Monday, May 11th--Today is our last day in Japan. We decided to go all out and go to a sumo tournament! After Logan and Chris had gone with Dad and his law class, the rest of us regretted not going with them. Sumo wrestling has seasons, and the boys went at the end of the winter season. The spring season wouldn't start in Tokyo until May 10th. Our flight back to America is on May 12th, so the only day we could watch sumo as a family would be May 11th. We were lucky to be able to get enough tickets for all of us for today to watch the oldest organized sport in the world. Considering our family size, tickets were not cheap. But, that's o.k. We can't think of a better way to spend our last day here!
At the metro station next to where sumo is held, there was a display of sumo wrestlers' hand prints. These guys are big time athletes and very famous.
A statue in the metro station.
As we were walking out of the station, we noticed this sumo wrestler going up the escalator. See him in the kimono?
Tayla the Yokozuna
Audra the samurai
Walking toward the sumo arena building
We knew we were close when we could see the tall flags. Each flag has the name of a professional sumo wrestler. You can see Caitlin on the far right.
Here is the building!
There were paintings on the outside walls of the sumo arena.
We loved these cut outs! Audra is on the left and Tayla is on the right, with Logan peeking over the side.
Nathan and Logan. :-)
Even Mom had to get in on this one! Let's give that sumo wrestler a kiss!
This is the shrine next to the arena and is used by wrestlers to pray.
We got here in enough time to watch the semi-pro wrestlers. There aren't many people here yet. Most of the tickets were already sold when we bought ours', so our seats are in the nose bleed section. That's o.k. with us, we can see just fine.
Besides, the floor seats (the most expensive seats) don't look that comfortable. You have only a cushion to sit on. We'd rather have our cushioned seat with a back on the chair to lean back on.
At the beginning, this guy came out to the dohyo and waved this fan around. We wonder if it is to purify it?
Let the wrestling begin!
We settled in to watch big guys wrestle for the next several hours.
Pictures of the yokozunas are around the top of the arena.
Audra and Nathan watching the matches.
Look at that big guy! He's huge!
Can you believe the smaller guy won!?
A lady came by selling treats and Dad bought one of these things for everyone. It had a thin, crunchy crust and was full of ice cream. We haven't had ice cream since we got here (SO, SO expensive!) so the kids devoured them before I could get a picture. At least Nathan posed for me with his ice cream!
Purifying the dohyo with salt before the match.
Then it was time for the professional sumos--the top dogs. They all came out as their name was announced and stood around the ring. The building was now packed with excited onlookers.
We noticed that there was one white guy down there--see him there in the pink? We were excited to cheer on a white wrestler just for something different, but he didn't end up doing too well.
The old ritual of showing your opponents that you don't have any hidden swords. It's just you and your strength.
We were excited for the pros to come out because that meant that we would see the yokozunas--including Hakuho and Terunofuji! Yokozuna is the only permanent rank in sumo. If they start to loose a lot of matches, they are expected to retire because they are then unable to uphold the demanding standards of their position. Since the ranking came into existence several centuries ago, only about 70 men have ever reached the rank of yokozuna. It's a very distinguished honor.
Terunofuji is Christopher's favorite. At first, he liked Hakuho best. But then, he switched to Terunofuji because he started last season as an underdog and worked his way up the ranks to be one of the top yokozunas. In this picture, Terunofuji is doing the famous yokozuna dance where they zigzag their feet and work their way up the white lines. The crowd cheers wildly when they do this.
Next was Hakuho! The rest of us will be rooting for him! We have run into him at the kabuki theatre and caught his lucky soy beans at the Setsubun Festival, so we feel like we have a connection with him.
A close up of Hakuho and his yokozuna belt.
After Hakuho did his dance zigzagging up the white lines, he did a couple of leg slaps--which made the crowd go completely nuts!
The Japanese flag hangs over the dohyo.
The athletes' speed and strength is amazing to watch.
Hakuho is up! And, he's wrestling Terunofuji!
It was an epic battle between the two yokozunas.....it was anybody's guess as to who would win.
But, Hakuho barely won! He's hanging on with everything he has right here to not loose his balance and let his feet slip out of the dohyo.
Yeah--we were all pretty excited to see Hakuho fight and win! All except for Chris, that is.
To end the tournament, this wrestler came out and performed with this bow. It is considered a great honor to be able to do this performance.
He twisted the bow around and around so fast as he did his dance. It was fun to watch.
We had been here for hours, but the time had gone quickly. We loved watching sumo wrestling and cheering on our favorite athletes!
The mass of people as we left the building.
More flags.
A look back at the sumo arena building.
We found this wall in the metro station where we could compare our height to the height of some of the sumo wrestlers. Hakuho's height is the one above Nathan.
As we were riding the metro on our way home, we noticed a sumo wrestler a couple of cars back. He's not a pro, but he is a semi-pro athlete. The kids were shy, but I made them walk with me and we asked him if he would pose for a picture with the kids. He was more than happy to oblige. Audra wasn't too sure she liked the idea of this big stranger holding her.
To give this perfect day a perfect ending, we walked down to the shopping street and grabbed some sushi at the sushi shop and some gyoza at the small grocery store. (Ten fresh gyoza are just 98 yen! They are SO good!)
Our table and chairs have been sold and are gone, so we sat on the floor around our coffee table to eat dinner. That's o.k., it's more Japanese that way. We stuffed ourselves on gyoza and sushi and tried not to cry as we thought about the fact that tonight was our last night in this country.
What a perfect day and a perfect ending to a truly epic, wonderful, life-changing experience!!! Tomorrow, we fly back to America.
Here's what the kids thought about watching sumo wrestling:
Caitlin: I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. My favorite parts were when the wrestlers would do their leg slaps and everyone in the audience would exclaim slightly over-dramatic-ly, and then watching the boys watch the matches. They'd get WAY into it, marking on their rosters which ones they thought were going to win, which ones did, and then cheering on their favorites. It was great.
Tayla: It was gloriously awesome! I really liked the leg slaps and when they threw the rice. It was really funny when the sumos fell off and landed on the people sitting near them. And those people paid a lot of money to get those front row seats and then they got sat on by a sumo. The ice cream treats were really good. The wrestlers were awesome! I liked the actual wrestling the best, but when they were trying to intimidate each other beforehand it was pretty cool. It was fun to guess who would win and see who was right with my brothers. Dinner tasted GOOD! Sushi rocks! Gyoza rocks!
Christopher: It was awesome. They are so strong. It was fun to lean over the railing and cheer on the sumo wrestlers that I wanted to win. Tayla and I were kind of competing. We would choose a guy that we wanted to have win and then see who would win. Which ever one of us chose the losing wrestler would have the grief of loosing.
Logan: The ice cream treats were so good. It was funny when the sumos were intimidating each other. I liked it when they threw salt and when they did the leg slaps. The crowd would freak out and yell stuff. The people who were watching would grunt loudly when the yokozunas did their leg slaps.
Nathan: The ice cream was in the shape of a sumo head. The sumo wrestlers would slap each other a lot. They would put salt on the ring before they would wrestle. I liked it when they threw it in the air. The wrestlers try to throw the each other out of the ring. I like watching sumo wrestling! They show their bums, but you just have to deal with it.
Audra: We eat sushi. It's yummy. We watch sumo wrestlers. They fight and push each other.
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