Hawks vs. Marines, Part 2

Now that I was in the seating area, my mission to get a batting practice ball was finally underway!

I hurried over to the left-field bleachers and was happy to see that there was very little competition, i.e., very few other people with gloves. For a couple of seconds, I tried to scout out the area and figure out where the best place to stand would be. But the reality was, the batters can hit the balls anywhere, so I just parked myself in the front row and started the waiting game.

After about 10 minutes of nothing, a ball finally came my way. But it sailed well over my head and to my left, so there was no chance of me getting it. The weird thing was, nobody was scrambling for it. It was as if none of them cared at all about scooping up the souvenir, or, worse yet, as if everyone was actually trying to avoid the ball, like it was bad luck or something to touch it. And just as I was marveling at the fact that there no scrum battling for the ball, my radar told me that there was another ball on its way. Sure enough, I turned back toward the field and saw a ball heading right at me. Or so I thought. It landed a few rows behind me, basically right in the lap of this guy who was just sitting there with his friend, both of them minding his own business.

And that's when I found out what the restraint was all about.

You know why no one gave a damn about the balls?

Because as soon as the balls landed in the stands, ushers pounced on them and threw them back on the field. So even if I had caught the ball that was a bit out of my reach, an usher would have come over and taken the ball away from me. Heck, they even took balls away from kids who had caught some!

One word: Riiiiiiiiiiiiii-diculous!

(Before we headed to Fukuoka, I even asked my supervisor if I would be able to keep a ball if I got one during batting practice, because, for whatever reason, I was pretty sure I wouldn't get to keep such a ball. I have no idea where I had heard or read that, but that was my understanding. So, naturally, I was happy when my supervisor told me that of course I could keep it. Was something lost in translation yet again?)

So it was time to switch to Plan B. (Always have a Plan B.)

Plan B was to hound the players for balls. I was pretty darn sure that if I could get a player to chuck a ball my way, the ushers wouldn't take it away from me.

That thought was confirmed when a player threw a ball in the direction of a group of kids who were sitting in a special section along the left-field foul line. One of the kids caught the ball on a bounce, and the ushers kept their distance. So I knew I had a chance for a ball, too. At the same time, I was also kicking myself in the tush for not having a cheap ball in my glove that I could throw back onto the field if I did catch a BP ball. (Next time, I'm bringing one!)

The only players on the field were the visiting Marines, which probably hurt my chances of getting my prize, since they weren't as likely to be fan-friendly as the hometown Hawks. (The Hawks didn't come out of the clubhouse until about 20 minutes before the game started, so the fans had very little time to interact with them before the game. I find that rather odd, but I guess that's just one more weird thing about Japanese baseball.)

But I tried my luck, anyway.

This one guy, Ohmatsu (I had no clue he was the starting left-fielder), was in my area, so I yelled down at him, "Hey, Ohmatsu, let me get a ball, man!" But he just ignored me, as I suspected he would. Over the span of the next 15 minutes or so, just about every time he had a ball in his hand or glove, I yelled something like, "C'mon, Ohmatsu, whaddya say, hook me up with a ball, man!" I even tried softening him up by calling him "O" and even "Big O" at one point, but that didn't matter. And I know he heard me, because one time he even looked up at me. My charm worked on Ohmatsu about as much as it did on the gate-girls!

And then it was Ohmatsu's turn to take BP, so off he went, heading toward home plate.

So I switched targets and started picking on a pitcher who was running slowly back and forth from one foul pole to the other along the warning track beneath me. But he hardly ever came by and never had a ball, anyway, so that strategy was quickly out the door.

I wanted to pick on the guy who was throwing the balls over to the kids every few minutes or so, but he was wearing a jacket so I had no clue what his name was.

Time was running out. It was about 4:50 and I figured BP would probably only last another ten minutes or so. I was slowly losing faith.

I had to choose another target quickly. So I picked on this guy wearing a jersey with the number 107(!) on it. (I spotted another guy with 111. No MLB players in their right mind would ever wear such high numbers, but in Japan, from what I understand, those triple-digit numbers are often worn by benchwarmers or non-roster players or what not. I'll have to look into that a bit more closely.) His name: Ishinuki.

