Nihon - Day 13

Day 13 - Sumo!

Sumo tour isn't until 1.15pm so I headed to Tokyo Tower to check out the aquarium instead.
It was very busy and there was a huge line up for the observation deck, thousands of children it would seem.
A woman was playing drums so I went and had a look only to discover she infact had a monkey with her. They did a bit of an act where the monkey did tricks and acted cheeky.

Despite it being so busy there was no one at all in the aquarium. This made it a little creepy with all those fish and eels and little sharks. And the pirahna were huge and followed you when you walked past their tanks (EEEK!).

I went to eat some lunch at the park before getting ready for the tour.

The tour bus came about 10 minutes late and picked me and another woman up from the hotel. We were then driven to headquarters, just down the road. There were heaps of people doing the tour as well as me. We were all seperated into three groups and given an english speaking guide. We then headed for the stadium via 2 trains, our tour guide held up a flag with a fish on it so we could spot him if we got seperated.

After a breif visit to the small sumo museum we settled into our seats and watched some sumo.

Japan's president arrived towards the end and caused quite a stir.

One sumo wrestler was retiring and his bout would be his last. The crowds went crazy and he played up for them. He won his flight!

There was a brief ceremony before the last 3 bouts took place.

Then on the last bout Hakuho Sho came on. The crowd went nuts for the champion, who had already won the series this last fight a mear formality. After a lot of false starts and sycing they went for it and Hakuho Sho won his 62 consecutive bout. He is only 7 away from matching the record!
Afterwards came a very long ceremony where Hakuho-san recieved many many prizes.

When it was all over I headed to the subway alone, luckily there were afew other people who were going to the same place that I could follow.

I headed straight for Family Mart to grab some dinner then back to my hotel.