STOP... Sumo time!
Who knew that fat men wearing thong diapers and pushing each other could be so much fun! (And NO, I wasn't drunk!) A few weeks ago I headed up to Fukuoka, (the biggest city on Kyushu) to see my first ever LIVE sumo tournament! I've watched lots of sumo on TV since I arrived here, but it's a completely different experience to watch it live! Here's my sumo adventure:
The day started off at the ungodly hour of 6 AM, (this was after I didn't make it to bed until 3 in the morning. Stupid people having birthday parties before I have to go to sumo! Gah!) when I dragged myself out of bed to finish packing and getting ready for the weekend. It's a 6 hour drive to Fukuoka, so we had to leave early! I ended up driving with my friends Brian and Anna, (I didn't have to drive THANK GOODNESS!) and the 6 hours actually went by really fast! We were chatting, occasionally cursing at Adam (the guy whose car we were following) for forgetting that we were driving a kei-car and zooming around slow moving cars, leaving us in the dust. We made it to the city at around 12:30-1 and went straight to the arena where the fat men would be playing sumo. We had decided to pay for a box, so we were thinking that we'd have great seats, super close the arena with some chairs etc. Man were we wrong! The Japanese version of an expensive box seat is a little square, separated from the little squares next to it by a metal bar, and with 4 little cushions on the floor to sit on. At first I thought that I'd made a terrible mistake, sitting in that little space until 6pm?! You've got to be fuc*ing joking! However, once the wrestling started, it turned out to be so entertaining that I forgot about our little box! We were also able to get up a lot to go take pictures of the sumo guys, etc, so the movement helped a lot.
Now, I knew next to nothing about sumo when I got to the place, I really just went because it seemed like a good experience. It turns out that there's a lot of skill involved in sumo! It's not just fat men pushing each other, there's a lot of technique involved. For example, we saw this amazing match where one man looked like he had the other guy beat... except for the fact that he couldn't seem to get him out of the ring! The guy had his toes on the line, his body bent like a bow, and seemed to know something about the laws of physics that the rest of us didn't because he wasn't going A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E! It was amazing! I thought that he'd stumble out of the ring at any moment, yet he turned it around and won! SUGOI! Amazing! I was shouting myself hoarse, and these were just the lower level guys. There are different levels of sumo players, the higher ones are awarded ranks and are super amazing. (To read more, check out this site http://www.scgroup.com/sumo/faq/index.html) Anyhoo, the type guys in sumo are given the liftetime title of Yokozuna... it cannot be taken away even if they lose. (If a yokozuna starts to lose a lot, he's expected to retire.) There's only one yokozuna currently, a Mongolian who name is Asashoryu. He's only 26 and he's freaking amazing! We saw him fight this HUGE Bulgarian sumo and he just schooled him, threw him down in less then 20 secs. S-u-g-o-i! We also got to see Asa perform the "Bow dance" because, after beating the Bulgarian, he'd won the Basho... no other guy could win enough matches to overtake him. We got to throw our cushions too, a custom that goes back a long way apparently, in celebration. It was so fun!!! SUMO ROCKS!
The rest of the day was a bit of an adeventure. My friend Wai had taken charge of finding us hotel rooms, only the 4 girls going needed them since the boys had girlfriends with family in the city, but she'd neglected to make reservations. The last time she'd been to Fukuoka, she'd found this great small hotel that was usually easy to get into. However, the fact that it was a 4 day holiday AND sumo tournament made it slightly more difficult. To make a long story short, we ended up eating dinner with Adam and Akiko and then taking a train back to Kumamoto City where we figured we'd quickly find a hotel for the night. Alas! It was not to be so easy! The first hotel we went to was FULL as well! We ended up having to stay in this seedy, creepy love hotel! (Note: Love Hotels are pretty popular over here. Basically there's no receptionist or anything. You push a button to choose a room, pay for the room like you would buy pop from a vending machine, and you're set. We saw a typical couple leaving the hotel as we were entering... the man must have been at least 60, the girl couldn't have been over 25 and her hair... well, you get the picture!) By creepy I mean CREEPY! We were freaking locked into the room! The next morning we had to punch buttons and make frantic phone calls because we couldn't open the door! Sheesh, that place was AWFUL! We did manage to make it out eventually, so we grabbed some food and got on the train to Misumi (the last train stop where Anna had parked her car). All in all, it was an awesome time! I do feel compelled to add a warning to whoever decides to visit Japan: please visit but avoid love hotels AT ALL COSTS! PLEASE! That place was just nasty! I'd also encourage everyone to see sumo if you ever have the chance, it's awesome and fun and I can promise that you'll have fun! :-) Remember: it's more then fat men in thong diapers but, honestly... isn't that enough!? ;-)