I had no clue if Ishinuki was a player or a waterboy or what. So I had no clue if he was even allowed to throw a ball to me. But I didn't care at that point. He was wearing a jersey with a name on it, so he was my target. And I was pretty relentless. Just about every time he touched a ball, I tried something.

"Hey, Ishinuki, can I get a ball, please?!"

"Come on, Ishinuki, toss me a ball, buddy!"

"Whaddya say, Ishinuki, right up here, man!"

"Ishinuki, can I please have a ball?"

For several minutes, my man Ishinuki pretty much ignored me.

But then, finally, he looked up at me and gave me the "okay" sign.

Holy crap! Was he really going to come through for me?

Or did he mean, "Okay, enough already."?

I got my answer about a minute later. A batter finally hit a ball to left and Ishinuki fielded it. He then turned to me, saw that I was waiting, and tossed the ball to me.

And I dropped it!

Just kidding! No way would I drop it.

"Thanks, man, thanks a lot!"

I finally had my ball.

When I peaked inside my glove, I expected to see something written on the ball like "Japanese Professional Baseball League" or "Japan Pro Ball" or whatever.

Nope.

Just a plain ol' "Sh," the SoftBank logo. Bummer.

But still, I got my ball. Mission accomplished.

(Next time, I've got to get a foul ball during the game so I can see if those balls are any different.)

Batten Down the Hatches

A typhoon is on its way to mainland Japan. According to the current forecast, we should get hit some time on Friday.

The building I live in often loses water pressure, so, even though there's a chance that the problem was fixed a few weeks ago when some work was done on the building, I guess I'll be filling up the tub on Thursday. Since we are located well up into the mountains, relatively far from shore, I can't imagine that any damage that may result around here will be terribly serious. And hopefully, by the time the storm reaches us, if it indeed does, the winds will have died down considerably. Nevertheless, I will do my best to prepare for the worst.

Why? Well, because in 2005, a powerful typhoon rocked this area and damaged the private rail line between Nobeoka and Takachiho to such an extent that it has yet to be rebuilt! That my friends, is nuts!

Oh, and on a related note, our first baseball game of the season has already been postponed twice due to rain and it looks like it'll be postponed for a third time tomorrow. And even if it's not a rainout tomorrow, for some miraculous reason, well, the game that was originally scheduled for tomorrow has been pushed back to Friday. And judging by the weather forecast, you can bet your house that we won't be playing that one. So the rainouts continue.

I swear someone is out to sabotage our games. Starting with the end of our last season, back in May, I think we've now had about six rainouts in a row, if not seven! It's like if you want it to rain, simply schedule a game and you'll be granted your wish.

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Today at lunchtime, I made a big boo-boo. My mistake was going to lunch before looking at the lunch schedule. But I do that almost all the time, so I can't really consider that my mistake. What I guess you could say the real problem was is that I walked out of the cafeteria after I saw what was being served! That was a first, but I was so disheartened, I just knew I had no choice but to do a 180 and get the heck out of there. What was the meal, you ask? Rice (no, thanks), soup (edible), beans (no, thanks!), and the usual concoction that includes such ingredients as quail eggs, renkon, konnyaku, odd-tasting potatoes, and other assorted mostly not-so-delicious or nice-looking items (NO, thanks!).

Luckily for me, in such times of emergency, there's always Kajika-no-sato, a restaurant I mentioned in a previous blog. So I set off on my way, jogging at a slow pace so as not to get too sweaty but so that I could still make it to the restaurant, eat, and get back to school in time for the afternoon faculty meeting at 1:35.

And doubly lucky for me, another teacher who was also avoiding today's lunch (he wisely checked the menu!) and also on his way to Kajika picked me up on his way (and drove me back). So I had plenty of time to relax and have a nice, delicious lunch.

And believe me, paying the extra money for real food (I pay a monthly set fee for my lunches here at school, whether or not I eat them) is money well spent!

When I told the teacher about how I had entered the cafeteria and then turned around and left almost immediately, he told me that that was a bad move, that that was rude of me, and that the next time I just have to suck it up, take the food, eat it, and tell everyone how delicious it was.

