Golden Week V - Hakata Dontaku Festival

Day 2 in Fukuoka was set aside for the annual Hakata Dontaku festival. I don't really know what it's all about, but it's one of the biggest festivals in Japan. They set up stages all around town, and it seems like every cultural club, dance school, and music teacher in town puts on a recital. I was told that the parade starts at 10, so I headed down to the parade route early in the morning to claim a spot. Once I found the place, though, they told me that the parade isn't until 1, so I had some time to wander around. After watching a shamisen recital (basically a traditional Japanese 3-stringed banjo), I left that stage and met these guys:

They were really friendly. It reminded me of grabbing someone in a dog suit for a picture in the muni lot. Turns out these guys were headed to the stage I just left, so I went back to see them do their thing.


Of all the shows I saw that day, they looked like they were having the most fun. Plus, those are some crazy pants.

After they finished and I watched a traditional dance, a hip hop dance, and a hula dance recital, it was finally time for the parade. I think everyone who was ever on stage was in the parade and then some. There were a lot of bands, a lot of drums, Mickey Mouse, and a ton of floats that seemed to always have something to do with the Softbank Hawks. The actual players had a game, so they sent these guys instead.
For some reason, there were also samba dancers. I'm not complaining, just pointing it out.
I really underestimated the parade, and went out without sunscreen, thinking it wouldn't take long, and I'd find a seat in the shade. If you're ever at the Dontaku festival, wear sunscreen. I toughed it out standing on a bridge in the sun for about 2 hours before I decided to head to the hotel and nurse my burn a little. But I got distracted on the way back. Who would have thought these guys would be there, although the one on the left looks a little short to be a storm trooper.
Once I pulled myself away from them, I was almost back to the subway when I had to stop in my tracks. It seemed even less likely than Darth Vader, but there it was, a Japanese drag show. My Japanese slang is really weak, but some words, like trans-something, or lesbo-something, came across loud and clear.
After a quick nap, I headed back to the festival to see what it turns into when the sun goes down. Seemed to be most of the same, except for dozens of little food shops that had spontaneously popped up while I was gone for an hour. These aren't the US style hot dog carts. These are full-on temporary restaurants, with temporary walls, chairs, curtains, and even TV's. Fukuoka is famous for these yatai, so I made it a point to eat at one. The owner and his wife's Japanese was such a regional dialect that I couldn't understand a word of it. Luckily, a guy came in and sat next to me (with his wife and 2 dogs). He translated, if not to English, at least to Japanese I could sort of understand.

After the yatai, I walked over to the tourist-brochure-recomended international bar, "The International Bar". It really lived up to the name, with bartenders from Japan, Germany, Albania, and Nepal. Nice people, all of them, but otherwise it was pretty dead. I got them to recommend another place, and went there. Guess which sign is the place I went to.
I stuck around for a little while, and actually ran into people I know from Utsunomiya there, but I had tickets for a 1:30 game in Hiroshima the next day, so I had to call it a night around 1:00 to make it there in time. It's too bad, Fukuoka is a fun town, but I didn't have enough time to really see it all. Hopefully I can get back someday.

Golden Week IV - Fukuoka

Day 2 of my Western Japan baseball tour meant another long train ride. I got to the station around 8 and made my first trip off the big island of Honshu since I got here. I was hoping for some big bridge with a cool view or something, but it's a tunnel, so I slept instead.

I got to Fukuoka around noon, checked into the hotel, and rested up for a little while before heading over towards the stadium. I wanted to start off by checking out the mall right in front of the stadium, Hawks Town. I figured there would be some Hawks-specific stuff there, but no, just a mall. Oh well, at least I was at the ballpark. The Hawks are a pretty modern team, owned by a cell phone company (my cell phone company, in fact). Softbank, the cell phone compny, has some sort of business arrangement with Yahoo, so the game was at the Yahoo Dome.
I got there good and early, since the mall sucked, and watched the pre-game. The warm-ups were amazingly organized. No personal stretching, no individual workouts. It was all team based. Check out the American guy (Micheal Restovich) quiting early.


They also take a full infield practice, like a high school team. I don't think you could get MLB players to do that.

The mascot is a Hawk, no surprise there.
The game between the Softbank Hawks and the Orix Buffaloes was a blowout, and you could tell from the beginning. The Hawks pitcher, Toshiya Sugiuchi, struck out 5 of the first 6 batters, and, with a manager like Sadaharu Oh, you know they can score runs. They started right away, with 2 in the first, and didn't look back. They ended up with 13 runs on 17 hits, and won 13-0.

