Yokohama

This week was a relatively local team South of Tokyo, only a couple of hours by slow train (if you take the right one). A couple of guys from Columbus were here (Dan and Dustin), and unfortunately we didn't get the trains exactly right. Mostly I think we just changed trains more than we needed to, but kept moving in the right direction. I think we were about half an hour later than planned, but it wasn't a big deal.

We had about 2 hours til game time, so we ran through Yokohama's Chinatown. Ate fast and had to run to the game. I only had time to pick up an awesome Bruce Lee T-shirt as a cultural memento before we had to go.
I made a slight miscalculation in buying the tickets and didn't get reserved seats. We got to the stadium about 45 minutes early to sit in the fan section, but that wasn't early enough, so we had to stand the whole game. Had a railing, at least, and the view was nice.
I've confirmed the Baystars suck. I've seen them 3 times now (luck of the draw) and the lost every time. It was also the 2nd time I saw the Rakuten Eagles beat them, and it wasn't even that close, 5-3 on a meaningless 9th inning fielder's choice. But they do have a lot of spirit in the cheering section. What the trumpets lacked in talent or rhythm, they made up with stamina. Plus, they were nicely coordinated, each pointing in a different direction.So, that leaves the current standings, as far as I know, at:

1. Rakuten Golden Eagles, 2-0
2. Yakult Swallows, 1-0
3. Softbank Hawks, 1-0
4. Hiroshima Toyo Carp, 1-0
5. Hanshin Tigers, 0-1
6. Orix Buffaloes, 0-1
7. Yokohama Baystars, 0-3

Other Japanese news, they finally got banned substances here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/26/sports/BBI-Japan-Doping.php

Also, since there's no guns, we get crazy people running around stabbing people:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080609/ts_nm/japan_stabbing_dc_9

Sendai

Now that I'm all rested up from Golden Week, it's time to start heading to the closer places. This week, I decided to head up to Sendai, about an hour and a half north, to watch the Rakuten Golden Eagles. Game time was 2:00, so if I wanted to do any sightseeing at all, I had to get started early. I sacrificed my Friday night and got on the 7:45 train Saturday morning.

Sendai is a nice modern city, and compact enough that I could just walk to most of the places I wanted to go. My "it's somewhere over in this direction" navigating style cost me some time, though, and I only got to one of the historic spots, the mausoleum of Date Masamune. He was a feudal lord around 1600 who basically founded the city, and his ancestors ran the show for a few hundred years. Also, he had a cool helmet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_Masamune

There was some sort of ceremony going on when I got there. Since it's a mausoleum, I assume its some sort of memorial, but I couldn't tell for sure. Cool building, though. It and the 2 other Date mausoleums on the site had this great, bright primary color paint job. I couldn't believe the paint could stay so bright for 400 hundred years, then I read that the sight was destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in 2001.

I alternated looking at the ceremony and checking my watch, then I had to go. I wanted to eat lunch before the game, and it was already noon.

Every town in Japan seems to have a local dish they're famous for. In Utsunomiya, it's gyoza (Chinese dumplings), and I eat them all the time. In Hiroshima and Osaka, it's okanomiyaki, my favorite Japanese food. In Sendai, it's gyutan. I want to try the local food everywhere, so I decided to suck it up and order the cow tongue. Turns out it's pretty good, just really chewy.

After my tasty cow tongue, I jumped on the train for the stadium. Couldn't quite tell if I got off at the right stop.

It says "Rakuten" and "Baseball Station" all over the place. I guess there's nothing else there.

As usual, I got there an hour or so early to check out the scene around the stadium (by the way, it's called Kleenex Stadium Miyagi). For some reason, the Eagles have a sort of wild west theme going. Lots of country music, all the stadium employees have a sort of cowboy hat on, and a big cowboy theme stage was set up. I couldn't track down the mascot, but I got this instead. Fair trade.

