As promised, my update regarding yesterday's
sumo tournament adventure. Sumo is a very interesting sport to me. On it's face the sport itself is a face paced exciting duel of strength, skill, and balance between two overweight men. However, below the surface it is all that and more. It is a sport that requires a sick amount of grace, and to be the best,
a Yokozuna, you must possess all that. It's interesting watch a match because the battle itself is over quickly, often in less than a minute. In some of the physical battles, one wrestler would easily dominate the other and either remove them from the ring, or force them to touch ground with something other than their feet, ending the match. In other matches, more evenly skilled competitors would entangle until one could exploit a weakness in the others. The real interest however is in many of the rituals that take place before the match even begins.
The wrestlers are first announced through a traditional singer. They would then go through a number of rituals, and then face each other. They would squat and face, return to their corners, go through rituals, and return several times. In many ways, this seems to serve two functions. First, it serves a ritualistic and religious function, purifying the ring. Second, it seems to be a silent, and graceful trash talking. The competitors don't begin until they are ready. They glare each other down, letting the other know silently who the top dog...or cow... is. And then, in a flash they begin!
So let's go with my experience, eh. Getting around in Japan is really interesting. Most cities have a unified transportation system, such as DC's metro. Japan in contrast has three rail lines. JR, Toei, and Tokyo Metro (I think those are the names). Normally, I take the Metro, specifically the Namboku line. I probably already wrote about this, but hey, this is J's experience in Tokyo. It'll hopefully be helpful to you friends already here, or who will follow me (just as I followed the Queen, Ladi). To get to
Ryogoku Station I had to take the JR. I'm slightly less familiar with JR, but it works just as well. The stations seem to be a little more rough and tumble, as it is more like a regular train station, rather than those ultraslick, ultra clean subway stations. The ride is cheap and quick though, and combined with the other methods of transportation, Tokyo is extremely easy and cheap to get around. Later on in the day, I purchased a
Suica card. Frankly, this card ROCKS. In some ways, it's just like the DC metro card. However, it can be used for different things. Such as today, I used it at a vending machine. The Awesome! Back on topic, Ryogoku station takes me to a very interesting, if not pricey section of Tokyo. First and foremost, this area houses
Ryogoku Kokugikan, the indoor arena in which sumo tournaments are held. Also I'm going to need to return to this area to check out the
Edo-Tokyo Museum. Cool! Cool cool. Ryogoku Kokugikan is very cool. Outside, there were lots of old style
Nobori, or flags, and some cool towers. Later on, drumming would come from these towers.
Also, outside was a monk, begging for money. I gave him a few hundred yen, then asked him if I could take his photo, to which he obviously allowed. Very cool old vibe to the place in general. The place had a lot of neat paintings both outside and inside, so we played the full tourist game, and snapped off a few photos. See above for one of them.
Also present were LUCKY BOX's. That just amuses me. What are they here for? Well, there is a raffle for free tickets to the next day's tournament/next tournament! I of course lost, or you'd be hearing more about it.
Eventually, we found our way to our seats in the ever-loving nosebleed section. In all honesty, it wasn't that bad. it allowed us to easily see the full match/stadium.
If we were closer, we might not be able to see the other side of the arena, and if we were in the front row, we'd be in danger of flying sumo wrestlers thrown from the ring. As I've said, the inside is very cool. Check out the photo. Doesn't that thing make you want to have a traditional Jewish wedding? No? Me neither. Ew.
The first couple hours consisted of the lower/middle ranked sumo wrestlers. It was a very relaxed scene, so I didn't feel like I would be missing anything if I went to the concession stand. Ah, the bounty there. Yummy stuff is sold at sumo tournaments.