This time I got to see what happens when the home team wins, and it was totally different than the US. As soon as they got the last out, some guys rushed onto the field to set up a tiny stage for the "Hero Interview". They rushed the players of the game up to stage to answer questions, and every fan stayed put to listen. I don't know what they said, but people seemed to like it. This is Sugiuchi with his arm all wrapped up.

After the interview, the lights went out and I thought it was over, but nobody moved, so I didn't either. It was the right choice, since I got to see the 20 seconds of indoor fireworks.
While they opened the dome to clear out the smoke, the people finally started leaving, about 35 minutes after the game ended. I crowded onto the subway and went to bed to get some sleep before the big festival the next morning.

Golden Week III - Osaka

Sorry for doing this in the past tense, but even a laptop is a little too heavy to be hauling all over Western Japan. So instead, I'll do this in installments, when I feel like it.

I finally got to head out for vacation on Thursday. I had to put it off to fit the baseball schedule, but once I started, I never had time to stop. First destination: Osaka, to see the Hanshin Tigers play against the Yakult Swallows.

2 trains and 4 hours or so after I started, I was in Osaka. I planned things so that I could do a little, tiny bit of sightseeing before game time at 6:00, so I headed for the most famous, touristy place in Osaka, Osaka-jo Park. Osaka castle was a pretty big deal during the unification of Japan in the late 1500's, but unfortunately, when you build the tallest building in town on top of the highest hill, you should make it fireproof. They didn't do that back then, so lightening burned it down several times before they build a cement version in the 90's. It still looks the same on the outside, but inside, it's an 8 story museum, complete with elevators and holograms. I didn't really enjoy it much once I got inside, but the park all around it was great.
After walking around for a few hours, I headed over to my free hotel (Roynet Hotel club points from all my previous trips to Japan, thank you Honda).

I thought it was only fitting to start my Japanese baseball trips by going to the heart of Japanese baseball, Koshien Stadium. It was build in 1924 to host the national high school tournament, and is almost considered holy ground to Japanese baseball players. Kids who make it to the annual August tournament fill up bags with dirt from the infield when they leave. The Tigers play away games for all of August because the high school tournament is more important. It's the biggest sporting event in Japan, comparable to the NCAA basketball tournament. Babe Ruth played an exhibition game there.
Unfortunately, it's on the other side of town from my free hotel. There's absolutely no parking near the stadium, there's signs posted that say "No My Car" to keep you from driving there. That's just part of the owner's genius. The only train that goes to Koshien is the Hanshin Railway, owners of the team. Still, I found my way there early to see what happens. I bought myself some chicken nuggets, fries, and a beer and settled in to "Be Best, The Sports"I figure that, since I don't have a hometown team here, I'm going to go to all the stadiums and "audition" the teams. I had to try on the gear, to make sure I got the whole experience. Does it look like I had fun? One of the benefits of going to games alone is that you get great seats. I was right on the border of the official cheering section. They were loud, they had great endurance, and they were organized. There was always a song going on when the Tigers were batting. I didn't know any of them, but that didn't matter. There were cheerleaders to show me what to do. Notice that there's a guy in front of each section, all looking at the leader. Don't want that speed-of-sound thing to get us out of sync.



It was a good defensive game, with no hits through 4 innings. Finally, in the 6th, Yakult put together a few hits and took a 2-0 lead. They held the Tigers to 1 hit and ended up winning 2-0.

The Hanshin railway thing is brilliant in making people take their train. However, the combination of an old stadium with narrow walkways in and out and having only 1 way to go causes some problems.
My favorite Hanshin story, and maybe my favorite Japanese baseball story, is that they are cursed, like the Red Sox or the Cubs. But they don't blame Babe Ruth or a goat.

In 1985, they Tigers won the Japan series, in no small part thanks to an American player named Randy Bass, who won the first of 2 consecutive triple crowns that year . The fans went wild, and to celebrate, people jumped into the nearby Dontonbori river dressed up like the players. But in Japan, it's not easy to find a big, blond American looking guy to be Randy Bass. The fans were resourceful, though, and went for the nearest white guy they could find, Colonel Sanders. They grabbed the statue in front of the nearest KFC and tossed it in the River, and haven't won the Japan series since.Since I wanted to kill some time and let the crowd thin, to do my part to appease the Colonel, I stopped for a quick chicken sandwich at the nearest KFC. Once the crowd died down, I headed to the hotel to get to bed. I had to be up early the next morning to leave for Fukuoka.