Japan Adventure

This high booth outside the stadium is a holdover from thousands of years of sumo tradition. Originally, someone would climb up and announce in a loud voice when the matches were beginning.


As we enter the building, there are pictures of Grand Champions Asashoryu and Hokuho lined around the top of the walls. It was very crowded, so I could only take this 1 picture . . .


Asashoryu and Margie in the lobby -- well, at least me with his life-size photo. He withdrew during the previous tournament because of injuries, so Hakuho is the only Grand Champion participating in this November basho (tournament). I was surprised that he was so tall . . . so when I looked it up, I found that he's 184 cm tall (6 feet) and 147 kg in weight (324 pounds)! Well, for the first time in Japan, I actually feel thin . . .


Wow -- our seats really are big enough for two generous American "backsides" (of course at least 3 Japanese could easily fit here) . . . And look, we have a little table for our snacks & drinks.


Eldon and Nancy are in our same row, just down a little bit.