Sunday, June 21, 2009

Challenge 21: Bull Fight!


Today's new adventure was seeing a bullfight in Okinawa of all places! 

It turned out to be such a fun event (and oddly energizing) and not gory or violent despite my preconceptions. The fight starts off with the bulls locking horns and ends when one of them turns and runs, but it's not a fight to the death. 


Even more interesting are the handlers who are right out there in the ring yelling and directing the bulls towards each other. When a bull is declared the winner, there's huge cheering in the crowd, a big bottle of awamori is awarded, and the little son or daughter of the lead handler rides on top of the bull around the ring.  Fascinating!

A team of handlers had to hold this little guy on!

After the tournament, everyone stormed the ring and we were able to get up close and personal with the bulls. 

Gingerly making contact with the overall winner bull... scary! 

Whoops...I must have done something to make him mad!


2 comments:

Kaori said...

Congrats to your husband(I think) for the last shots, funny pics! :)

Mary and Sean said...

Thanks Kaori!
That bull was scary and fast too...he was the winning bull after all!

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