Hot SUMO action caught on camera

Do sumos have girlfriends/boyfriends? Do they get married? Do girls swoon over their photos and try to meet them "backstage"? Wikipedia leaves me stumped on this issue. And if you were, say, sumo-inclined, would you date the thinnest or the fattest? Antony gave us some good advice: "If you're gonna date the sumo, you might as well date the biggest." Well, they say size does matter...

Just as sumos may experience pain in their training, so did our Cambridge Uni/Finland crew as we left at the nauseatingly early time of 7.30am after far too few hours of sleep. This was in order to queue at 8.30am for non-reserved general admission tickets for 2,100 yen, opposed to all the other reserved tickets which ranged from 3,600 - 14,000 yen. However, once we arrived at the dohyo, there was no queue in sight and so I began to feel somewhat cheated of sleep.

A grand tournament is held 6 times a year and lasts for 15 days. Each sumo fights once each day, beginning with the lowest ranks and moving up to the high est ranks. Much as we were feeling very privileged and cultured to have tickets (despite the fact it's a massive tourist thing), the prospect of watching over 8 hours of matches was not so appealing. A quick trip to the Edo-Tokyo Museum was in order, so we could continue feeling cultured. As with all museums, I never really learn that much, although I did find out that Tokyo's population was reduced from over 7 million to 2.4 million after the Second World War due to heavy bombing. Wow. Damage rivalled Hiroshima.

However, on a more light-hearted note, I also learned that:

1) the Japanese are watching you! We innocently climbed onto the fountain edge on the rooftop plateau and a security guard over 100m away fetched a loudpeaker to shout at us. Furthermore, in an indoor seating area, I had hardly got the water bottle out of the bag before the attendant was leaning over me to tell me off for drinking. Ironically, the water bottle contained water out of the fountains that they provide and to add insult to injury, it tasted of wood!

2) I still do not like onigiri (rice-filled seaweed wraps) as wonderfully evinced by Antony's photography.

To the main event of the day: the Grand Tournament! Check out the arena:

About sumo matches, it is important to realise that they don't last very long. To put it simply, some don't even last 5 seconds. As soon as one sumo is pushed/thrown out the ring or touches the ground with any part of his body (other than his feet!), then the fight is over. The fight preparation - clapping to attract the attention of the gods, foot stamping of evil in the ground and glaring at the opponent - generally takes a lot longer:

Still, even though we were watching the novices, there was some awesome action:

We then took a break in order to eat some chanko, the traditional stew that sumos fatten themselves up on. They don't eat breakfast, then train, eat the stew, then sleep which helps them gain weight faster. However, weight rules are less strict nowadays because, surprise surprise, being very very fat lowers your life expectancy quite considerably.

It was a long afternoon but finally, at around 4pm, the pros came on. The Japanese were obviously much wiser about this than us because the arena seats actually began to fill up at this time... Although before sumo wrestling had seen a lot like slapping, we saw a much greater variety of moves, including legs trips and arm throws. One sumo obviously had a taste for theatrics and came on beating his chest. The final fight though was over in seconds!

It was a very long day but a lot of fun. I wanna be a sumo when I grow up!