Sumo

I went to see sumo this past Wednesday. It was SOOO awesome. Your butt starts hurting after awhile, but it's well worth it once you get into the last 2 hours. On the tickets, it says it starts at 10:00am, but we got there about 9:20am, and they were already going at it. Very few people were in there already. There were however, really annoying gaijin (foreigners) that would yell cheers for sumo wrestlers, etc. How in the frick do they even know these guys in the first matches I wonder... They're never on TV or anything. These people must be completely infatuated with sumo. Sumo otaku nerds.

Anyway, me and Yuko's grandpa were on the 6th row from where the wrestling took place. It was so close I felt I would get a shower when they ran into each other and sweat spewed forth in all directions. Before the popular guys started coming on, I went out to the entrance to try to get some of their autographs. I saw three guys, and got one autograph. I guess it's pretty rare to get an autograph from the more popular guys, but I managed one from an ozeki. I also saw Hakuho (yokozuna), but no signing from his ace.

Some people say that if you want to go to sumo, then just buy the cheap nosebleed seats, and you can still sit close in the morning when nobody is there. That's fricking stupid. Why would you be satisfied with sitting close to see wrestlers you don't even know, and for the guys that you do know, you are so far away you can barely recognize them? Stupid people and their stupid thinking...

For the last 3 hours, they bring out the baskets of salt that the wrestlers throw onto the ring. These last 3 hours are also televised. We were on TV many times. In fact, Yuko's grandma was watching it and was very surprised to see me. She didn't know we were going. She was jealous that grandpa went with me because she would have liked to have gone too.

One cool thing about sumo is that when they come in, they walk through the same place that you walk. There are no underground entrances or whatever. So anybody can be up really close to any wrestler as they walk in or out. You're not supposed to take video in the wrestling place, but I did. Nobody said anything, so I didn't stop. When I tried to take video of my favorite guy as he was walking in though (Asashoryu), security stopped me and said I couldn't take video inside. Whatever. At least I got to see my guy. Suckers.

The video for this is going to be awesome. When I get done I'll post it on here. But first, I've got to finish Nabana 2008 (basically finished it yesterday) and Florida.