Sumo!!!- Friday May 22nd 2010

By Trey:

The last full day in Japan was a day filled with fun, laughter, laziness, and SUMO!! On Friday we were blessed with the opportunity to watch some of the world's largest men fight each other to prove that they are the best of the best in the world of sumo.

The events leading up to the sumo meet went a little bit like this… The day started out with a carefree morning of shopping and hanging out until we needed to be back at the Hotel to meet up for Sumo. Some of the places we traveled to that day while shopping in Tokyo were Senso-ji Temple, and the infamous “teen street” in Harajuku. We had about 4 hours of time to shop and we all for sure took advantage to get our last minute shopping in for trinkets and souvenirs. After a long hot morning of shopping it was time to head back to the hotel.

I decided on that afternoon to have my own little adventure and leave the group and venture to the sumo hall in Tokyo all by my lonesome. This was probably not one of my best ideas that I had during the trip but I proceeded anyway. During this time while I left the group I tried to find the sumo hall to catch some video of the opening ceremonies of the main fights of the evening. While I was in the subway system I was constantly asking the natives how I can get to Ryugoku station, which was just outside of the sumo hall. While I was in this adventure I met a new friend that obviously could tell that I had no clue what I was doing. His name was Sean-Hu and he was from China. I showed him where I needed to go, and out of the kindness of his heart he left his plans that he had and helped me all the way across Tokyo so I could get to the sumo match. Finally after an hour of traveling I arrived at the station I needed.

I thanked Sean-Hu many times and we both bowed to each other as I heard a voice behind me that said “Trey Lets Go!” low and behold Ben was yelling at me and they arrived at the station the same time I did. I didn’t make it to the sumo hall early because I got lost. I should have stuck with the group the whole time because it would have saved me and my new Chinese friend time. O WELL! ☺.

Finally we arrived at the sumo hall and it was everything I expected. All the wrestlers were so large and all the fans were so excited and jacked up to be there and cheer on their favorite competitors. Ben and I watched sumo everyday so we got really familiar with pretty much all the wrestlers, and we actually made up our own names for many of them because we could not understand what their real names were in the writing they used on TV. We developed many names and ill tell you some of them now. We had names like, craterface, thunder thighs, Bulgarian, big baby, broken nose, chief sitting bull, scrapper, psycho, acne belly, giant hairy white man, and ole yoko (for the Yokozuna or supreme champion). Many of the matches were very short but we were pleased that many of our favorite wrestlers won their matches. The Yokozuna Named Hakuho won the final match of the day to stay undefeated and later went on to win the tournament with a record of 15 wins and 0 losses.

Once the matches were over it was time to leave and eat a traditional sumo feast. We ended up having reservations at a restaurant that specializes in sumo cuisine. It was a soup filled with shrimp, muscles, fish of all sorts, meatballs, squid, octopus, cabbage, eggs, and many other vegetables. It sounds terrible and believe it or not it was actually pretty tasty I thought. I think a majority of the people would not care for it ever again but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Finally we left and some went out for a night on the town and some retreated to the rock solid beds back at the hotel to rest up for a long trip back to the states.