Baseball, American Studies & Sashimi

Last Friday, we decided to attend our first baseball game in Japan. Of course, the sport is big here, and if you take a train ride on the weekend, you are bound to pass numerous recreational games going on. The Yokohama team is the Yokohama Bay Stars (the logo is the star at the bottom of Picture 1), but other great team names are the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and the Hiroshima Toya Carps. (A good book on Japanese baseball is *You Gotta Have Wa,* for all those interested.)

The night started off well. We passed the food carts outside the stadium and picked up dinner (Picture 2) to bring in. However, due to the language barrier, we got unreserved seats (i.e., you stand up in the back) in the opponent's territory. Since we had Laurea, we decided to just pick some empty reserved seats and wait there until they were claimed. This lasted until...the bottom of the 3rd inning.

So, we weren't there long, but it was interesting. The Chiba Lotte Marines fans were definitely an enthusiastic group, with scripted cheers or songs for each batter. They basically never sit down - there is always another cheer or song required. In picture 3, you can see all of the Marines flags being waved (and I think their team was much better, since they were already up 3-0 by the time we left, and the final score was 12-1).

Luckily, the night was saved (for Laurea, at least) since we found a *free* bouncy castle right outside the stadium (picture 4). The instructions read that you needed to be at least 5 years old, but since Laurea is tall, she sailed right in and jumped around for 45 minutes.

The next day we were back in Tokyo, as Russ had to attend a meeting of the Japan American Studies Association. Mary & Laurea went back to the Children's Castle, this time spending a lot of time on a wall that kids paint on until its solid color, but every hour gets a stream of water that just washes everything away (picture 5). Russ found the speakers good, but even better was the reception with a huge boat (yacht?) of sashimi, sushi, Okinawa pork, soba, and pudding.