Sumo!

So a few weeks ago I headed to the small town of Nomura to check out their 158th annual sumo match. Nomura is a small country town located about two hours to the south of Matsuyama. We got there around 11pm, just in time to eat chanko nabe. I think that's how you spell it. For those that don't know, this is another boil-everything dish, but it's particular to the sport of sumo, mostly because this nabe has just about every type of meat and vegetable imaginable packed into it. I'll put up a picture of it. Probably the best part was the large, human-sized cauldrons that they were cooking it in. The whole event had that small town feel to it, it's not a well known match, but they've been having it for quite a while.

We went inside the arena, which was about half the size of my high school's gymnasium, and sat down to watch the matches. There were no yokozuna's at this match (for those who don't know, yokozuna is the highest league of sumo wrestler), but there were still a fair number of professionals competing. I'd like to go on record and say that sumo wrestling is one of the politer sports I've ever watched. If one of the wrestlers attacks before the other is ready, they stop, apologize, and being again. A little different than boxing back in the states. (Side note: I still don't understand the big deal about the whole Mike Tyson biting the ear thing. I mean, the object of the sport is to knock your opponent into unconsciousness by beating them with your fists. Who cares if the guy takes a little nibble? But I digress...) Considering the massive size of some of the competitors, I was expecting a few more KO's, but the matches were fairly tame. Sometimes it seemed a little unevenly matched, with a 80kg guy taking on someone who must have been 150kgs, but for the most part, the matches were pretty straight forward. I made sure to take some videos, so I'll put them in the next section.

Ahh, one other thing, at the end of the match the two highest ranked wrestlers performed a special honor for some of the families who attended. This involved taking their babies and walking them around the ring. I could describe it more, but I think the video says it all, so check it out. All in all, a really interesting day.