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Equinoctial sumo.
Somehow on Thursday I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 in the morning in time to make it to Keihan to get on the 6:50 express train. Had a somewhat awkward train ride with Ben Bo and his Swedish friend Johan, but we all made it to Namba in good order and met everyone in relatively good time. It being a holiday (Happy Equinox, all!), we didn't get there early enough to guarantee rush seats, so we all sprang for the cheapest reserved seats, which were only Y1000 more than the rush tickets. After a second breakfast at Mac(Donald's) and a trip to Book-Off, most of us went in. No one cares if you sit in the good seats until their rightful claimants show up, so we were down only a few rows back until about 3 p.m. or so, and we went in at 10:30. Staying there the whole day was cool, as it was really easy to appreciate the increasing levels of skill as the day went on. We had a great sort of lazy day, especially since it was raining. For lunch we used our re-entry and went across the street to a halal Turkish place. Christ it was good.
The last bouts especially were pretty great, the fights were quick but the buildup went on forever. Both the yokodzuna suffered upsets! I wasn't surprised at Hakuho, since his record was 10-1, but Asashoryu was 11-0 until then! Everyone was on their feet and chucking their cushions when they lost, it was quite thrilling. The racial element was interesting too, since both yokodzuna are Mongolian. One dude kept shouting "Hakuho Nipponjin!" which was obviously racist in some way. Oh, it was awesome. I'd like to go again. There are many pictures and two videos, but I'm in Kobe at the moment so don't expect them to be uploaded for about two weeks.
Yesterday I overslept and ran some errands--apparently it was the graduation ceremony at Doshisha (maybe just the women's college? who can say?), lots of young people in suits (men) and kimono and hakama (women), everyone looked very pretty and fashionable and put-together. They'll be shakaijin (society people) come 1 April. No wonder they didn't look particularly happy. The party is over, for the rest of their lives practically. So obviously no one at school was going to be available to deal with me, so I hopped the train to Kobe, got dealt into the ongoing card game, and then we went out to the Mexican restaurant and the asobihoudai arcade, Bee's Kiss. We watched half of "Grindhouse" and went to bed. Good times.
The last bouts especially were pretty great, the fights were quick but the buildup went on forever. Both the yokodzuna suffered upsets! I wasn't surprised at Hakuho, since his record was 10-1, but Asashoryu was 11-0 until then! Everyone was on their feet and chucking their cushions when they lost, it was quite thrilling. The racial element was interesting too, since both yokodzuna are Mongolian. One dude kept shouting "Hakuho Nipponjin!" which was obviously racist in some way. Oh, it was awesome. I'd like to go again. There are many pictures and two videos, but I'm in Kobe at the moment so don't expect them to be uploaded for about two weeks.
Yesterday I overslept and ran some errands--apparently it was the graduation ceremony at Doshisha (maybe just the women's college? who can say?), lots of young people in suits (men) and kimono and hakama (women), everyone looked very pretty and fashionable and put-together. They'll be shakaijin (society people) come 1 April. No wonder they didn't look particularly happy. The party is over, for the rest of their lives practically. So obviously no one at school was going to be available to deal with me, so I hopped the train to Kobe, got dealt into the ongoing card game, and then we went out to the Mexican restaurant and the asobihoudai arcade, Bee's Kiss. We watched half of "Grindhouse" and went to bed. Good times.