SUMO!!!!!

I am tired. I woke up at 5:15 this morning so that I could buy tickets for Sumo Wrestling by 7:30 am, which is when I was informed I had to get there. Turns out the ticket booth didn't even open until 8:30 am, so I could have slept a whole extra hour! It's okay though, because my friend Ivan and I were the very first people in line. After we got our tickets we went and got some breakfast and then spent the entire day at the Sumo Tournament. It was AWESOME!!!!! They started with the low level guys in the morning and then progressively brought in higher and higher ranks. The tournament ended with competitions between the highest ranking wrestlers, the really famous ones you see on TV. Ivan and I seriously got way more than our money's worth. We paid about $20 for the crappy nosebleed seats, but since it was a Monday (fewer people) and no one really seemed to care that much, we moved down to the lower balcony seats that are actually worth between $60-$100. People did come to claim their seats a couple of times, so then we just moved to different seats in the same section. The view from where we were sitting was great and we could even hear the wrestlers breathing at one point! It's hard to explain the details of sumo wrestling, because we didn't even quite understand, but it was still ridiculously fun to watch. Every time a new set of competitors was about to enter the dohyo (the ring) this little singing man in a crazy costume would stand in the middle and chant a song in the direction of each wrestler, then the wrestlers would climb up and do this crazy side kick balance thing that sumo wrestlers are sort of famous for doing. I recorded one of the earlier matches so you can see what I'm talking about. The beginning matches weren't too exciting, but the later matches with the higher ranking professionals were extremely intense. The wrestlers were wild and since the dohyo was raised off the floor by about a foot and a half sometimes they would fall off and go toppling into the audience. I seriously thought someone was going to get crushed by one of these massive guys. Every time it happened the entire audience would gasp and then check to make sure that the old woman who the 400 lb. wrestler had just landed on wasn't dead. In addition to the video I have also included a couple of pictures. I am sort of in love with this picture of myself (which is somewhat uncommon), I just love how the sumo guys look in the background, it almost looks like a backdrop! The other one is a circle of all the highest ranking wrestlers before they began competing. Okay, seriously tired now, work in the morning, going to bed.