The Nihon Sumo Kyokai Tokyo Grand Sumo Tournament kicked off in Japan this past Sunday, beginning two action packed weeks of Sumo excitement. Naturally, Gadling had room in the travel budget to send a couple of bloggers, so we captured some video from the first round of matches.
If you’ve never seen real Sumo wrestling in action, it’s a pretty fantastic spectacle, complete with everything from traditional salt throwing and the closing bow dance to all of the white people in the only concession stand line that serves hot dogs and popcorn.
The concept is simple: the first man to push the other outside of the ring or (sometimes) off of his feet is the winner. But the delicacies of the game, the tradition surrounding the event, the excitement of the crowd, the roaming wrestlers in the hall and the energy surrounding the entire building are amazing.
If you’re ever on holiday in Japan and considered looking into tickets, best pony up the fifty bucks for the cheap upper ring seats — it’s totally worth it.
Here’s a way to win a trip to Europe for two. Here’s one catch. You have to either travel to Europe and shoot a video of the experience–or have been there before and have a video on hand, or there’s no hope for you. The European Travel Commission’s, “You and Europe” contest is one where travelers submit video footage of their European trip to www.visiteurope.com. There it can be viewed by the public and the judges.
If you’re heading to Europe this summer, you have time. The deadline isn’t until September 30. After that the judges will decide who wins. According to the Web site, videos can be “funny, poignant, romantic, serious, or silly–capture an aspect of the culture–whatever captures your imagination.”
Videos need to be no longer than three minutes. As a bit of advice, based on “an aspect of the culture,” I wouldn’t make this a Borat-style film where your interactions are the focal point. The Web site is pushing Europe to travelers. As darling and stunning as you are, you’re not it.
To give you tips and ideas, there is a how-to video on making a travel video from CompulsiveTraveler that is geared towards the contest. You can also view what others have submitted for a shot of inspiration.
Tomorrow is May Day when spring is to be celebrated by dancing around a pole, wearing a flower wreath, arranging a bouquet, celebrating workers or honoring the Virgin Mary. It depends on where you’re from and when you grew up.
When my mother was a girl growing up in Appalachian Kentucky, she dressed in a white dress to dance around a May pole during a school-wide celebration. Early settlers of her town were steeped in the culture of Ireland, Scotland and England, so a May Day spin off in Celtic traditions was a natural fit. Here’s a YouTube video from last year’s May Day celebration in Cerne Abbas village in Dorset, England where folk dancing and the May Pole are still traditions.
I saw Les Misérables the first time in Singapore when the touring company came through. There were Chinese subtitles of the lyrics projected on screens at the sides of the stage or across the top. I can’t remember which. Three of the cast members came to the school where I was teaching to talk with students about their lives as actors and about touring internationally. Afterwards, for a brief while, I had Les Mis fever. The symptoms being: the songs play over and over and over again in your head; you feel deliciously depressed and uplifted at the same time; and you feel like stopping repression somehow–somewhere–some way.
One of the wonderful things about living overseas is being a part of something that has universal appeal, even if it just means sitting in an audience. Here’s something that tops the feeling I had when I sat in the 12th row of the orchestra to the left of center stage.
For the 10th anniversary celebration of Les Misérables there was a concert at Royal Albert Hall that included 17 different Jean Valjeans from different countries, each singing a few lines of “Do You Hear the People Sing” and “One Day More” in their native language. I found it on YouTube. Watching it gave me a touch of Les Mis fever.
Welcome to Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!
This question was submitted by Jim,
Hi Kent,
My question concerns how much advance notice pilots get when there are other planes in their immediate air space. In some of my travels, while at cruising altitude, I’ve seen other planes cross paths just below us. Knowing how many planes fill the sky each day and knowing that your reaction time is minimal, I wonder how pilots and controllers work together to keep all those planes apart. Also, what’s the rule on how much distance must there be between planes when on the same route and at intersection points?Thanks Jim,
I know it can be a little disconcerting to see another airplane cross under or zip by overhead just as you look out the window of an airliner.
Air traffic controllers have rules on how far laterally they must keep airplanes apart as well as how much vertical space needs to be kept between them.
For lateral separation, airplanes that are en route–flying faster and further away from the ATC facility–must have at least 5 nautical miles between them. When the airplanes enter the approach controller’s airspace, that requirement goes down to 3 nautical miles. Finally, when the airplane is in the control of an airport’s tower controller, aircraft can be spaced much closer if that controller has visual contact with the airplanes or if at least one pilot reports they have the other aircraft in sight. A good example of this is the visual approaches to San Francisco where airplanes are lined up on final approach for the parallel runways. You would think the airplanes are flying in formation at times.
This visual separation doesn’t apply when airplanes are in the clouds, in which case the controllers keep airplanes spaced about 2 1/2 NM apart, more if the preceding aircraft is a heavy (over 250,000 pounds–757 or larger) and the following aircraft is not. This limitation is a function of the wake turbulence generated by larger airplanes.
But I suspect the airplanes that you’ve been seeing lately have been even closer laterally than that. Because of some technology improvements to corporate jets and airliners, most of the world has adopted the Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) standards. This allows aircraft flying above 29,000 feet to be spaced at 1,000 foot intervals. In the past, that number was 2,000 feet apart.
This has actually had the effect of doubling our airspace above 29,000 feet, which allows for more direct routing and the ability for us to get out of annoying areas of turbulence.
Westbound aircraft are normally put at the even flight levels (altitudes) and eastbound aircraft fly at the odd levels. That doesn’t apply to the North Atlantic, where most of the traffic flies westbound in the morning and eastbound in the afternoon. In that case, airplanes are spaced 1000 feet apart which makes for some great views from our seat as you can see from the following video clip:
Have a question for Kent? Ask away and he’ll pick one to answer here on Friday.