Although hotdogs are sold, in Japan, Gyoza Dogs are sold. These things have meat in them, but are in a bun-like covering. To be honest, they're actually quite tasty. I'm glad they don't taste like hot dogs. I think that would be a bit weird. Instead, they taste like a giant dumpling (like I have for dinner most nights). Yummo. Also, they had something that rocked my world seven ways to Sunday...STADIUM SAKE! Ok, it isn't called that, but it's cold sake served in a paper cup. Yes that's blasphemy, I know, but come on! You can't tell me that sitting back, and drinking sake in a stadium doesn't rock the casbah!
After a few hours, the big leaguers finally came out. Following ritual, they circled the arena, and assembled in rank order. The yokozuna has his own entrance, so this was everything all the way up to Ozeki rank. These guys are really amazing to watch. Yes, on one hand, they are huge. On the other hand, they have a real fucking ninja grace about them. To move like these big guys do, takes so much skill. One of them, while doing their foot stamps, did a standing vertical split. Sure we can all picture some skinny dude doing that, but a fucking sumo? Holy fuck! Amazing! Their matches were also quite good. As they were more evenly balanced, they would use more advanced looking techniques to defeat their opponents. Truly awesome!
Finally, the Yokozuna entered, complete with his people. Very cool sight to see. Currently, there is only one Yokozuna. I wonder if this will change soon. It's a good show that's put on, and impressive to watch in action. After the final match, a lower ranked wrestler comes out and performs what is known as a "bow dance" to signal the end of the day's tournament.
After the tournament, Joe, Amanda, Juliana, Bennett, Renee, and myself went out for dinner. Side note, slightly before that, some drunk off his ass Japanese guy came up to me, and asked if I was German. I'm not, as you know. Essentially throughout his drunk talk, whether he was meaning to insult me or not, he basically called me a sumo. I was polite. Really polite. I didn't kill him, hit him, tell him to die or anything. I took it with a smile, and simply remembered the fact that I have a larger penis and he will never satisfy his wife. Ever. The bunch of us walked around the Ryogoku area, but the places looked either too expensive, or too packed. Eventually we found a nice place near the station (go figure). Clearly the place was not normally frequented by Gaijin. Hence some of the nasty remarks I heard on the way in. Fuck them. Fuck them and their toilets. The food was good there. I got some warm sake (that makes 2 stadium sakes, plus this sake. Earlier in the night, I also got comrades Juliana and Amanda a cup of sake), and a yummy soba dish. Yosh!
After dinner, the bunch of us split up. I took the JR back to my area, and detoured to Namcoland. Namcoland...it's cool. In some ways, it's like a traditional arcade. Some really cool things there, such as a game for traditional Japanese drumming,
Taiko. In other ways, it's like a light
pachinko parlor with some gambling machines. After watching some dudes win at the crane machine, I decided to say "fuck it" and gave it a shot myself. Now I know what you're all thinking, these things are a scam. And yes, in America, they are. However that doesn't seem to be the case here. It take skill, and yes, some Yen to win. I concentrated on the pocky game. This game offered a prize of three boxes of mousse pocky. The price was 100Yen a play. Not bad. It took me about 5 or 6 tries to win the first time. It wasn't as much about picking up the damn thing as it is about knocking it off. I played the good guy, and gave two of the boxes to a couple of school girls who had been cheering me on. One of them had an eyepatch on so I wished her a quick recovery. And then later I tried again, and won in two shots. yosh! I'll get some of the better prizes yet!
After that, I went home, and well, that's about it for last night. Can't think of anything else.
I'll admit, I was rather impressed by Yebisu Garden Place. It was really well done, even by Tokyo standards, with some cool buildings. The place was a child of the neat beer industry of Japan. Yummo once again. I really liked the nice outdoor scene they had there. More on that later.
I went up into Yebisu Garden Tower to the 38th floor where the restaurant, Chibo, was located. From the 38th, there was an awesome view of the Tokyo Skyline! Suddenly, in silly Japanglish style speech, I heard a loud "Luck-ee!" And behold Abby appeared! Somehow we managed to locate each other! YAY! We took some time to admire the awesome view of the Tokyo skyline and then headed in for our Okonomiyaki lunch!
