SUMO!!

After returning from Sapporo we immediately turned around and headed for Tokyo and our very first Sumo Tournament. The sumo arena is located in the Ryogoku area of Tokyo, also known as "Sumo Town". Neither of us know a lot about Sumo, but it was fun to watch anyway. It is the national sport in Japan, but you don't have to be Japanese to participate. There were a few Europeans (one made it to the final round) and Mongolians among other nationalities. As soon as we got off the train and approached the arena we saw Sumo wrestlers walking around outside, signing autographs and chatting with the fans. We took a few pictures outside of the arena before heading in for the action.

Each match begins with a ceremony where one of the officials walks around the ring saying something (we're not sure what!) while waving a fan in each direction. After this, both wrestlers throw salt into the ring and do a series of warm-ups before their match begins. Finally, both wrestlers approach the white lines in the center of the ring, bend their knees, put their fists on the lines, and then go! Some matches were over in a couple of seconds, while others went on a bit longer than that. Once a wrestler loses a match he is out of the tournament and eventually it dwindles down to only two wrestlers left. In the last few rounds, the wrestlers were given cash prizes for winning.

Like many sports in the U.S. you can buy souveniors of all types at the arena. You can get everything from t-shirts to sumo shaped chocolates (which Ed couldn't resist!). We need to learn the rules and more about the wrestlers so that next time we know whats going on. But now we can say we've been to see Sumo!