I went in and found my seat. In most stadiums, the home team is on the first base side. I wanted to sit in the fan club area, so I bought a ticket for right field. Little did I know, Rakuten is the exception to the rule, and the fan club is in left field. I was just below the visiting fan club section. Apparently everyone else knows that this isn't the place to sit. This is about 5 minutes before game time.
They do some nice, "baseball for kids" things before a lot of the games here. For instance, a couple of times I've seen them set up kids in all the positions for the first pitch, then when the players are announced, the run out an give the kid a ball and replace them in the field. Here, they even had a kid throw out the first pitch. But before all that, while they raked the infield, a whole herd of kids and parents came running out to the outfield for some "catch ball". Just a bunch of kids and parents playing catch in the outfield for five minutes with a whole stadium (17435 announced attendance) watching them.
As usual I got a pretty good seat. Right in home run territory. Luckily, they put up this helpful sign to keep us safe.

Says something about "Home Run Ball". Apparently they come in from the side.

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles are a really new team. In 2005, the Orix Blue Wave of Kobe and the Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka merged, forming, you guessed it, the Orix Buffaloes. This left the league with 11 teams, and the 2nd best players on both teams without a job. The players have a union here, and this caused the first and only strike by professional baseball players in Japan. The strike lasted 2 days, and the result was the formation of a new team, the Eagles, who got bought up by some internet company, Rakuten, and based in Sendai in the Tohoku region. Don't know where the Golden comes from.

As a result of being such a new team, they don't seem to have the same hardcore fans other teams have yet. There's a certain percentage of people who have adopted them as a home team, but there's others who are sticking with their old team. This leads to a lot of mixed couples.
Now, I can understand the couple in front of me. They probably both had a favorite team before they met. But up front there's a guy and a little (sleeping) kid. That kid isn't old enough to pick a team, and his dad is obviously a Baystars fan, yet he was completely decked out in Rakuten gear.

Anyway, it was interleague play, and the Eagles beat the Baystars 2-1 in some really crappy weather. That puts the home team at games I've attended at 3-1, and puts the Baystars at games I've attended at 0-2. By chance, that's 2 games in a row I've seen the Baystars, and coincidentally, they're the next team I was planning to go to.

By the way, the Yen is so strong against the dollar now, I can get the luxury chips.

Golden Week VII - Miyajima

Last day, and about 5 hours or so from home, so if I wanted to do any sightseeing, I needed to get moving early. Thanks to Bass(beer, not former Hanshin Tiger Randy), I got a good night's sleep and bounced out of bed around 6 to check out and head to Miyajima. But like I said, I didn't ride the streetcars enough to really figure them out. This is what I look like at after 4 days of traveling and taking the wrong streetcar with all my luggage on my back at 7AM.After I got that all sorted out and shoved my big backpack in a coin locker, I hopped on the train that would take me to the ferry that goes to the island of Miyajima, home to the famous "floating" torii gate. Not really floating, but I'm not going to complain, at high tide it still looks like it's floating. The weather didn't really cooperate with me that day, and it was really foggy in the morning.

All the shrine buildings are built the same way, so that when the tides in, the whole place seems to be floating. When the tide goes out, though, they aren't fooling anyone. People will walk out to the torii for pictures.

Not being one to learn from my mistakes, I saw a path that went towards the top of the mountain and started up. Lucky for me, the path actually went to the ski-lift that takes you up the mountain. Down by the shrine, they have the same kind of tame deer that there are in Nara. Up on the mountain, they have monkeys. You can feed the deer, but they don't seem to want you to feed the monkeys.

Apparently, they can take care of themselves.

And also signs, it seems.

After watching the monkeys for a while, I noticed that there was another peak that looked higher. I paid $20 for a ride to the top, dammit, I want to go to the top! I found the path and started up, or actually, over to the real summit. I got about 10 minutes down the path and saw a sign that said it was another 1.4 km, but I wasn't going to stop. Besides, it had been downhill so far. I hiked another 40 minutes or so, uphill, through the rocks, before I finally got to the top. The fog was clearing by then, and it was worth the trip.By now it was getting late, and I hadn't eaten lunch, and I still had about 5 hours worth of trains ahead of me. Time to wrap it up. I caught the ferry and train back the Hiroshima, ate about as fast as possible at McDonald's, and got back on the train for Tokyo. The whole trip, I played the odds and bought the non-reserved seats, and it had paid off so far. This time, though, it didn't. I literally was shoved onto the shinkansen for Tokyo. My backpack and I had a nice little spot, wedged into the doorway. I stood there, worrying what to do if that was the door that opened at the next stop. It wasn't for the first 2 stops, where people seemed to just look in and realize there was nowhere to go, but finally it was my turn. My only option was to get off the train to let people out and make myself the first in line to get on. I moved to a more central standing location, but I still had to stand for the 2 hours or so from Hiroshima to Kyoto. I finally got home around 9 and went straight to bed. I had to be back at work in the morning.

