Sapporo Day 2 - Baseball & Beer

Saturday morning I got up sort of early to head to my one remotely cultural plan for Sapporo, Hokkaido shrine. Nice little shrine, quiet, not much to see. There was some sort of pottery / dish sale going on, almost like a flea market with about 10 different shops set up selling the same type of tea pots and plates. After I did some shopping, I had to run to the other side of town to get to the Fighters game.

The Sapporo dome looks like a giant thing of jiffy pop with a straw pointing out of it. The straw is an observation deck, but I didn't think there would be much to observe so I didn't go up.It's another one of those multi-sport stadiums. It's got good old fashioned AstroTurf baseball field, and when it's time for soccer, they drive in a grass field and shift the lower deck around. But for baseball, that means that there's a ton of space between the foul lines and the seats. This actually came into play a couple of time where I thought the ball would be in the stands but they just ran over and caught it.
I sat through one of the less exciting 10 inning games I've seen and watched the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters lose 2-1 to the Seibu Lions. Then I waded through the subway station back to the hotel for a little break before heading to the beer gardens.

I had scoped the place out the day before and decided to bypass the Suntory and Asahi gardens and went straight to the Kirin beer garden. It had the best music. It was Sunday night, but the whole park was packed and after I bought some Japanese chicken nuggets I scouted around for a place to sit I finally found a spot at the end of a table and started to sit down, but when I asked the people on the other end if it was OK, they said to join them. Nice people. I had a ticket for a beer, but they immediately poured me one from there giant beer tube. I hung out with these guys for a couple of hours. They apparently got a much earlier start than I did. They were my immediate friends. The one guy kept trying to give me his shirt. I finally managed to chip in 1000 yen for the next beer-tube, but I must have gotten 6 beers and paid for one. Worked out really well for me.
The beer gardens shut down at 9:30 on the dot, when they turn off the lights and the music and urge everyone to leave. My new friends (whose names I don't remember) went home and I went to the next bar.

Also the night before, I had noticed a bar that the internet recommended, so I headed over there. Rad Brothers bar. They had a good slogan on their menu, so I new it would be OK:I sat down and started trying to talk to the Russian girl next to me, but the only language we shared was broken Japanese, so we both gave up pretty fast. Meanwhile, another guy came in who looked like he spoke English, so we started talking. I asked what he was doing in Sapporo and he said working. So I asked what he did, of course thinking English teacher. But when no, Pro Wrestler. So I talked to him for a while, since there's a lot of interesting conversation inherent in "I'm a Pro Wrestler in Japan". Then another guy came in and sat down. What's he do? Jazz Musician. Usually, I think I can make my job sound cool. This night was an exception. All I cold think of was "An engineer, a wrestler, and a pianist walk into a bar..."

I hung out with the jazz guy and Phil Atlas for a few more hours and a couple more bars until it was time to give up. Lots of beers, new friends, and an invitation to go to a wrestling show. All in all, a good random night in Sapporo.