He wore an itsy bitsy teeny weeny....

see all photos »

Our first trip outside of Tokyo was made specifically to see very fat men in very small diapers, but since it was a sumo basho (tournament) I guess it was OK.

There are about 6 major Annual Sumo Tournaments, each one lasting about 2 weeks. Lucky for us one of them was being held in Nagoya so we got tickets and went to check it out. Our first adventure was leaving the train station when we though we were walking SE only to find the we were walking NW. Oops! To be honest we relied on the big sign that said North Exit as our starting point. Apparently, north in Japan has alternate meanings. Even so I wasn't happy to be trekking around with my backpack and now be 1 mile into the walk and 2 miles from my hostel. Luckily, self-destruction was avoiding by locating a metro line and crossing town rather quickly.

see all photos »

Settled into our hostel we headed out to see the match. Wrestlers are competing all day, but the big boys (literally and figuratively) come out later in the day so we got there about 2:00. Four hours of sumo was plenty for us.   It was quite fun though and although the matches are very short (none seemed to last more than 30 secs) there are a lot of them so there is also something to watch.   Traditionally sumo wrestlers are not supposed to show emotion but some are now breaking with the tradition and being a little flamboyant.  There was one famous wrestler in particular who was like the TO of sumo.  He caused a stir just walking out.  He threw the chalk or did his stances in exaggerated manners and the crowd ate it up.   I was also espiecally happy to find the vendors doing the japanese equivalent of `Peanuts, popcorn, beer` except it was more like `Bento box, something in Japanese, beer.`

see all photos »

Overall it was a great day and since it was pouring rain outside it was a good way to spend the day indoors.  Plus we found ourselves following the tournament until its conclusion, although to be honest, I could not really tell the guys apart so I just know that a really large man beat another really large man.   That was good enough for me though!