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I went to Sumo today. I went for a massive, bum-aching 9 hours and loved every second of it. It started at 8:45 I got there for about 9:10 and it finished at 6:00 with the final fight with the yokozuna Asashoryu.

I had emailed the man (and sumo afficianado) at the excellent website Tokyo Times for some advice for a newbie sumo viewer. He said to get out of your seat as quickly as you can and to sit as far down the front as you can get and watch the show there until the person who paid the extortionate price for the seat arrives. Never was a more useful piece of advice given to me.

To start of with I was physically escorted to my seat by an attendant through a labyrinthine network of corridors and sat next to an Italian called Francesco (100 empty seats in the area and I`m sat next to the only other bloke in the section) Alas I thought my plan had failed. I stayed there for about one and a half hours and then decided to give it a go and see how far I could get down. I made it to three rows from the ring and stayed there for a long time. Then I went back and ate and then tried it again. By three o`clock on my fourth sojourn the attendants began to get a bit shitty with me - This place is only for reserved seating etc. -so I tried the other side.

I had begun drinking by this time as well and so with my confidence bolstered by drink and the rude man with young girlfriend who made me move my bags one space so they could sit in their designated seat at the back (even though there ｗａｓ acres of other seats they could have sat at on the row), I went down to the front for my final time. It was now NHK recording live time with the wrestlers everybody wants to see. There weren`t very many spaces free so I chose a seat five rows from the ring and I managed to stay in the best seats until the very end.

I have some very good pictures (for my camera at least) and I`ll get them up for tomorrow.