Of course, he was only being half serious. And then I told him that I didn't mean to offend anyone, but that it offends me that I have to eat that food. Then he just laughed and told me to check out the menu more often before I go to lunch.

I'm just glad that some he has a good sense of humor. But believe me, I've highlighted today's lunch and will be on the lookout for it again so that I won't make the same mistake twice!

Hawks vs. Marines, Part 1 (Updated)

Last Saturday, September 6th, Courtney and I went to Fukuoka with the other English teachers at my school, and their families, to see our very first professional baseball game in Japan, featuring the SoftBank Hawks and the visiting Chiba Lotte Marines.

(In case you're wondering, SoftBank is the name of one of the major cell phone providers in Japan, Chiba is southeast of Tokyo, and Lotte is apparently the name of a huge Japanese/South Korean company.)

The game was scheduled to start at 6 p.m., but Courtney and I arrived at the park just after they opened the gates at 4 p.m., since I wanted to watch batting practice and try to get a ball or two. (Everyone in our group made their own way up to Fukuoka.)

But just getting into the dome was more difficult that I could have imagined.

The first problem we encountered was that there were no entrances on street level. So we had to find a staircase to go up. When we finally did get to the upper level, we weren't allowed in at the first entrance we tried. Apparently, it was the entrance reserved exclusively for some sort of "club" members, which I think means that that must have been the entrance to the bleacher seats, which is home to the massive cheering squads.

So we hurried over to the next-closest entrance and got in line. We only had to wait a few seconds to finally get in the stadium, but what struck me as quite odd, or rather, unbelievable, was the fact that the ticket takers were actually tearing off everyone's ticket stubs!

I was expecting the same high-tech treatment you get at stadiums in the U.S. nowadays, where you just pass your ticket under a bar-code reader and in you go. But, no, here in Japan they do things the old-fashioned way! Go figure! And to think that one of the first things I said to my supervisor when I got my ticket a couple weeks before the game was, "Boy, these tickets sure do look easy to forge." How right I was!

After we were finally inside the Dome, I was anxious to get down to the field so I could start trying to get balls. But that's where we met our next hurdle.

You see, at the entrance to every section of the stadium, there is a gate and a "gate-girl" manning it. In order to pass, you have to have a ticket for that particular section. So even though we were somewhere near the left-field bleachers, which was exactly where I wanted to be, we had to march all the way over to our section near third base before we could even see the field! How did I find that out? The hard way!

I walked right up to the first entrance I saw, showed the gate-girl my ticket, and got nowhere. I put up some resistance and gave the girl this look like, "Are you kidding?" But she wouldn't bend. She politely pointed me to my left and said something in Japanese like, "Just a little bit further."

So I tried at the next gate. Rejected again! And at another gate. Rejection! Nothing but rejection.

I was flabbergasted. The thoughts that passed through my brain at that moment were things like: "Don't tell me that when we get down to the seating area, we're going to have to stay in our section. That would be ridiculous! What are these people thinking? That better not be the case. But why else would they not let us in anywhere we wanted? I don't get it."

So I tried yet again at another gate. And guess what? Yes, rejected again!

But I was in a hurry to finally get down to the bleacher seats and try my luck at getting a ball, so I made my next half-hearted attempt to get past the gate-girl at the next section I came upon. Still no luck. The gate-girl pointed at my ticket, showed me that it was marked "Section 18," and politely pointed me in the right direction. Then I said, in Japanese, "Only?" while giving her this incredulous "You've got to be kidding me" look. But she didn't care and again pointed me to my left. Ugh!

It was only then that I realized we were only at Section 8 (Ha! Ha! Section 8! How appropriate!) or something like that and still had to go past ten sections. Ahhhhhh! I'll let you imagine for yourself what fabulous thoughts were then in my brain!

So when we finally did get to pass the gate-girl, guess what? Yup, just as I suspected: We were free to walk around wherever we wanted to. In other words, the gate-girls served no purpose whatsoever. Except to drive me crazy, that is!

Note to you Japanese: Enough with your orderliness!

