Skip to Content

Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.

Map of the world

Tokyo's Grand Sumo Tournament kicks off

The Nihon Sumo Kyokai Tokyo Grand Sumo Tournament kicked off in Japan this past Sunday, beginning two action packed weeks of Sumo excitement. Naturally, Gadling had room in the travel budget to send a couple of bloggers, so we captured some video from the first round of matches.

If you've never seen real Sumo wrestling in action, it's a pretty fantastic spectacle, complete with everything from traditional salt throwing and the closing bow dance to all of the white people in the only concession stand line that serves hot dogs and popcorn.

The concept is simple: the first man to push the other outside of the ring or (sometimes) off of his feet is the winner. But the delicacies of the game, the tradition surrounding the event, the excitement of the crowd, the roaming wrestlers in the hall and the energy surrounding the entire building are amazing.

If you're ever on holiday in Japan and considered looking into tickets, best pony up the fifty bucks for the cheap upper ring seats -- it's totally worth it.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Japan, Video

Search Travel Deals

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

Gadling Features



Categories

Travel Video

Discover San Francisco by bus on the award winning MUNI line 33

Featured Galleries (view all)

Top 10 Luxury Hotels in the United States
Top Ten Strangest Hotel Guest Requests
Paris Air Show 2009
Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial
Work and play in Queensland, Australia: Fruit Picking
One week in Chicago: Attractions
One week in Chicago: Food
Ardeonaig, Loch Tay, Scotland
Bay of Plenty

Sponsored Links

Autoblog Green

BloggingStocks

Download Squad

Engadget

Joystiq

Luxist

Switched.com

FanHouse

Wow.com