Sumo: 大相撲春場所

Today we went to watch the second day of the Spring sumo tournament at Osaka Prefectural Stadium in Namba.

Before going to see the actual tournament, we went to visit a sumo museum in Nara, followed by a visit to the nearby 当麻寺 (Taima-dera). The sumo museum visit was quite brief, and there we were joined by the foreign students from Nara University of Education (one of the two national universities in Nara prefecture, the other being Nara Women's University). The temple itself wasn't really interesting, except for some early cherry blossoms we spotted in one of the gardens.

We had a 1,000 yen buffet lunch at a roadside ファミリーレストラン ("family restaurant" - something similar to the American diner). The quality wasn't outstanding, but it was cheap. Reinout and Ivan helped themselves to multiple servings. I got really sleepy on the coach though, having eaten too much for lunch.



We arrived at the stadium at half two, just in time for the second half of today's tournament. The big names such as 琴欧州 (Bulgarian) and 白鵬 (Mongolian - the current highest ranked sumo rikishi - who succeeded fellow Mongolian 朝青龍 after the latter retired prematurely in January) came in the last couple of matches so the atmosphere was lukewarm for the earlier part of the afternoon.

Sumo was much more interesting than I expected. The actions were fast, too fast though so there was little time to create any tension. Each game ended within one minute or so, although sometimes there were the dramatic throws which got everyone shouting and cheering.




(this photo above is from the match between 琴欧州 and 旭天鵬. Ivan and the other Bulgarian students were quite excited about this game, but 琴欧州 lost...Ivan was quite disappointed.)





Wednesday is pay day; for the past couple of weeks I've spent too much (wayyy over the budget) over travelling to around the country, leaving very little money left. Yesterday I searched through my food cupboard, not finding any kind of starchy staple foods. So I decided to make myself a couple of pizzas. I had yeast, flour, sundried tomatoes, garlic, cheese and canned tomatoes - and TA-DA! I did it - it didn't taste bad at all considering it was my first attempt at making pizzas (I've done it before with my brother, never by myself). Now at least I know I won't starve to death...