Greetings and welcome to week 8 – a week filled with sumo, lots of money changing hands and a special care package from Australia.

I had hoped to have good news on the sumo front, but it was not to be. So, I will have to rise above my considerable disappointment and finish off the ‘Sumo for Absolute Beginners’ guide. In last week’s episode, the rikishi had finished their rituals. So we come to tachiai, or the initial charge. The two wrestlers start by squatting either side of parallel lines in the centre of the dohyou, with the referee standing opposite the centre of the dohyou, slightly to the side of them. They jump up from this position once they have both touched the ground with their fists. At this point they very often clash heads…ouch.

Which brings me to my next point, the rikishi fight and enter the dohyou from either the east side or the west side. This is related to their ranking and performance. The east side is for those higher ranked at each level. Hakuho has been on the east side for some time, although this time because one of the other highest ranked rikishi was out injured, he swapped to the west side for two matches, presumably to balance things up. Unfortunately he lost both bouts while on the west – I think it upset his usual style because he is so used to entering the dohyou and tachiai on the east side.

There are five ranks in the professional sumo world – from maegashira through to yokozuna. There are no weight or height divisions; it is possible that the smallest rikishi could be up against the largest. While weight can tend to be an advantage if you are trying to oust your opponent, it can also be used against you through momentum. In the end, it generally comes down to technique.

To win, you must either force your opponent out of the dohyou, or force them to touch the ground with any other part of their body, apart from the soles of their feet (of course). As the dohyou is elevated above the ground (up to 60cm), they can sometimes fall quite heavily. It’s amazing they don’t really hurt themselves. The other thing is that there are five judges sitting around the base of the dohyou along with some of the audience. As you can imagine, sometimes the rikishi end up falling onto either, or both. I would not be very keen to have one of these very large men fall on me!!!!

Once one opponent is either out of the dohyou or has touched the ground, the referee declares the winner, unless there is some doubt about who touched the ground first either inside or outside the dohyou. At this point the judges come into play. The winner may or may not receive a prize after winning the bout. Prizes come from advertising, which takes the form of banners being carried around the dohyou prior to the particular bout. The more advertising, the bigger the prize. Apparently the rikishi receive 50% of the advertising fee. This also means that the more popular and higher ranked rikishi get more prize money. There are separate prizes at the end of the basho for best performed, etc.

…and so we leave the world of sumo until the next honbasho, the spring honbasho in March.

Also this week, apart from some event in the US on Friday, which I don’t want to mention, we settled on the land. So, Craig and I are now the proud owners of a carpark! Not sure how many parking spaces, but what it does mean is that it is covered in asphalt, which you will have seen in the photos.

Now all we need is to decide on a design and get the tractors and trucks rolling – of course, given the street the land is on is very narrow, they will be small versions of what we are used to seeing in Australia on building sites.

There has been more snow since last week, although nowhere near as much. In fact, it is snowing now. I also experienced another type of falling wetness the other day, which I think is actually sleet (of course there does seem to be some dispute about what exactly sleet is – apparently it can depend on where you come from). My version was small balls of icy snowy hail-like wetness. Apparently this happens when snow falls and as it falls it melts and then re-freezes before it reaches the ground.

The other item I mentioned above is the care package sent by Craig. How wonderful it was to receive it – and very exciting to see what was included. It was a large box with an assortment of items from plugs through to clothes and shoes (which I had put aside to be sent once I got here). Plugs? you say. Well, yes. I have been trying to find a plug to fit the smaller sink in the kitchen, so I can wash up in the actual sink, not a plastic container which we bought in July. Otherwise, you are washing dishes under running water, and while water may be in much more plentiful supply here than in Australia, I still don’t like wasting water like that.

So, that brings me to the end of week 8, but before I go, I want to send a huge thank you to Tom, who has helped me set up the subscriber function on the blog page. Being an absolute novice at blogging (I hadn’t even really read one before, just a couple of bits and pieces), I had no idea about widgets and plugins, etc. As far as I was concerned a widget was a term you used in economics for a general consumer item. For those who I have sent an email to previously and those who have commented, you have already been added as a subscriber. The other thing you will notice is that I have updated the design of the blog. I would rather create my own from scratch, but for the moment it looks somewhat better, I think. Please let me know what you think.

I have had a couple of request for particular photos – of the Kamogawa (river) near our flat and the kids. I added a photo of the Kamogawa resplendent in snow last week, so this week here it is without the snow.

Finally, the photo of the week…which fits in with the weather here and just to round out the snowman focus. This week I bought some angora socks (very warm!!! J), and one pair just had to be snowman themed. So, here they are:-

Cheers and here’s to keeping warm!