Besides, the next time I go to a Hawks game, I'm going to beat the system. How? Well, I'm just going to pretend that I was already at my seat and that I left my ticket with a friend or whatever. That is apparently what happened to a lady that I saw on her way in at one of the gates. At first it seemed like the gate-girl wasn't going to let her back in, but in she went. So I'm going to steal her idea. And my backup plan will be in my back pocket, if you get my drift! Hah! Take that!

(Heck, come to think of it, why did they even let us in at Gate 1 when our seats were closer to Gate 5?)

Nagasaki Sightseeing

From Hiroshima, I traveled to Nagasaki. There were three reasons why I wanted to go to Nagasaki: I had yet to go there, I was pretty sure it would be a nice place to visit, and, most of all, I wanted to see the peace ceremony on August 9.

As a matter of fact, when I first found out that I would be arriving in Takachiho on August 8 last year, I contacted my supervisor (to be) and asked him if there was any way I could get to Nagasaki by the 9th (yes, the day after I was supposed to arrive in town!). He told me that that wouldn't be possible and that I should go there in 2008 instead. And this July my supervisor was good enough to remind me about Nagasaki. So I had to save face and make the trip. (Ha ha!)

Since I had missed the ceremony in Hiroshima, I was determined to at least make it to Nagasaki in time. So I left Hiroshima on August 8, giving myself plenty of time to get there.

Instead of traveling by shinkansen once again, I opted to travel by highway bus. Even though the ride to Fukuoka, my first stop, took about four hours, as opposed to the one hour plus that it would have taken by train, it only put me back 4000 yen, instead of the 8500 or so I would have spent had I taken the train. I certainly could have afforded to pay the extra 4500 yen (about $40) that the shinkansen would have cost, but I was in no hurry, I wanted to see what riding a bus across part of Japan was like, and I didn't see anything wrong with trying to save a little money. So I went with the cheaper option.

Besides being affordable, the highway buses in Japan are surprisingly comfortable and convenient. If you're not sure exactly what I mean, think Greyhound versus a privately chartered tour bus. Here, no one riding the bus is rude, noisy, smelly, or scary, and the drivers are polite and smartly dressed (they even often wear white gloves!) and actually know where they are going.

Another thing about the highway buses is that en-route, all the bus stops are located along the highway (except for perhaps the first and last few stops). So rather than constantly pulling off the highway, heading over to a bus station, and then making its way back onto the highway, the bus simply pulls over at the designated stopping points along the (high)way, drops off and/or picks up passengers, and continues on its way. Nice, eh?

Oh and by the way, I have discovered that if you want to travel a long distance by train in Japan, unlike in several European countries, you have only two options: Either fork out for the bullet train (bite the bullet!) or be prepared for a tortuous ordeal involving endless transfers from one agonizingly slow train to another. So the highway buses are a very popular third option for long-distance, and even short-distance, travel.

Anyway, the bus ride wasn't really that exciting, except maybe for the 20 or 30 seconds it took us to cross the bridge from Honshu to Kyushu.

Shortly after I arrived in Fukuoka, I caught another highway bus south down to Kumamoto. That trip took another 2 hours and cost another 2000 yen, but talk about convenient! Throughout the day, buses run along the route nearly every 20 minutes! I couldn't believe it.

(Well, actually I could believe it, since I had looked up the schedule before I left Hiroshima. But still, I'm amazed at how often the buses run! Then again, I know from personal experience that the subways in major cities come as often as every 3 minutes at times, even on weekends and holidays, so I should stop being amazed at the efficiency of Japan's public transportation networks.)

Buying my ticket was also easy as pie, since there were plenty of automated ticket machines at the bus station, meaning I didn't have to stress out waiting in a line. That was great! I'm telling you, the Japanese really are good at this transportation thing.

When I arrived in Kumamoto, Courtney picked me up and then we drove west to the ferry terminal. Lucky for us, since we didn't have a schedule (some things I planned well, other things I didn't), we arrived in time to catch the last ferry of the day. (If we had missed that ferry, we would have had to drive north and then back west and south all the way around Omura Bay. What a pain that would have been!) And doubly lucky for us, we were able to buy our round-trip tickets for 50% off.

