This past weekend was all-star weekend and because our team didn't have a game we had a few days off - one being Saturday. We decided we were going to go to the Sumo tourney as Tokyo has its big Sumo tournament going on right now.
Things here in Tokyo are pretty expensive (I will write about this in posts later on) but when I looked for tickets they ranged in price from about $40 a piece up to $200 a piece - a bit pricey, and they were all sold out for Saturday. There was however some general admission tickets for the upper deck of the arena that were $25, that would be sold on the morning of when the ticket window opened at 8:00am. So we decided we would go and get the general admission tickets.
We didn't, however, get there until about 12:00 and as you can imagine all the tickets were sold out. We tried the will call window, the ticket office, and the workers standing outside and no way to get tickets. So we started asking people if they had extra tickets (I don't think this is normal here as I was the only one doing it). We found a boy scout leader who had one extra, and they said if we come back and meet them at 2:30 (when the professionals start, as there are junior matches in the morning) they might have more depending on if there were cancellations in their group or not.
After lunch and letting Myla play on the jungle gym at a nearby temple we headed back to resume our efforts to find tickets. One guy told us he had some cancellations in his group and to ask him again in 10 mins when the rest of his group came. In the meantime I kept asking (probably asked close to 1,000 people) and finally a gentleman came up and showed me 2 tickets. He didn't speak English, nor I Japanese so it was hard for me to tell him that the $115 tickets (a piece) were much more than we could spend as I only had $85 in my pocket. I took out the money and showed it to him and when he pointed again at the price all I could say was sorry - go-men-a-sigh. But, instead of turning around and walking away he extended his hand towards me and handed me the tickets for the $85 dollars.
We were excited! We so badly wanted to go but when we saw we couldn't get the general admission tickets we were bummed as we thought we missed out.
Our seats were "good" seats. We were on the 1st floor instead of being up in the upper deck where we expected to be. Our seats weren't seats however. We were in a box. And when I say box I mean a five foot by five foot area that was separated from the other boxes by a metal pole around the outside. Inside there were seat cushions - like the ones you would have on your kitchen chairs at home - four of them. Katy and I occupied two of them and then there were 2 other random people.
It was quite cramped to say the least, but we made it work. When in Rome...as the saying goes.
The sumo was awesome. It was cool to see it up close and how powerful those guys are. And, contrary to what I thought going in, it wasn't always the biggest guys who won. There is a lot of strategy and technique to it. Smaller (but still big) guys who have good technique and are quick are very successful and won a lot of the matches.
Obviously being from a place where there is no Sumo, I didn't know much about it all and when we went to the match it was interesting to learn a little more about it. It is a sport that is rich in tradition (the 'wrestlers' do a 'dance' before each competition lifting one leg in the air then the other, throw salt onto the ring to clear the ring of evil spirits and spit water to cleanse themselves before the match). It is also a sport that you can make some good money. I found somewhere on the net that said as of 2006 the lowest level professionals make over $11,000 a month. Not bad!
To be honest, I could write on and on about Sumo, however I'll let you look it up on your own sometime if you are are interested.
I do have to say though that if you are in Japan in the future and happen to be in a city where there is a Grand Sumo tournament going on - go. It is well worth the money.
Things here in Tokyo are pretty expensive (I will write about this in posts later on) but when I looked for tickets they ranged in price from about $40 a piece up to $200 a piece - a bit pricey, and they were all sold out for Saturday. There was however some general admission tickets for the upper deck of the arena that were $25, that would be sold on the morning of when the ticket window opened at 8:00am. So we decided we would go and get the general admission tickets.
We didn't, however, get there until about 12:00 and as you can imagine all the tickets were sold out. We tried the will call window, the ticket office, and the workers standing outside and no way to get tickets. So we started asking people if they had extra tickets (I don't think this is normal here as I was the only one doing it). We found a boy scout leader who had one extra, and they said if we come back and meet them at 2:30 (when the professionals start, as there are junior matches in the morning) they might have more depending on if there were cancellations in their group or not.
After lunch and letting Myla play on the jungle gym at a nearby temple we headed back to resume our efforts to find tickets. One guy told us he had some cancellations in his group and to ask him again in 10 mins when the rest of his group came. In the meantime I kept asking (probably asked close to 1,000 people) and finally a gentleman came up and showed me 2 tickets. He didn't speak English, nor I Japanese so it was hard for me to tell him that the $115 tickets (a piece) were much more than we could spend as I only had $85 in my pocket. I took out the money and showed it to him and when he pointed again at the price all I could say was sorry - go-men-a-sigh. But, instead of turning around and walking away he extended his hand towards me and handed me the tickets for the $85 dollars.
We were excited! We so badly wanted to go but when we saw we couldn't get the general admission tickets we were bummed as we thought we missed out.
Our seats were "good" seats. We were on the 1st floor instead of being up in the upper deck where we expected to be. Our seats weren't seats however. We were in a box. And when I say box I mean a five foot by five foot area that was separated from the other boxes by a metal pole around the outside. Inside there were seat cushions - like the ones you would have on your kitchen chairs at home - four of them. Katy and I occupied two of them and then there were 2 other random people.
It was quite cramped to say the least, but we made it work. When in Rome...as the saying goes.
The sumo was awesome. It was cool to see it up close and how powerful those guys are. And, contrary to what I thought going in, it wasn't always the biggest guys who won. There is a lot of strategy and technique to it. Smaller (but still big) guys who have good technique and are quick are very successful and won a lot of the matches.
Obviously being from a place where there is no Sumo, I didn't know much about it all and when we went to the match it was interesting to learn a little more about it. It is a sport that is rich in tradition (the 'wrestlers' do a 'dance' before each competition lifting one leg in the air then the other, throw salt onto the ring to clear the ring of evil spirits and spit water to cleanse themselves before the match). It is also a sport that you can make some good money. I found somewhere on the net that said as of 2006 the lowest level professionals make over $11,000 a month. Not bad!
To be honest, I could write on and on about Sumo, however I'll let you look it up on your own sometime if you are are interested.
I do have to say though that if you are in Japan in the future and happen to be in a city where there is a Grand Sumo tournament going on - go. It is well worth the money.
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