Baseball in Japan

I'm back from Japan and waiting for USC classes to start up on Monday. But before then, one last post about Japan.

Baseball!

I was a part of the Women's Baseball Club at Sophia and it was a blast! The girls were great and it felt good to be able to play ball again after 3(!!) years.

The team

一年生 friends!

They are currently getting ready for a big national (all of Japan) tournament so がんばって！

When my parents came during the end of my study abroad, we went to a Yomiuri Giants baseball game together. Only at a Japanese baseball game will you see Ronald McDonald and Pikachu on the field.

Tiny but the yellow thing is indeed a Pikachu

The seats kind of got squished at the end, but overall tons of synchronized cheering and a lot of girls selling beer. Definitely a worthwhile experience, especially since it was also a rival game against the Hanshin Tigers.

Well, Japan is now over and USC is about to has already begun. Stay tuned for adventures from the school year. :)

Japan Misc

There has been a lot of cool / random / strange things I've seen here in Japan. The following have been filtered out for your entertainment.

もったいない！

If something falls onto the train tracks it is a very bad idea to try and retrieve it yourself. Instead ask a train attendant and they will whip out a grabber claw and pick up what-ever-it-is-you-dropped. While this lovely bottle of unopened tea was not mine, I was highly tempted to ask someone to get it for me.

Ouch.

Flavor your food with pig boogers after sticking your chopsticks into this.

Another bathroom sign. Just in case you were confused about how to sit on a toilet.

This is an arm!

I don't know why it's like this, but Japanese language classes here in Japan are flat out boring some most days. The combination of 90 minute class (vs. USC 50 min) and teachers that ramble on and on put me to sleep make class very unbearable at times. So... I have to find ways to entertain myself.

Sometimes drinks come affixed with a freebie - in this case a Miffy strap. Found at my local supermarket for a marked down price of 100 yen.

Hoffman Hall 3rd floor cafeteria.

 Moving on to some food... here is a lovely specimen of curry, complete with an onsen egg!

Close your eyes! It's the cutest, and sexiest, Japanese character out there! Rilakkuma (relax + kuma (bear)) is my newest fixation and I have already accumulated a collection of Rilakkuma goods. I think our personalities match well.

Oh my goodness - so scandalous!

Now for Elizabeth's favorite... Capybara-san! There are a few variations, and this one is actually called White-san. Capybaras are the largest rodents in the world and in Japan they have been cute-ified to the max. The Capybara featured here was saved won from a UFO catcher and doubles as a tissue case.

These are some strange shaped watermelons - a snowman/gourd, a square, and a normal one. I wonder how they got that way and if they taste any good..

The mushroom made the bullet super-sized.

When you go to school in Japan, sometimes you stumble upon awesome things in the trash.

I want his pants. D:

Finally, here is my future boyfriend. Bunnys on his backpack, bunnys on his pants, and a bunny (the same as the butt bunnys) on his plastic bag.

Hisashiburi! It's been a while.

The semester is coming to an end. We have 1 week (well... 4 days) left of class then finals start on Friday! Since a lot has happened between now and my last post in June (sorry..) I'll share the big highlights.

Hiroshima
We had a mandatory trip with CIEE to Hiroshima for a weekend. It was quite the experience cramming 60 foreigners into the Shinkansen in about 1-2 minutes flat (trains wait for nobody). I felt a little sorry for the Japanese people who were (un)fortunate enough to reserve seats in the same car as us. (60 Americans = loud!)

 Bunny and musubi dinner on the Shinkansen! Took about 4 hours.

The first day we went to the Peace Museum and got to hear from an atomic bomb survivor. Random note: the prime minister (?) of Afghanistan happened to be visiting on the same day. I tried to look for him but we were ushered inside before he came out. (But one of our staff got a picture of him!)

After the museum and park we had the option to look around some more or go to a castle. Out of the whole group, only 3 of us (me, Elizabeth, Shannon) decided to hang back. Elizabeth wanted to find eye drops so we went down a street full of shops and happened to discover that Taito (one of our frequent UFO catcher stops in Akihabara) followed us to Hiroshima.

The arcade and the spoils. Don't tell!

And purikura of the non-castle gang.

At night we ate okonomiyaki (savory Japanese pancake-like thing) and later watched Japan lose to the Netherlands during the World Cup. Apparently Japan doesn't do sports bars - we tried in vain to find a bar with a TV but ended up with conbini snacks back at the hotel.

