A first-person travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting a day at a sumo wrestling tournament in Tokyo. They get up early to stand in line for tickets, navigate the subway (mentioning Shinjuku and an "Odeo" line toward "Hika Rigoka" / "Ragoku" station), watch morning matches while noting wrestlers' size and rituals, leave once to find lunch where they meet a helpful local (a certified English tour guide), and return to see the event grow more intense by mid-to-late afternoon (around 4pm). The transcript is conversational and includes repeated caption lines.
Chapters
It's a beautiful morning in Tokyo.
This is our first morning leaving the apartment before 11am.
We got up early this morning to go stand in line to try to get tickets to the sumo tournament.
I'm gonna put my hair in a button so I can look like them. Donut place.
With hot dog.
I need to figure out what all these coins are so I don't look like such an idiot. Walking up to the register.
The misto noodles.
So excited about this.
Donuts from home. So we go from Shinjuku, we take the Odeo line towards Hika Rigoka. Then we get to Ragoku station and then we're there.
It's so quiet.
Nobody talks on here. It's really weird. I'm hungry. I want to eat and I'm hot.
Rush hour in Tokyo was crazy. We paid way too much for our subway ticket.
I was my bad.
A little angry about that. But we finally made it and I forget and they get to eat my donuts.
Whoa, that was fast.
This is the first match of the morning.
Looks like the one on the left has a little bit of a weight advantage.
And a better tan.
Proving that weight advantage now.
Now the contest to see who can squat deeper.
Could have called that one.
We should make the voles round two.
Oh, not round two. We've been here for like two and a half hours and there's still nobody here. This is by far the biggest sumo wrestler we've seen.
We've now been here for like three and a half hours. There's been a lot of this.
And this.
And this.
And we're allowed to leave one time. So we're gonna go out and find some lunch.
We found it. This is not looking promising. No English on the menu.
Oh, my gosh.
That was awesome.
We just had lunch with the cutest little Japanese man on the planet. So we go to this restaurant that my phone said was the best place to get sumo soup. And we walk in and there's no restaurant. And this man's just staring at us. And there's no menu or tables or anything. Nothing is in English. Then we have hear this voice. It's like, are you looking for a menu? So we turn around and it's this man and he tells us that there are no menus down there and all the menus are upstairs. And he tells us what we should get. We're like, okay, well, we'll get that. Thanks. And then he asked if we would sit with him. So of course.
Did you order same as mine or you order.
Ankara tea? Has two kind among jasmine tea, they are fluffy.
Long story short, he was a certified English tour guide and he was off.
Today, but he still helped us.
It was fantastic.
Lined up, so we joined them and now we're waiting to see what we're waiting for.
Good one.
Oh, that's a good one.
It's now 4pm and things have gotten way more intense. There went from being nobody in the stadium to the place being.
And the rituals have gotten like five times as long as.
Sam.
We're at the busiest subway station in the world and it's pretty close to rush hour. Things are crazy.