The next day, we got up early and made our way to the Nagasaki Peace Park. We got there about an hour before the peace ceremony was to begin and were able to get great seats that were only several rows from the front and just to the left of where the VIPs were going to sit.

The ceremony started at 10:50 a.m., lasted for about an hour, and included such things as the moment of silence at 11:02, wreath laying, a speech from a survivor of the bombing, a short speech by the then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda (he has since resigned!), doves (or were they pigeons?) being released, and children singing.

Besides experiencing the ceremony itself, I also enjoyed chatting with the two charming ladies whom we sat next to, as well as the schoolchildren I met while I was walking around before the ceremony. (It's usually very easy to get into a conversation with little kids over here, since they are often awestruck at the sight of foreigners.) I had read that Americans would be more than welcome at the ceremony, and indeed we were.

After the ceremony, Courtney and I walked around the Peace Park. Near the Atomic Bomb Museum, we were invited by some college students to make origami cranes. Luckily, they gave us step-by-step (or rather "fold-by-fold") instructions! We finished our cranes, taped them to a memorial, took some pictures, and went on our way.

Then, we met a strange lady. I had asked her if she happened to know of a place nearby where we could eat and the next thing we knew, she had invited herself to tag along with us for lunch. In the course of our casual conversation while waiting for a table, I asked her where she worked. All she could come up with was a really strange non-answer. I guess I've read too many crazy stories in the news, but I got some really weird vibes from that lady and decided that the best thing to do was to bail on her. So we got up, left the restaurant, and continued on our own.

The rest of the day we spent visiting the Atomic Bomb Museum, riding the streetcars (since we had bought a one-day pass and wanted to make the most of it), walking around the harbor, and otherwise just relaxing.

And around 7 p.m., we returned to the Peace Park so we could take part in the lantern festival. We each picked up a lantern and proceeded to walk with a bunch of other people for about ten minutes until we reached the river. There, we handed over our lanterns to the organizers and watched as they finished preparing the floats and eventually sent them down the river. And thus ended our first night in Nagasaki.

(For the record, the Hiroshima lantern festival was a lot more impressive, since there was live music and a ton of people, the lanterns were put in the river one by one as opposed to being connected to each other, and the location was more central.)

The next morning, we skipped the traditional Japanese breakfast (good ol' rice balls, called onigiri, and miso soup) that we could have had for free at our hotel and instead went to a restaurant that we had spotted the day before called "Royal Host." And guess what we ordered? Pancakes! Yes, that's right: Pancakes, with butter and (fake) maple syrup! What a treat! It just goes to show that the food in Japan isn't all that bad after all, as long as you can get away from the Japanese food often enough!

After breakfast, we did a little bit of sightseeing in southern Nagasaki prefecture. The coolest thing we came across was a mini torii perched atop a big rock along the shoreline. The next-coolest thing we saw was Hashima Island, located a couple of kilometers off in the distance. At first glance, we thought the island was a container ship heading out to sea. But then we realized that what we were looking at was the deserted coal mining island that we had heard about. What an odd sight that was!

The last place we went sightseeing was Shimabara, a town located about 45 km east of Nagasaki. There, we killed some time on the grounds of Shimabara castle, mostly just goofing off by taking pictures of ourselves in front of statues, before driving over to the port and catching the ferry back to Kumamoto.

The next day, Courtney and I both headed back to school. The funny thing was, though, that just about no other teachers were there, since there was still one week of vacation left. But this being Japan, well, just about the only way to avoid being at school during vacation (unless there's a national holiday, for instance) is to take nenkyu, or paid vacation (we get 20 days of nenkyu per year). And since we both decided to save our nenkyu for some other time, it was off to school we went.

Spending my days in the teachers room all by myself actually went better than I expected. I could pretty much come and go as I pleased (i.e., long lunch break), I could do whatever I wanted (I even watched the Olympics on TV for a few minutes), and I wasn't bothered by anyone (or anyone making annoying noises for that matter!).

So all in all, that week of "work" was really equal to a week of free nenkyu, if you know what I mean. Not a bad way to end my second exciting and relaxing vacation in Japan!