Buffet was good but the eggs benedict was odd. Nontoasted wheat bread base, weak hollandaise, and had Lettuce, parsley and very thin slice of ham. Not sure if its a Japanese thing but was not a great benny.
Our hotel connects via basement level to subway. We headed there for 2 train hops to Ryogoku, the Sumo district. On our way out there were a couple rikishi (wrestlers) getting food. The area has a ton of sumo stables so they're around. We walked over to the stadium Kokugikan and gave our tickets and got right in around 11am. At this point it was fairly empty even though the bouts start at 8:30. That's because very few people care about lower divisions plus people are still working.
This was a good time to get sumo souvenirs and check out the hall though. Got a good chunk of stuff including a few fans and a towel to cheer on our favorite rikishi today. Sarah couldn't help but get moisturizing face masks with some rikishi faces on them... so that'll be... interesting.
Got a box of sumo trading cards. We've done 2 of these before and they're considerably cheaper in Japan. The resale price overseas 1.5 the cost. First pack we lucked out and got a signed card by Oshoma. He's kind of, normal? Doesn't stand out, but still really cool, and only 1:6 boxes have a signed card.
There's food around and drinks and we got a wagyu bento box for about 14 bucks and it was great.
The box seat we had was pretty close to the dohyo (clay platform the matches are on). We were row 11. The box seats are for 1-4 people. If you have 4 folks you all have to sit cross legged. With us 2 it was roomy and we could have our goody bag and food no problem.
When we sat down the hall was probably about 20% occupied. Around 2pm the 3rd highest rank Makushita ended and Juryo (2nd highest division began). That's when it started to fill up.
Finally around 3:40 top division Makuuchi started and the hall was packed, fully sold out within an hour when tickets went on sale 2 months ago.
This was day 12 of 15. The way tournaments work is that each rikishi has 1 bout a day. Whoever has the best record at the end of 15 days wins, or there's tie breakers until 1 stands on top.
This tourney had a lot riding on it going in. The single Yokozuna Terunofuji is retiring. 2 other rikishi had a chance to be promoted to Yokozuna (which is a lifetime appointment) based on their performances. 1 of those is already out of that running. The other, Hoshoryu (Mongolian) is still in but things needed to happen.
He was 8-3 going into today. There were 2x 9-2s and 1x 10-1 Kinbozan (Khazahstan). He went against Kinobozan today and won which puts him more in contention now depending on what happens in the next 3 days. The other 9-2s both lost so its a 4 way tie at 2nd (9-3 record) and Kinbozan still at 1st (10-2)
Matches take typically like 5 seconds or up to 30 seconds. Its pretty unusual to go past a minute.
Around us were: Australian couple behind and the guy kept pushing his socked feet into Sarahs back and I had to ask him not to. Although he still kept brushing them up.
Japanese couple and Japanese woman to our left. Only interaction was they had a mystery bento box trash in their seat and asked if it was ours. I showed here we had ours in our trash and it wasn't.
Single Australian dude in the box to our right.
Entire 2 rows of seats in front of us was a group of elderly Japanese folks who we were genuinely scared were going to injure themselves getting in and out of their seats. One guy did trip and fall but was ok.
Getting out was crowded but orderly. We opted not to take the trains back as they were jam packed with folks from the tourney hall. Took a cab, the guy was super fun and got pissed at a cab in front of him that made him slam his breaks. It was funnier than it sounds.
Back in time for snack and cocktail hour at the hotel. Tasty, had iced lattes.
Had a reservation at the rooftop bar. It was up a level from the lobby and is exposed to tge air, but our seats at the window had heat blankets. Sarah had a "Yuzu Tokyo Mule" and I had a hot negroni. Plus some karaage (fried chicken thigh). Drinks were a little too flavorful for us. But it was fun too. Also they had Charlie Chaplain movies projected on a while which I thought was a great idea when your playing music anyway. Need to watch more of them I've only seen a few.
Otherwise just planning our last day tomorrow which is just going to be last minute souvenir and snacks. While we had a list of things going into Japan that we wanted to try we certainly didn't do all of them or even most (foodwise) but not really any disappointments there.
And then the next day it's off to the airport in the early morning.
Thanks to everyone reading the blog, hopefully not too tedious. One more to go to!
Well this looks totally cool (sumo gig) - although it hurts my legs to think about sitting cross-legged, like so many are doing. Just wondered: Did you notice if there were any handicap areas in the arena? And if you need to get up and out of your area don't you have to go over all those around you? - Or is this just not done until the show is over?
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your last day! We'll text you later.