Sumo, Nagoya and on to Vietnam

Sumo's fantastic... Wobbly flesh, enormous wrestlers, thousands of years of tradition and hours of entertainment. It's the Sumo tournament in Nagoya, so we decided we couldn't miss the opportunity to see this ancient, err, sport!

It's really a fascinating sport/event, and to me, more amazing how many foreigners have fought so many barriers to enter the elite of sumo. It's actually not a prerequisite to be hugely overweight, in fact we watched quite a few bouts where much lighter rikishi (wrestlers) knock down opponents twice their weight and size... if any part of the body touches the ground, or leaves the ring, the match is lost - and sometimes virtually no body contact takes place.

It's an ancient martial art, bound by tradition. The referee, dohyo and sumo dress all go back hundreds of years... before each bout at the higher levels more time is spent on ceremony than the actual wrestling, with opponents sizing one another up, getting into position, returning to their "sides" (either east or west), throwing salt into the ring to purify it - or to intimidate their opponent, stomping legs down... the singing chants of the name announcer and the shouts of the referee... all make for a quite gripping performance. And when these guys fall, well there's some truth in the bigger they are the harder they fall... one poor guy landed on his belly (the rings are made of clay, no soft landings, and nothing to stop a 200kg wrestler from being dumped into the audience either) and had to be medivaced on a special huge chair with plenty of helpers.

For a much better understanding of sumo, check out wikipedia's description here... honestly it's more than just huge bellies! I've uploaded a video of a bout - fascinating. See some more pics of Sumo and all of Nagoya here!




Of course, Sumo was by far the highlight of Nagoya... however we did also visit the Toyota museum, which, despite the name, is actually home to a collection of some of the finest card I've ever seen... here there's original working order cars like 1910 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, Stanley Steamer, original benz contraptions and all sorts, as well as exhibitions on contemporary Japanese life.

Also, Nagoya is home to a lovely Aussie themed bar - which does fabulous shepards pies for Y400 and decent draft beer for Y300... that's ending machine prices for dam good food... Ah, dreaming of Aussie pies - curried lamb kidney pie from Darwin - best pie in the world ever... how I dream! A Quick visit back to Osaka... and on to Vietnam...