Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
attention. To get here from Ryōgoku is easy by subway, though more pleasurable is to
walk down the pedestrianized banks of the Sumida-gawa.
Kiyosumi Teien
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• 3-9 Kiyosumi, Kōtō-ku • Daily 9am-5pm • ¥150 •
T
03 3641 5892 • Kiyosumi-Shirakawa station
Surrounding a large pond and studded with artfully placed rocks from all over Japan is
the beautiful Edo-era garden,
Kiyosumi Teien
. Originally the property of a merchant,
the gardens were landscaped to within an inch of their lives upon their acquisition by
a local feudal lord; the stones that you'll see around the grounds come from all over
Japan. Also note that the gardens are particularly worth visiting in spring for their
cherry blossom and azaleas.
6
Fukagawa Edo Museum
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, Fukagawa Edo shiryōkan • 1-3-28 Shirakawa, Kōtō-ku • Daily 9.30am-5pm, closed second and fourth Mon of the
month • ¥400; guidebook ¥500 •
T
03 3630 8625 • Kiyosumi-Shirakawa station
Located down a charming neighbourhood shopping street is the captivating
Fukagawa
Edo Museum
, which re-creates a Shitamachi neighbourhood. The museum's one-room
exhibition hall could be a film set for nineteenth-century Edo and contains seven
complete buildings: the homes of various artisans and labourers, a watchtower and
storehouses. As you walk through the rooms furnished with the clutter of daily life,
you're accompanied by the cries of street vendors and birdsong, while the lighting
shifts from dawn through to a soft dusk. It's worth investing in the English-language
guidebook before going in.
SUMO: A RECENT HISTORY
Japan's national sport,
sumo
, developed out of the divination rites performed at Shinto
shrines, and its religious roots are still apparent in the various rituals which form an integral
part of a
basho
. These take place in odd-numbered months - Tokyo's are in January, May and
September (see p.202), with the others in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. Starting on the second
Sunday of the month, and lasting for fifteen days, the fights run from 9am to 6pm, although
the top competitors only appear after 4pm or so. The bouts involve two huge wrestlers, each
weighing 170 kilos on average and wearing nothing but a hefty loincloth, facing off in a small
ring of hard-packed clay. The loser is the first to step outside the rope or touch the ground
with any part of the body except the feet - the contest is often over in seconds, but the
pageantry
and ritual make for a wonderfully absorbing spectacle. The top two divisions of
wrestlers fight every day, and the top-division fighter with the most wins out of fifteen is
declared champion.
In recent years champions have mainly been
Mongolian
in origin - at the time of writing
there had not been a Japanese champion since January 2006. The run started in 2002 with the
great
Asashōryū
who, in 2005, became the first wrestler in history to win all six tournaments
in a calendar year. “Asa” was something of a pantomime villain, stirring up controversy on a
regular basis before being ushered out of the sport in 2010. By then he had developed a
tremendous rivalry with his closest challenger, fellow-Mongolian
Hakuhō
, who had broken his
most-wins-in-a-year record by winning 86 out of 90 bouts in 2009. These two great fighters
both became
yokozuna
- the very top level of wrestler, this is a lifelong rank and does not
necessarily signify the most recent champion. Shortly after Asashōryū's retirement, Hakuhō
was joined as
yokozuna
by
Harumafuji
, yet another Mongolian. At the time of writing, both
were still going strong and, since 2005, the Mongolian domination had only been broken
twice - once by Kotoōshū, a 2m-tall Bulgarian and the first white champion in history, and
once by Baruto, a gigantic Estonian who became the sport's first blond winner. Current
Japanese hopes rest with the gigantic and immensely powerful
Kisenosato
, and former
amateur champion
Endō
.
