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.

Seaweed Variety

Today in International Business while talking about different companies in Japan, the teacher began telling us about the varieties of seaweed in the Japanese diet. None of us were sure about exactly how we got to that. Then he started talking about possible visits to Japanese comapanies in the area. Like going and touring a Nissan or Honda plant. Then he said that we could as a class go on a weekend trip to one city, I think Nagano, where there is a Nissan plant. Which sounded pretty fun, I mean how often do you get a chance to visit a japanese automobile manufacturing class and make a weekend trip out of it with people from all over the world. He is this older japanese man that always talks really highly of the USA and the UK. So it's always funny the ideas that he has for the class. What he said about the trip was "We could go and eat a dinner and drink together for the night". Nothing about anything educational. Oh, Japan.

After class Rachel, Holly and I went to Harajuku. Harajuku is such an interesting expirience. It's worth the trip to Japan alone. I went about a month ago, yet the fashion has still changed a bit since last month. It, as well as more trendy parts of Tokyo, are now dressed up for Halloween. One store had the story of Halloween on it's wall. Halloween, called Hallooeen on this sign, is a time to "dress up as your favourite animal or hero apparently".

Then later on tonite some guys and I went to the Tiny Cafe. I think we hae become locals. Pretty exciting. It was some girl's birthday and she wanted us to celebrate with her. So we all did "kanpai" (cheers) with some champagne. The waitress/boss lady was excited to see us back. It was a lot busier than last week, so we didn't get to mingle as much with the locals as last time. But oh well. Still a good relaxing time.

Thoosday

Once again there was no rain today. Quite exciting. And there were no clouds really. A pretty nice day in Tokyo. I saw some women wearing fur coats though. Not that cold ladies... They will do anything for fashion here.

This morning I found an ad online for english tutoring and, sweet irony, it was for a place right next to the Tsutsujigaoka station. I was pretty excited so I updated my resume and sent them an email inquiring about the job. I didn't think I would even hear back from them at all. But when I got back home today and checked my email, they had written me back with a list of class times that they have available for teaching and asked me when I would be available. So I emailed them back the time I would be available and they emailed me back later on this night and said they would like to interview me this saturday! I had pretty much given up all hope of finding any sort of job here, so this is quite the surprise. Also, the person in charge told me what kind of class it was. And I was wondering since on the ad it said that they prefered people with expirience with children. The class sessions are for preschool aged children. So if it works out imagine me teaching the ABC's to little japanese 2-3 year olds.

After class I went to Rachel's place, the YWCA. Since it was a pretty nice day I took some pictures on top of their roof. At their building they have access to the roof which gives a pretty nice view of Tokyo.


The big building is the Hosei tower.


This is a row of flats right next to their building. I was actually trying to get a picture of a man reading the newspaper and brushing his teeth. Which you can kind of see.


This is one of the many rooftop gardens. There were better ones around but I could only really get pictures of this one since the sun was really bright.

Supposedly you can see Mount Fuji really well on a clear day in the west on a taller building. Hopefully it will be clear and I can try to get a good picture tomorrow.

When I was walking home from the station today this man on a bike asked me "Lost walking around?". He was dressed like a vietnam war vet from the 70's. He just wanted to make sure I wasn't lost. These Japanese people are just too nice. In America the directions from strangers you get is a shotgun blast when you are in the wrong part of town.

Shake and Bake

Today I got an email that said my only class was canceled, so I took that as permission to sleep in till 12. Sleeping in would be a lot easier if this road wasn't so loud especially during the morning and mid day. It was an actual sunny day so I decided to do some more laundry since my other laundry was finally dry. Even though it was sunny, it has definately cooled down quite a bit here. I'm still wearing flip flops and shorts though. Mostly out of habit.

After dinner today there was another earthquake. But this one lasted a bit longer than the last one. The quake was weaker though. Still got my heart racing of course. I'll probably get asked a million times about this earthquake like I was asked earlier this week about the first one. Every Japanese person I talked to this week asked me what I thought about the earthquake. One teacher said "日本からプレゼント" (It's a present from Japan).

I looked online today to see options about possibly going to Nagasaki next month. My friend Leslie is studying there this semester so I thought it would be a good chance to see another part of Japan and a familiar face at the same time. Traveling in Japan is way too expensive. Even though everything is connected by trains and such, the trains are so expensive. There are buses you can also take which are a little cheaper but still expensive. And of course flying is expensive. Hopefully I will be able to find something cheaper, because all though Tokyo is great and all, I'd really like to see other parts of Japan.

Rainy Days

It's pretty much been raining since saturday night. Which is ok except that the weather channel said it wasn't going to rain sunday monday or today so I did laundry. Which is on its third day of drying. It will take me a while to get used to this air drying thing. Today during the rain I definately saw some snow for about a minute. I was on the 12th floor of Hosei so it probably turned into rain before it ever hit the ground. But still, I was quite excited for seeing snow, even semi-rain snow, in October.

Yesterday the Prime Minister of Japan visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which is right next to Hosei. I would have gone to school earlier to see all that but I didn't find out about it until about 10 am yesterday. So now China and the Koreas are really mad at Japan again. I thought America had the monopoly on idiots in charges. Turns out offending nations and damaging foreign relations is a worldwide thing.

Today was actually kind of cold so I turned off the fan. (quite a big deal since anyone who has ever lived with me knows I'm hot even in sub zero temperatures) And I was looking around my room just to see where the heater was for future reference. Of course there isn't one. I'm not sure if this air conditioner turns into a heater (no writing on it leads me to belive that) or there is central heating (highly doubtful, the idea of anything centralized is irrational in Japan). So it looks like I'll be having a cold winter. Probably to make up for the lack of winter in Texas.

First time

Since my commuter pass expired yesterday I had to buy another one today. It is supposed to save you money by buying all your fares for the month at one time. But for me I think it's actually just a decent price. Considering it takes 740 yen to get to campus from here. But with the commuter pass it ends up being about 200 a day. And you get to use it multiple times a day. Decent I guess. But not really cheap. After I bought the ticket (I had to go to a big station to buy it, Chofu station) I decided to cheat and get mcdonalds. Mostly because it is the only place where you can buy anything for 100 yen. And the McChicken sandwhich I ate had some type of dressing that resembled ranch dressing. So it was heaven for 100 yen.

When I was getting back from Chofu station I kept on hearing a lady's voice that sounded like it was from a megaphone. Not too uncommon to hear voices from loudspeakers just around Tokyo. Very 1984-esque. And then I saw a helicopter. Than I saw that the loudspeaker was from the helicopter. I have no idea what was going on really, but it wasn't as creepy as it would be in America. I couldn't really hear what the lady was saying except for something about China. The lady was really upbeat so I didn't think that this was the Chinese government telling us that Japan is being invaded. Although I wouldn't put it past them.

Then to add to the surreal day, I expirienced my first earthquake. You can read about it here.It was really weak here in Tokyo. The article talks about Ibaraki prefecture which is north of the prefecture northeast of Tokyo. At first my bookshelf started shaking and then the ground kind of rumbled for a bit. It just felt like a train went by. When you are in an earthquake they told us we are supposed to first open a door (to make sure you have an exit before the door frame warps and you can't open the door) and then get under something sturdy. But I definately forgot about all that and went to look for the video camera. But the whole thing happened in like 10 seconds. And it was really weak. But still pretty exciting. I was thinking I would have my first earthquake in a high floor at Hosei and scare the crap out of me. So this was a good intro to Japan life without panicking.