Japan Day 12 - Sumo and Tokyo Tower

For our last full day in Japan, we spent a little time checking out the area around Tokyo station with Cackett (including getting our rain jackets that we had left in our previous Tokyo hotel), shopping at some of the nearby stores, and grabbing lunch at the Tokyo Ramen Street inside the station. The ramen restaurant was one of those where you order from a ticket machine after standing in what appeared to be a long line, but actually moved quite fast. Then we were seated and our delicious, delicious ramen brought to us.

After lunch, we headed towards Ryogoku where the Tokyo sumo stadium is. Before we left for Japan, I found out that one of the six sumo tournaments of the year would be happening in Tokyo while we were there. Of course this meant I had to try to get tickets! I asked my conversation partner, Ayano, to help us with this, but unfortunately they were sold out within minutes so we couldn't buy them from the actual arena. Luckily, there were a number of tour companies selling Sumo tours + tickets, so we were able to get our hands on some. I think this actually worked out in our favor, because our guide was fantastic and we learned a ton!

     

We had a little bit of time before the tour started, so we walked around the area and discovered a neat park with a nice pond filled with koi and turtles. It was a nice day so we took a stroll and chilled in the park for a bit. Then we walked around the stadium past vendors, and got a glimpse of a few of the competitors entering the stadium for their matches later. Folks were lined up to see some of them go in, and it was a bit surreal when they walked past fairly nonchalantly in their cotton yukata. At tour time, we headed to where we were to meet our guide, who explained the (relatively straightforward) rules of sumo and took us into the stadium.

The best thing the guide did for us was to give us a sheet with the names of all of the competitors we would see that evening, with his personal notes about each of them. These notes were things like their fighting style, whether they had been injured recently, or even if they had recently gotten married. It also pointed out which were his favorites, and which were very popular.

The main matches started with a procession of all the wrestlers into the ring (there were actually 2 sets since the ring isn't that large) where they lined up and went through a series of bows and such. Then the Yokozunas (grand champions) - of which there were 4 - each entered individually and did an interesting kind of dance on their own. After that the action began. A sumo match can be won one of two ways: by pushing or throwing your opponent out of the ring, or if your opponent touches the ground inside the ring with anything but the soles of his feet. Whichever happens first - non-feet touching inside or anything touching outside, loses the match. There were a few times where there was disagreement among the referees which was the winner, but a quick conference in the ring settled those matters right up.

     

Each match lasted only a few to maybe tens of seconds, but the wrestlers had 3 or 4 minutes, depending on the division, to begin the match from when they first stepped into the ring. The wrestlers would throw salt into the ring to purify it before they entered, then bow, squat, stamp each foot, squat, leave the ring, come back in, etc. for 4 minutes until it was time to start, at which point the main referee signaled the assistants to hand the wrestlers a towel. I asked what would happen if they went over time, and true to Japanese fashion our guide said that the one who caused the delay would apologize to the referee for delaying the fight, and the fight would go on. No need for penalties for that kind of thing in this polite society and ritualized sport.

Another thing we found super interesting was the sponsor banners. According to our guide, for particularly popular wrestlers and/or high stakes matches, sponsors will place additional prize money on the match. They do so by displaying banners that are paraded around the ring before the match begins. Each banner represents about $300 in cash, and $300 added to the wrestler's pension fund. Many matches had multiple sponsor banners, and the winner took home the cash that day. It seemed like such an interesting way to honor the tradition of the sport while including this sponsorship having them on silk banners hand carried. The final match we saw had 2 or 3 rounds of banners, and ended up being an upset of the Yokozuna!

   

I am so, so glad that we were able to get to the sumo tournament because as expected, it was a highlight of the trip. It was so much fun, and a uniquely Japanese experience. Plus, since the rules are so simple, it was actually quite easy to follow - not something I can say about most sports.

After the tournament concluded we had some evening left as it was only about 6pm. We opted to check out Tokyo Tower for a night view of the city. Though we only went to the lower observation deck, it was still a great view, and a nice "last night in Japan" kind of activity. Post tower, we asked the hotel for a recommendation for dinner and ended up in... I think it was Shinagawa for dinner, home to a number of after work partiers for sure. We had some pretty tasty tempura, so it worked out pretty well, then it was back to the hotel for our final sleep in the land of the rising sun.