SUMO!

Sumo wrestling tournaments are held six times a year - three times in Tokyo, once in Osaka (and the other two times in other cities). Osaka is just an hour away by train, so when the sumo tournament came there, it was an easy decision to go check it out! There was a considerable range of ticket prices - from hundreds of dollars to about $30 dollars! We went for the $50 seats and they were great!
Luckily, we got a pamplet in English with our ticket, explaining some of the rituals and rules of sumo. The wrestling match part happens very quickly - a wrestler loses if he's forced out of the ring or if any part of his body touches the ground (except of course for his feet). But the rituals were a little harder to understand. There was lot of throwing rice and leg lifting and squatting and glaring. All part of the build-up, trying to intimidate an opponent.
Here is the procession of wrestlers into the ring. The man in the middle in the brown kimono is the referee.


Once we figured out the basics, we began to try to predict the winner of each match. We judged each wrestler on things like height, flabbiness, and control during the leg lifts. Once we had a system figured out, we started betting with each other - only 10 yen bets, but they added to the fun of the game! Of course, we didn't really know who we were betting on, so we just cheered "go blue" (for the guy in the blue loincloth). We had a great time and I was disappointed when the clock struck 6 pm and it was all over (prompt like everything else in Japan).







The rest of my photos from the tournament are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sarainjapan/15Sumo
And here's a video I took of the action.


And as always, I encourage you to check out wikipedia if you want to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo