May 21, 2006
Hanazono Shrine and Sumo
Sunday morning, I went back to the Hanazono Shrine market again and picked up two more kimonos. They are not super fancy but are sort of "vintage"... that's my nice way of saying "used". There were a couple of pretty ones I was tempted to buy, but they were of polyester fabric, so I opted to not buy them. The two that I bought were silk, light and airy.
Coincidentally, there was an ice sculpture contest happening at the Hanazono Shrine. Here are a few pictures from the contest:
When I was in the subway station later, I saw a lady with a super nice kimono. It had a large print of a crane. Stunning. It made mine look not as interesting.
Afterwards, I met a few coworkers at Ryogoku Station to go to the Grand Sumo Tournament. This was my first time watching sumo... live sumo, for that matter! It was super fun and very interesting. Each match could be as quick as 5 seconds or a few minutes. The tournament was the entire day and has been going on since last week, but we went to the last 2 hours of Sunday's match. The seats we had were not really seats. There was real seats for the first 8 or so rows, then after that was square mats with 4 cushions. You buy the whole square and are basically sitting on the mat having a picnic with 3 friends while watching sumo.
Fun times,
Lily