In sumo, apart from fighting there are lots of symbolic gestures that come from ancestral times. This is in what they spend most of the time, and not fighting at all. The funny thing is that each gesture is done going back from the initial position in the center of the “ring” to the respective corner… Some of these things are done “by default”, but some other times, they go back to the corner by their own initiative, in what japanese explain as “mind game”.
One of these gestures is taking grab some salt with the hand…
They also drink the liquid… whatever it is…
And of course, they show how athletic and flexible they are.
Quite interesting spectacle, but quite slow for my taste…
People love it, though. Although, the situation of sumo in Japan, is quite similar to the Bull Fighting in Spain. Yes, it is a popular event, but not many people like it. Specially, not many young people, which is what happens here.
They also have sponsors which suddenly show their names on the ring… and people scream excited because of that! (I don’t get yet where the excitement for this comes from).
But, of course, there are some people who cannot be full-time focused in the sume and also keep track of what is happening in other fields… Like this one, following the horse races in his mobile phone, while the sumo guys do the show pre-combat.
As you all know, sumo is a traditional japanese sport. It basically consists in two extremely “big” guys wrestling. It was really impressive to see so many people watching this (a full big arena) with a lot of media coverage around the sumo players, which are very high located in the hierarchical japanese society.
I am not going to bore you talking about politics… Specially because I do not have a clue about this in Japan. But anyway, thanks to some friends’ contacts, we could visit the parliament of Japan. The Diet is a huge building near the Imperial Palace, holding both the parliament and the senate, which seems (once more in Japan) very practical, isn’t it?
Next to the parliament (again, very good idea), we could see the Prime Minister’s Residence. There was a lot of movement those days, as he had resigned, and the new one was about to be elected.
Tokyo has skyline too. But it is quite weird, as it is a mix of icons of other places… This picture shows three typical Tokyo spots, non related at all, with New York, or Paris…
After Hiroshima, we also went to Mijayima, which is an island very close to Hiroshima, which combines temples and nature.
It has the famous torii, which sometimes is in the water…
… and others in the mud.
The island was considered sacred, and normal people couldn’t go to the temple walking, but only on boat. Therefore, they had to go through this gate in the water, so they didn’t step outside the temple.
Apart from that, this island has a very nice mountain with lots of nature that you can either climb, or take a ropeway.
Guess what we chose, in such a hot and warm day…
Now, I can say I have climbed more mountains in Japan than in Spain. ^_^