It was all a little too busy, but it was fun. I wish I could find time to go back to all those places and actually spend some time there, but I don't think it's in my schedule.

Golden Week VI - Hiroshima

I took the early AM train to Hiroshima, hoping to do some sightseeing before the afternoon game. I got in around 10 AM, took a streetcar to my hotel to drop off my bag and get the tourist map. Not through any good planning on my part, but the hotel was right next to both the stadium and the Peace Memorial Park, so I didn't have to ever really figure out the streetcars.

First stop was the Peace Memorial Park. It was a weird experience. The atmosphere of depressing hope that they managed to create is tough to decide how to react to. They preserved a building in the state it was right after the bomb and dedicated it as a peace memorial. All I could do was think about how people must have been walking though the park just like me that day. It's a tough place to go. All around the park they have thousands of paper cranes, and giant fiberglass paper cranes. They're sent from all over the world in memory of a little girl who died from leukemia after the war. The look cheerful, but then you think about why they're there, and it brought me back down.
Anyway, I decided to leave after a little while and head to the ballpark after checking into the hotel. It looked like they were setting up for some sort of festival. When I went back to the hotel, there was yet another hip hop dance group on a stage just outside.

I walked the ballpark and looked for the hat and shirt shop, but they didn't have as many as the other parks. I had to wade into the only one they had and somehow figure out if I needed a size O or F or 150 or what. I got suited up and went in.
It's another old park, built in 1957. Narrow hallways and really tightly packed-in concession stands. They're building a new stadium that will open next year, but from the people I talked to, nobody knows exactly where it is.

With the benefit of coming alone, I got about the best seats I've ever had at a ballgame. Right by 3rd base in the 2nd row. So there wasn't anyone sitting in front of my to take this picture. By the way, there's no smoking. There was, however, more sun, but I had sunscreen now.
It was a good game. The Hiroshima Toyo Carp (who are mostly owned by Mazda and look just like the Reds) were losing to the Yokohama BayStars 2-5 in the 7th inning. They don't know "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" here. Instead of a 7th inning stretch, they call it "Lucky 7", sing a song, and blow up balloons. These are no ordinary balloons, they're "Rocket Balloons". They have a plastic valve on the end that both limits the flow and and weights down the balloon. What do you do with these? You let them go, and let the grounds crew clean it up.To be fair, they do this at all the stadiums, I just didn't mention it sooner. I got some balloons to take with me. They say "The Balloon of the Victory".

Anyway, the Carp (which in Japanese is Car-pu) were down 6-2 before they came back and scored 6 in the bottom of the 8th to win 8-6. There was the traditional hero interview, and then, to celebrate the win, more balloons.

After the game I took a short break and then headed out to look for the food that Hiroshima is famous for, okonomiyaki. It literally means "cooked as you like it" or something like that. It happens to be my favorite Japanese food. The guidebook promised me a building filled with 30 or so okonomiyaki joints, if only I could find it. It took a while, because it was more nondescript than I expected, but I found it. I couldn't read most of the menu, but I could make out the word "Deluxe", so that's what I went for. Turns out that means with shrimp and cuttlefish, which is OK by me.Okonomiyaki is sort of like a pancake, at least that's what they say, but it's not sweet. It's got a sort of pancake on the bottom, but after that they add some fish, cabbage, an egg, and who knows what else. They make it all on the big hot griddle in front of you, cooking 10 or so of these at a time for all the people there. It's a show in itself. I don't know how they keep it straight.

Afterwards, I decided I was out of Japanese for the day and went to an Irish bar for a beer before bed. Next day was another long one.

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.