Fukuoka Sumo Weekend

First published on November 26, 2009.

This past weekend, I went to watch a sumo match in the biggest city in Kyushu, Fukuoka.

My adventure started Saturday morning. A group of ALTs, including Kim, Asha, Lauren and myself, took a 7:45 AM bus from Miyazaki to Fukuoka. It takes about 4 hours to get to Fukuoka, so we couldn't wait to get up, stretch our legs and explore the city once we got there.

We first went to look for our hostel. After putting our stuff down, we went searching for Hard Rock Cafe. OK, I know how strange that sounds. Just remember that we have been in Japan for a long time, so we were craving things like huge hamburgers, steaks & mashed potatoes. Asha also really loves the Hard Rock, so that's why we went there. It was actually next to the Yahoo Dome and a mall. After lunch, we went shopping. A big part of our trip, besides sumo, was to go shopping in the big city. Living in Miyazaki, we rarely have the opportunity to go all out in super shopping sprees. Maybe that's a good thing. lol.

Anyway, after the mall, we went to look around the Tenjin area. I ended up buying cute gloves and a couple of things from Muji. When things started closing, we began walking around. There were Christmas decorations everywhere already. While we were crossing a random street, we saw this cool looking place. It was like the 3rd floor of a building, but the windows had writing on them and it just looked interesting. We went to see what it was. We were happily surprised when we found out that it was a Sri Lankan restaurant. None of us had ever had food from Sri Lanka, but the restaurant smelled really good. Actually, because of the spices in the air, everyone was coughing and sneezing. A couple of people put a napkin to their nose and mouth, so that they wouldn't cough as much. After awhile, I got use to it though.

We ordered curry noodles and a spicy rice thing with chicken (not exactly sure what it was). The food was really spicy and DELICIOUS. We enjoyed every bite.

When we finished, we had a bunch of bags, a full tummy and a decision to make. How were we going to meet up with the ALTs at a club called "Happy Cock"? Yes, "Happy Cock". I'm not kidding. It's an international club in the city where many foreigners go to party. We decided to just take the bags and then figure out where to put them when we got there. We knew that the club at lockers, but we didn't know how big they were.

It took us a long time to find the club. We basically walked in circles. The funny thing is that the club was only a couple of minutes walk from the Sri Lankan restaurant. We had to wait in line to get on the elevator that would take us to the club. The girls in front of us were stupid drunk. I was not happy. I was tired and I was not enjoying the behavior of the people, who were also waiting to get to the club. Kim and I wanted to go back to the hostel, but we decided to just go with Lauren and Asha. When we got up there, I was even more hesitant. The club was packed.

Anyway, we ended up going in. We could barely move in there. At one time, I was stuck for like 10 minutes. I couldn't walk forward, backwards or to the side. The people in back of me were trying to get to the bathroom, while the people in front of me were trying to get to the bar. NO ONE COULD MOVE. It was impossible. I got really, really scared. I started panicking. I kept thinking "What if a fight breaks out?" or "What if there is a fire?". There was a big guy to the side of me. Once he was able to move, I just followed the path he was making.

When I made it to the other side, I stayed next to a table that they had there. It was the area that I had the most room. I basically stayed there all night with Kim and Asha. Once in awhile, someone I knew would come and I would talk to them. The night wasn't completely horrible because I was able to talk to my friends, but I HATED that club so much. I even got groped by this random guy. He touched my chest while he asked where I was from. I was not amused.

By the time we got back to the hostel, it was almost 3 AM. We had decided on checking out at 8:30 AM, which didn't give us much time to sleep.

On Sunday morning, we checked out of the hostel, put our stuff in lockers at Hakata Station and waited for some of our ALT friends at Starbucks. We then went all together to the sumo match. We were there really early, so we got to see most of the matches, even the ones that were not considered that important. At 4 PM, the place suddenly filled up. All of the big matches occurred after 4 PM. It was really interesting to watch the matches. There are a lot of rituals involved. The matches themselves are really quick, but there are different rituals done in the beginning, such as throwing salt to purify the area in which they fight. It was definitely interesting. I'm really happy that I got to go.

At almost 6 PM, we went back to the station. Kim and I ate some udon. It was so different from the udon we were used to because instead of thick noodles, the noodles that they used were thin. We were really surprised. By 7 PM, we were on a bus back to Miyazaki.

All in all, Sumo Weekend in Fukuoka was a good experience.

To see pictures, you can go to my Flickr account.

Song I'm Listening to At the Moment: "Hearbreaker" by G-Dragon