing this Taigo drum game that is kind of like Dance Dance Revolution, but with this huge Taigo drum. There must have been a crowd of 50 people watching him go. He was amazing.

Also, I did laundry today and found out the dryers in the dorm are so bad, it's literally like if I held it up to my mouth and blew hot air on a shirt for 60 minutes. My room currently looks like a clothesline because I've basically just hung all of my stuff up all over. You'd think Japan would have super dryers, huh? I mean in a lot of the bathrooms they have these little compartments that you put your hands in and it dries them in literally 5 seconds. But such are the ironies of the Japanese people.

Jaa mata nee!