Who knew that fat men wearing thong diapers and pushing each other could be so much fun! (And NO, I wasn't drunk!) A few weeks ago I headed up to Fukuoka, (the biggest city on Kyushu) to see my first ever LIVE sumo tournament! I've watched lots of sumo on TV since I arrived here, but it's a completely different experience to watch it live! Here's my sumo adventure:
The day started off at the ungodly hour of 6 AM, (this was after I didn't make it to bed until 3 in the morning. Stupid people having birthday parties before I have to go to sumo! Gah!) when I dragged myself out of bed to finish packing and getting ready for the weekend. It's a 6 hour drive to Fukuoka, so we had to leave early! I ended up driving with my friends Brian and Anna, (I didn't have to drive THANK GOODNESS!) and the 6 hours actually went by really fast! We were chatting, occasionally cursing at Adam (the guy whose car we were following) for forgetting that we were driving a kei-car and zooming around slow moving cars, leaving us in the dust. We made it to the city at around 12:30-1 and went straight to the arena where the fat men would be playing sumo. We had decided to pay for a box, so we were thinking that we'd have great seats, super close the arena with some chairs etc. Man were we wrong! The Japanese version of an expensive box seat is a little square, separated from the little squares next to it by a metal bar, and with 4 little cushions on the floor to sit on. At first I thought that I'd made a terrible mistake, sitting in that little space until 6pm?! You've got to be fuc*ing joking! However, once the wrestling started, it turned out to be so entertaining that I forgot about our little box! We were also able to get up a lot to go take pictures of the sumo guys, etc, so the movement helped a lot.
Now, I knew next to nothing about sumo when I got to the place, I really just went because it seemed like a good experience. It turns out that there's a lot of skill involved in sumo! It's not just fat men pushing each other, there's a lot of technique involved. For example, we saw this amazing match where one man looked like he had the other guy beat... except for the fact that he couldn't seem to get him out of the ring! The guy had his toes on the line, his body bent like a bow, and seemed to know something about the laws of physics that the rest of us didn't because he wasn't going A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E! It was amazing! I thought that he'd stumble out of the ring at any moment, yet he turned it around and won! SUGOI! Amazing! I was shouting myself hoarse, and these were just the lower level guys. There are different levels of sumo players, the higher ones are awarded ranks and are super amazing. (To read more, check out this site http://www.scgroup.com/sumo/faq/index.html) Anyhoo, the type guys in sumo are given the liftetime title of Yokozuna... it cannot be taken away even if they lose. (If a yokozuna starts to lose a lot, he's expected to retire.) There's only one yokozuna currently, a Mongolian who name is Asashoryu. He's only 26 and he's freaking amazing! We saw him fight this HUGE Bulgarian sumo and he just schooled him, threw him down in less then 20 secs. S-u-g-o-i! We also got to see Asa perform the "Bow dance" because, after beating the Bulgarian, he'd won the Basho... no other guy could win enough matches to overtake him. We got to throw our cushions too, a custom that goes back a long way apparently, in celebration. It was so fun!!! SUMO ROCKS!
The rest of the day was a bit of an adeventure. My friend Wai had taken charge of finding us hotel rooms, only the 4 girls going needed them since the boys had girlfriends with family in the city, but she'd neglected to make reservations. The last time she'd been to Fukuoka, she'd found this great small hotel that was usually easy to get into. However, the fact that it was a 4 day holiday AND sumo tournament made it slightly more difficult. To make a long story short, we ended up eating dinner with Adam and Akiko and then taking a train back to Kumamoto City where we figured we'd quickly find a hotel for the night. Alas! It was not to be so easy! The first hotel we went to was FULL as well! We ended up having to stay in this seedy, creepy love hotel! (Note: Love Hotels are pretty popular over here. Basically there's no receptionist or anything. You push a button to choose a room, pay for the room like you would buy pop from a vending machine, and you're set. We saw a typical couple leaving the hotel as we were entering... the man must have been at least 60, the girl couldn't have been over 25 and her hair... well, you get the picture!) By creepy I mean CREEPY! We were freaking locked into the room! The next morning we had to punch buttons and make frantic phone calls because we couldn't open the door! Sheesh, that place was AWFUL! We did manage to make it out eventually, so we grabbed some food and got on the train to Misumi (the last train stop where Anna had parked her car). All in all, it was an awesome time! I do feel compelled to add a warning to whoever decides to visit Japan: please visit but avoid love hotels AT ALL COSTS! PLEASE! That place was just nasty! I'd also encourage everyone to see sumo if you ever have the chance, it's awesome and fun and I can promise that you'll have fun! :-) Remember: it's more then fat men in thong diapers but, honestly... isn't that enough!? ;-)
posted by VW | 8:37 PM
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