Kotooshu!

  Tokyo, Japan
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I had a fantastic week or so in Tokyo after my brother's departure, not least because I became totally hooked on sumo wrestling! A tournament, or basho, had just started in Ryogoku which is basically the spiritual home of sumo, and as luck would have it, is just a single subway stop away from K's House. I didn't need further invitation...

1. The Kokugikan stadium.

There are only six tournaments each year, each one lasting for fifteen consecutive days, and most of the reasonably priced tickets for this basho had long since sold out. However, around three hundred cheap tickets were available for purchase each morning at 8.30am, so I made sure that I was up bright and early each time I planned to attend...

5. Sumo bout.

When I didn't actually go to the Kokugikan stadium, I'd make sure that I was watching on TV between 4-6pm as this is when the big hitters are in action. I'd talk to the hostel staff about it and pick up information that way, and they told me that this tournament was generating a lot of interest due to the return of Asashoryu, a controversial Mongolian grand champion, or yokozuna. Apparently he had feigned injury in order to miss an exhibition, but was subsequently filmed playing football in Mongolia, and as a result was banned for two tournaments!

7. Asashoryu!

I soon started to recognise certain sumo wrestlers, and before long I had my favourites who I supported each day. I liked Asashoryu because of his controversial streak, and the animated Takamisakari because of his showmanship, but my number one was definitely the strapping Kotooshu from Bulgaria. This guy didn't look like a sumo wrestler in the slightest, but this made him easy to identify in a sport where, let's be honest, most of the participants look exactly the same. Such was my dedication to sumo and Kotooshu in particular, that the K's House staff christened me "Foxooshu" - a combination of my second name and that of the great ozeki!

9. Sponsors before a bout.

I went to watch the action with an English lad on my second visit, and rather than watching from the back of the upper tier, we ventured down to the bottom tier and parked ourselves in one of the vacant boxes that offered fantastic views. These were the expensive seats, but during the week there were always a few empty ones, and if someone came and told you to move, you could just go to another one nearby. On this occasion though, we just sat there uninterrupted for three hours eating and drinking and getting into the sumo - it was brilliant! We were joined by Saya and Nao briefly, a couple of girls who worked at the hostel, but they were never comfortable as they'd only paid for cheap seats (like us!) - sometimes I wish Japanese people would show a little bit of rebelliousness from time to time!

z10. Maid cafe.

We went to a local darts bar that evening with an American lad, and Bungo, a Japanese guy who worked at K's House and who became a good friend by the time I left Japan. It was decided that whoever lost had to drink a disgusting shot of something or other, and poor Bungo was close to being sick by the end of the evening due to the number of times he lost!

z12. Catching me taking photos!

We went to a Maid Cafe in Akihabara a few days later, along with Tomo who also worked at the hostel. It was an interesting experience, from the high pitched tones of the waitresses, to the weird characters who inhabited the cafe, presumably on a regular basis. I found it amusing that people were paying to play games with the maids, with one guy having a serious "Pop-up Pirate" battle! There are many things that I'd like to do with the maids in question, but rest assured that a game of "Pop-up Pirate" or "Buckaroo" is not exactly top of the list!

z13. With Bungo and Tomo!

In between all the sumo and maid cafe shenanigans, I still found time to fit in a marathon karaoke session that lasted for a full seven hours! Somehow or other, a group of seven of us formed at the hostel, including a couple of bubbly Irish girls, and it was suggested that we go to the karaoke...and I certainly wasn't averse to that! Besides, you can pay a set fee between 11pm - 5am that allows unlimited drinks, so we did just that and got completely smashed! A few of us were big Weezer fans and so we worked our way through their back catalogue, but there was a definite deterioration in quality as the night progressed, as is often the case! One of the guys went straight from the karaoke place to the airport as he was flying home at 9am that morning - I wouldn't have wanted to sit next to him on the plane, that's for sure!

The bubbly Irish girls came with me to the sumo wrestling on one occasion, and they were lucky because they got to see one of the yokozuna lose - a fairly rare occurence. There are only two yokozuna at this time, one of whom is the aforementioned Asashoryu, who provides excitement both inside and outside of the ring, and the other is Hakuho, who in my view is quite boring. In snooker terms, Asashoryu is like Ronnie O'Sullivan, whereas Hakuho is more like Graeme Dott, i.e. quite dependable, but ultimately as dull as dishwater!

z17. Karaoke marathon!

I'd seen Asashoryu lose before on TV and the crowd had gone mental, throwing their cushions into the ring in disgust that a grand champion should lose. However, Hakuho had won all nine bouts so far in the competition and had looked really solid, so it was a real surprise when Ama threw him out of the ring. I went beserk, and started picking cushions up and throwing them everywhere! The girls did too, but there's no way that their cushions reached the ring, and they more than likely hit some Japanese people on the back of their heads! It ranks as one of my top three sporting moments, along with England winning the rugby World Cup, and witnessing the Rocket knock in a 147 break at the Crucible...pure drama!

z18. Hiro at K's House.

I spent my last evening on this particular visit to Tokyo relaxing in an ultra-modern onsen complex near Tokyo Dome. 'Laqua' had many different baths both inside and out, and an incredible relaxation area with massage chairs and personal TVs, not to mention a bar, a restaurant, free internet and much much more.

It was a relaxing end to a wonderful couple of weeks in Tokyo, and even though going down to Kyoto for a week meant missing the climax of the sumo tournament, I still wanted to go and explore a bit more in preparation for when Ali visited in February...