SUMO Fall Grand Tournament Tokyo

Our view may not have been ring side, but we enjoyed this last day of the Fall Grand Tournament in Tokyo. The tournament is 15 days long, and the final matches, and the winner was to be determined today.
Outside the Ryogoku Kokugikan are banners with different Sumo Wrestler's names on them. The tower is cool looking. I don't know if there's a symbolism, but there's supposed to be a drum beat coming out of it.
William and Tim in front of the mural.
Do Tim's eyes look tired? He stayed up all night on some emergent work. This guy besides him is the guy he was working alongside all night. They both look like toast. Tim was lucky to get away for 6 hours, so he ended up having to leave before the final big matches to catch the train back to work. But, he got to come and experience it and enjoy it.
William part way up to level 2. We were level 2 upper. I would come outside on the terrace to let William run a few times.
This is the south entrance, where the Sumo come in. Since the event starts at 8 a.m., they don't come until their matches are near. The mawashi (Sumo belts) are usually put on about an hour ahead of time. Look at their classic sumo public dress, and those Japanese lunch bags. It's like a large handkerchief that is used like a tablecloth.
We ended up going in the Sumo Service entrance. 20 Tea-house establishments have bags (for those who pre-ordered) with obento (lunch) boxes, seat tickets, souvenirs, and refreshments.
Yes, you can buy Tshirts. But the largest size is XL. Seems wrong that a Sumo couldn't buy one for himself.
Souvenir shop. A gentleman gave William a small wooden wish souvenir.
The obento boxes were about $12 american (a piece), but we ate traditional. Right out our entrance door, french fries and hamburgers. The people beside us were trying to determine what the meat was, and the burger in the bun, it was so small. :)
They have television coverage, and it goes live (and out in the halls on big screens) for people to watch. For $1 you can rent a small radio and earpieces to listen to it. I rented one, and found out the frequency. Now we can listen to it in English while we watch it on TV. It was rather jarring to have a guy with an East Coast accent much like the 'Car Talk' guys calling the game.

The ring-side seats are little boxes of square cushions to sit on the floor. At the end, everyone throws their cushions at the ring and the winner. These cushions were filled...
...by Prime Minister Hatoyama! He came in before the final bouts. The people went crazy for him. He is really admired by the Japanese people here.
Not only is there a gyoji (referee), there are also judges on all four sides. If there is to be a ruling, they all come up on the dohyo and settle it right then.
The different classes of wrestlers all do this before their matches. This is the Makuuchi wrestlers ceremonial entrance. They parade in, wearing their ceremonial aprons, face the crowd, then face each other and culminates in showing their hands. Then they troop back off the dohyo and go get ready.
William did some videotaping, and if I get the time, I'll edit a piece up. The fancy ceremonial aprons (kesho-mawashi) cost up to 2 million yen. If pearls or diamonds are used, even more. That's $20,000 USD.
If you click on this pic, you can enlarge it, and see the wrestlers throwing salt before the match. Salt is historically thought of as a purifier. They stamp around on the ring to stamp out evil spirits. That is from the cultural shinto dance and fights for a good harvest, that later became Sumo.
There are 82 winning techniques. If you can grab a belt, you can use it to lift your opponent and throw him, or push him out of the ring. The first to touch ground with anything other than his feet, or outside of the ring, is the loser.
Sumo matches are played under a shinto shrine style roof. The place was packed at the end. William called it 'flashy' as people used their flashes on their cameras.

Today's meet ended up with an additional match. If Asashoryu had won the first match, he would have been the winner. But, Hakuho did a quick slam on him, so they had to go one more match together. Asashoryu ended up winning. It was his 29th birthday. This made him the third most winningest sumo ever. Nice gift!

Here is the slam that required them to go another match: