Buy Me Some Fried Octopus and Dried Abelone Tentacles

Another exciting, fun-filled weekend in the life of Dan. I’ve certainly started packing the activities into my weekends as it begins to hit me that my weekends are indeed numbered and I need to do as much as humanly possible before I leave this fabulous island.

Saturday:

My friend Dave and I had been planning for quite a while to go see a Japanese baseball game when the season began, so we finally did so yesterday and brought along a bunch of our friends with us. Though it was only an “open-season” (read: preseason) game, we decided to give it a go and see what it was like. We went to nearby Yokohama to see the Yokohama Baystars battle the Hanshin Tigers (from Osaka). We were a tad worried about getting tickets the day of the game, but realized when we got there that it would be no problem and actually ended up sitting in about the 10^th row on the third base side of the stadium.

The actual game that the two teams played on the field was pretty much like the game played in the States. However, that’s where all the similarities end. The biggest difference, by far is the nature of the crowd. The entire game they were rowdy, loud, energetic – pretty much the opposite of what you would expect from a Japanese crowd. Now maybe it was because there was a whole slew of Hanshin fans there, famous for being particularly rabid and devoted to their Tigers, but it was far more noise than you’d ever hear at an American game. The stands were neatly divided into two halves; one side was Hanshin, one side was Yokohama and the Hanshin side (again, from Osaka, over 300 miles away) had at least twice as many fans as Yokohama – and this was an exhibition game. We sat on the Hanshin side and thus, in a matter of minutes, all decided that we were all huge Hanshin Tigers fans and would root for them for the remainder of the game, and perhaps the rest of our lives. A few of us bought some really slick-looking Tigers jerseys to complete the deal – though Dave remained a staunch Bay Stars fan, a fact that was not received well in a crowd full of Tigers fans. It was sort of like being a Red Sox fan in the middle of Yankee Stadium.

And let me tell you, these Tiger fans were crazy. In the left field stands, they had an enormous cheering section, complete with four of five men whose job it was to stand on huge ladders and conduct all of the cheers, like in marching band. They also had this guys waving enormous (and I’m talking like as long as a full-sized automobile enormous) flags with the Tigers logo and various Japanese phrases such as “Fight!”, “Win!” and the like printed all over them. That wasn’t all. There was pretty much an entire horn section too; trumpets, horns, trombones – you name it. And as a trumpet player myself, I can say – boy did they blast those things. Then there were three or four bass drums that never stopped sounding the entire game. And it’s not like the cheers were half-assed, like they are sometimes at MLB games. Everybody knew the words and sang along and banged together these huge plastic sticks shaped like bats that made a surprisingly loud noise for their size. And the cheers were awesome too. Before the game, the fans sang a sort of “alma mater” song (that had to be at least 5 minutes long) with verse upon verse of praise for their precious Tigers. The cheers during the game consisted of customized cheers for each player on the team. One cheer (which sounds significantly less cool without trumpets, bass drums, thunder sticks, and a few thousand Japanese voices behind it) went something like this: “I-ke! I-ke! *insert last name of player here*” (Go, go *player’s name*!). Also, when the power hitters came up, they all (and by all I mean 6000 fans) did this synchronized motion thing where the people on the 3^rd base side would motion from right to left toward the outfield fence with their thunder sticks and the fans in the outfield would motion toward them, coaxing their player to hit a home run, hoping that this synchronized motion would change the atmospheric isobars – which I think it did – to allow for that extra gust of wind to carry the ball over the fence. The fact that 6000 people could cheer in such harmony with each other, and with such enthusiasm, astounded me. And even though I didn’t know any of the cheers, it was extremely hard not to join in by the end.

In the end, the Tigers won 7 – 4 which of course, spurred another round of raucous cheering, a repetition of the alma mater, and rejoicing among other things. Though the fans were certainly the best part of the game (I’d love to go see a regular season game when the stadium is actually full!), there were a few other cool things that I noticed as well:

-First, when any team brought in a relief pitcher from the bullpen, they drove (yes, drove) the pitcher out from the outfield in this extremely slick sports car to the mound. What service!

-The Japanese mascots are both the stupidest and cutest things that you have ever seen at the same time. The Baystar’s mascot is this thing with a big star as its head.

-Ties are feasible in Japanese baseball after 10 innings

-There is no booing or hostile cheering against the other team of any kind. Quite the opposite in the states, huh?

Anyways, it was a really fun time and I hope to go to a few more games before I leave if possible. After the game we came back and went to a Mexican restaurant with a few other people and then proceeded to Cold Stone Creamery (yes, they do have it here). So worth the 500 Yen I paid for it! And, of course, I gave them a tip which made them have to sing these silly English songs (in English, which was the best part).

Sunday:

Today was less crazy than yesterday, but extremely fun nonetheless. We went to the Ghibli Museum (Hayao Mayazaki’s film studio) with my Japanese Culture class and saw a fabulous collection of relics from all of his movies (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, etc.) The museum was also really hands on and had a bunch of fascinating exhibits all talking about basically how freakin’ hard it is to make a full length animated feature.

After the museum, we went for Hawaiian burgers at Kua’Lana (the mahi mahi, avocado sandwich is so good!) and sort of sat around the restaurant and talked about various things for a few hours. It was nice to sort of relax and chat it up with everyone for a while, instead of rushing out to do one thing or the other after dinner.

On tap for this week is a field trip to a Japanese school with some of the TIS students tomorrow afternoon. On Wednesday, we have off (for the Spring Equinox – they have holidays for EVERYTHING here!), so I think I’m either going to go to Kamakura or Asakusa. Also, this week officially begins Hanami (flower viewing) when all the cherry blossoms begin to bloom and Tokyo becomes about 10 times prettier in a matter of days.

Everybody’s also starting to realize how little time is left and how fast it’s all going by, so everyone is being really personable and just sort of enjoying what we have left. I don’t think any of us will realize it until we leave this place, but despite the drama, the people we get annoyed by on a daily basis, even the people we dislike, we’ve all been drawn closer to one another just by going through this experience together. It’s nice to be united by a common thread, and know that that thread will hopefully remain in tact when we all return to our respective universities. It’s quite a unique experience in that we basically all have accelerated friendships, starting (and perhaps ending) in a matter for 4 months. It’s a unique experience, but certainly one that’s not worth forgetting.

Sorry about the introspective stuff. I will warn you that there will probably be more in the coming weeks as time slips away here in the Land of Rising Sun.

Jaa mata ne!

Picture Guide: #1: Me and Eric sporting our Tigers jerseys, #2: The Hanshin Crowd, #3: A Tigers pitcher in action, #4: The gang in front of a robot at the Ghibli museum