Runaway Cubicle: Sumo Time

Now given the opportunity to be the skinny person in the room anyone would take it and sumo is that perfect opportunity. It is not a well known fact but sumo matches are not all year round. Instead, there are six major tournaments throughout the year and they are held bi-monthly in four locations: Tokyo in January, May, and September; Osaka in March, Nagoya in July, and Fukuoka in November. Bridget and I were very fortunate to be in town during the first week of the two week sumo tournament in Tokyo, we were also very fortunate that our hotel arranged for our tickets before we got there. For some reason we thought sumo would be at nite, I am not quite sure why we thought this but I guess that is because we are used to nighttime sporting events. However, we were wrong. The tournament is all day with the main competitiors being on from 4 to 6.

When we are the sumo match we had no clue what was going on since nothing was in English; which was slightly weird since they did have people working there who spoke English in order to direct the English speakers to their seats. So instead we tried to figure it out ourselves and even though we only had a slight idea of what was going on we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was extremely entertaining, so much that after work I would come home and catch the last hour of the tournament and the best part was that I found a channel with English commentary. According to that commentary, 1/3 of the top sumos are from outside Japan and many are from Estonia. During the matches the crowd gets into it and cheers along. Even being during the day it was very busy. The sumo wrestlers are very agile and flexible which surprised us because of their size.

Another thing that we loved about the sumo tournament was that we were able to get some good food!! (More about food in general to come later). However, as our french fry container depicted if you eat too many you will look like a sumo!