Go Go swallows!

Yesterday was a national holiday and so everyone at ECC had the day off. Since it was a Monday, I already had the day off, so it didn't really mean much to me. However, it did mean that I had more people to hang out with yesterday. And so, we went to a baseball game.

We went in support of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows who were playing against the Yokohama Bay Stars. I can't explain why we were Swallows fans other than that Chani got us the tickets and Chani's first ever baseball game was a Swallow's game. So she has a special soft spot for them, I guess. Sadly, the Bay Stars are pretty good and so our team lost. It was still loads of fun, though. I kinda got into baseball games after seeing the Cardinals a few times in St. Louis. It was pretty great how the community rallied behind them, exhibiting St. Louis pride. I'd never experienced that kind of local pride before, let alone taken part in it. It was intoxicating. I totally fell for it. Especially when the Cards won the World Series. Boy, was that exciting.

Anyways, at this Swallows game yesterday, there was quite a bit of organized chanting. But mostly everyone had noisemakers which consisted of two little plastic baseball bats attached by a string. All you were supposed to do was hit them against each other. Of course, I just had to buy my own overpriced set of "noisemakers." What was really hilarious was the umbrellas. Whenever our team scored a point everyone on the Swallows' side whipped out these tiny umbrellas decorated with little Yakult Swallows mascots perched on top of them. They'd open up the umbrella's and raise them up and down while chanting excitedly. I loved that there was absolutely no inclement weather in sight. There were also cheerleaders with umbrellas during the halftime show.



Another favorite part of the Japanese baseball game experience was the beer vendors. They were all cute young girls dressed in neon jumpsuits with big square packs on their backs, full of beer. The packs had big tubes protruding from them that were probably for dispensing beer, but they really made the backpacks look like some kinda high-tech ghostbusting pack. The combination of the backpacks and the jumpsuits just really made these girls look like ghostbusters.I couldn't get over it. I kept trying to sneak pictures of the beer vending girls all night.



Also, people don't eat hot dogs at baseball games here. They eat pan fried noodles! So there were quite a few differences. In addition, I agreed with the other two American girls in attendance it felt like we were at a high school football game. Somehow we all had that exact same feeling. I suppose it was because it was a rather small stadium. I expected something larger, higher, and much more imposing. Also, it just had that vibe: a high school football game vibe. Probably the marching band that played on the Bay Stars' side of the stadium had a lot to do with this feeling, as well. A lot of Swallows fans had also brought trumpets and other brass instruments to the game.

Afterwards, as our group was walking to the station, we saw a cool fountain on the side of the road. We stopped to look at it, and suddenly, a wall of water spouted up out of the ground and attacked Craig. He got quite a bit of a shock, as well as a soaked t-shirt. Then, since he was already wet, he decided to walk through the wall of spouting water to the other side. We thought he was crazy at first, but then he dared us to do it, too. We were soon all on the other side of the watery wall, and all extremely soaked. Quite a few Japanese people from the crowds walking back from the game had stopped to watch us. We were pretty sure we would soon get told off either by some public official, or a grumpy old lady, whoever showed up first. [I tell you, that happens a lot here. One time we got told off by a random old Japanese woman for sitting in an empty parking lot at night, eating some KFC because KFC had sold us food, only to tell us afterwards that we couldn't eat it there because they were closing. Since we had already received our food, we had to do take out. Oh, those evil Gaijin, always eating their KFC out in the open. Who do they think they are?] Anyway, the point was, we didn't get told off at all! Instead, a bunch of the Japanese people decided it was really just too hot and they wanted to have fun too! Soon we had about seven Japanese people join our ranks on the other side. We encouraged more people to jump through and gave them rounds of applause when they finally did it. We felt like we were showing them how to loosen up and have fun, break a few rules or something. Oh those bold and brave gaijin, paving the way of liberty. We were SOAKED when we got on the subway soon after, though. That's what we get for breaking the rules.



here's Craig behind the wall of water, daring us all to come over to the other side...


I still wasn't dry when we went arrived at an izakaya for a late dinner. Although it wasn't a Disgusting Tuesday yet, Adam and I saw there was horse meat sashimi on the menu and felt we had to take advantage of the opportunity. And so, we ate raw horse meat with garlic and soy sauce! And, it was actually quite tasty! I can't believe I ate horse, because I absolutely love those animals, but at this point I think I'd try almost any food. I don't discriminate anymore.

So there you go. What a day.

Also, here's a fun picture I took through one of my baseball bat noisemakers:


At least these expensive dudes were useful for something other than making noise. That's a Yakult Swallow's player you're looking at through the blue tube.