Beisbol

Today I got up bright and early to go to a baseball game. It was part of the Tokyo Big 6 tournament. Tokyo Big 6 is sort of like the big 12, only japanese and more intense. Before I even got to where we were supposed to meet Mika, she emailed me saying that a train got in a wreck so we would have to find the stadium ourself because she would be very late. With the help of a random guy that came up and talked to us in english, we figured out where we were supposed to go. Apparently we went with some sort of club, we had to wear press passes and got a brochure about the team and a signed megaphone. Then we practiced cheer songs with the help of a cheerleader and some lady that honestly looked like she was in the german SS. So we got into the game and they opened the game up with the singing of both school songs, our school and the opposing team. It was lots of old Japanese and yelling so I wasn't too sure what was going on. But it did feel like there should have been a big picture of some man going through a parade and us singing praises to the party for our great nation. So then the game started, I guess. Actually Rachel and I weren't too sure the game had started until the third inning because we couldn't see any of it. We were in pretty much the first row mind you. It was because of all the cheering. Imagine old videos of Third Reich Germany having parades and replace them with Japanese people and you have Japanese baseball cheering. It was mad intense. They seriously cheered the entire 2 and half hours of the game. Only stopping once really. All of the male yell leaders yelled their hardest the entire time. One was right in front of Rachel and I and kept on staring at us and trying to get us to cheer. We tried to make do, but cheering in Japanese is rather confusing. Especially with the odd hand motions and the pseudo-english. Also the yell leaders had on the same German SS looking uniforms and armbands that said Hosei but all I could think of was Nazis. All during the game was cold and rainy. So it was a complete Japanese experience. After the game, Japanese and Europeans alike asked us what we thought. And we said that although the game was almost the same, that was about it. I mean if you cheered that much, even in an american football game you would be kicked out. And baseball is such a boring sport that the cheering is pretty sporadic, not the entire time.

Here are some pictures of the game. I didn't get many because 1) I was told by a german that pictures weren't allowed, even though we saw plently of people taking pictures and 2) seriously they were cheering the entire time and I think I would have been sent to some sort of camp if I didn't cheer.


This was the main platform for the yell-leader and two cheerleaders. Sometimes the cheerleaders would all come up to the stage and do a performance, but it was mostly just those three. Also the yell-leader did some sort of dance the entire time and yelled really loud.


This was the band. Soon after it was all filled with the band members and various cheer peoples.


These two guys were the apparent flag party members. The flag was huge and kept on hitting me and others around in the face. The guy who actually held the flag put it between his legs and lifted it up. Which looked really painful and I don't think anyone has ever shown them the other way of attaching it to your side...


This is the scoreboard for the game. On the sides are the batters. Everytime they batted we woudl chant something about them hitting the ball or good luck. The first guy's name is "Obiki" which sounded a lot like dad's name, Obie. Thought that was funny.

After the game I came back to Tsutsujigaoka station and had my interview for the job. It was sort of an interview, but not really. The people were really nice and seemed excited that I contacted them. I only really talked about myself for like a minute, and the rest of the time they were explaining what I would be doing. So bascially I'll be teaching english lessons to 7-8 year olds, 8-10 year olds and, starting in november, an entire kindergarten class. I met one of the girls that I will be teaching tonight and her mother and they were both very nice. It looks like I'll be getting some really good life experience and the obvious yen. I will be sitting in on a lesson on thursday and I will start teaching this next friday. pretty amazing that this worked out.