 Hiroshima style okonomiyaki - yummy and filling!

 Snack for the game.

The following day we went to a little island called Miyajima for progressive snacking which is famous for its giant tori gate and deer.

 From left to right, top to botton: deep fried momiji manju (cheese in the middle!), the best oyster I've ever tasted, super soft sweet potato, grilled squid legs.

Hair Cut
With summer in full swing and the rainy season around the corner, I was ready for an overdue haircut. I looked up a place in Harajuku that had staff that spoke English so explaining what I wanted went very smoothly. My hairdresser even gave me a massage and offered me something to drink - nice Japan!

In honor of EDeng because I didn't make this one my facebook profile pic.

Origami Museum
The gallery was pretty small (like 1 small room small) but it was free. There were some crazy cranes and we even got a free demo. This lady whipped up a rose, fish, Christmas tree (complete with a star at the top and mini Santa), and... a dog (?). There was also a room where we saw people making origami paper, and we took home instructions for origami "kiss lips."

Photo from google but we managed to make them ourselves after much pain.

CIEE Farewell Party
I can't believe study abroad is coming to a close. There were some really nice videos and speeches, but what was really exciting was the food. And smuggling home a giant bottle of unopened oolong tea.

It's strange to think that this was the last time I would see a lot of CIEE people, but we have to go our own ways eventually.

Tie? Thai? Tai?

Today I was talking with my host sister's husband about the World Cup. He is a die-hard sports fan (looves American football) and his plan for the 3:30am Japan vs. Denmark game was to go to sleep at 9pm in order to watch it. It's the deciding game for Japan to advance to the next round (or as he called it Judgment Day), but I wasn't sure if they had to win or if a tie was okay too. (win = 3 points, tie = 1 point, loss  = 0 points, after 3 games top 2 teams from each group of 4 teams get to move on to next round)

So I asked out loud, "Tie okay?" Well, he understood and answered that either a tie or win would be fine. But the other people around the table had different interpretations of the word.

husband: tie (sports, same score)
host sister: Thailand
host mom/her friend: tai fish (鯛　like taiyaki "tai")

It was funny to see their faces when I said "tie" during soccer talk. And the generation gap.

面白い

Disneyland: Tokyo

Don't tell our study abroad program, but last Thursday me, Britt, and Elizabeth ditched a day of school to go to the happiest place in Japan: Disneyland! And a few hours in, Anna and Jillian joined us for a wonderful day of amazing Disney adventures.

 The castle!

Before I start, a little background on how this day came into being. A couple of weeks ago, Britt and I were invited by our host brother to a darts party. We were paired with random people for a darts tournament, and me and my partner miraculously won the whole thing! (Don't count on me for darts in the future, though) The first prize was a ticket to Disneyland (to be used before June 30th because of a promotion), and after much persuasion and persistence my partner forced convinced me to take her ticket too.

Now back to the beginning of our day, after sleeping in and leisurely getting up, we got to the park around 12pm. First of all, from Tokyo Station it only takes 13 minutes to get to Disneyland. (yay!) But the walk to get to the right train line took about the same amount of time we spent on the train. (boo!)

After getting off the train we got a little lost finding our way to the to the park, but once we saw the gates to the world of magic and joy we got really excited.

First ride of the day: Space Mountain! I think the inside area right before you get on the ride is much cooler than in LA. The space ship that hangs over the boarding area has a cool swirl light thing going on.

Going up the moving walkway.

Last chance to turn back!

Confession: When I was younger my dad tried to take me on Space Mountain for the first time. At home we have a Disneyland video that shows Disney characters going on all of the rides, and I remember for the Space Mountain part Pluto and Goofy (?) were all freaked out after. Since they couldn't film the actual ride, they instead had them ride through flashy animated lights which made Space Mountain look really bizarre and fast and scary. Needless to say I really did not want to go so I made up the excuse that I had to go to the bathroom while we were waiting in line. Although my dad claimed that even my grandma went on the ride, it was not enough to convince me. But I really really like Space Mountain now.

Fastpass wise we got a Space Mountain pass and when the start time for that came around we went to the Monsters Inc ride but all of those passes were already gone! (it was only 1:40!) So we ran over to Winnie the Pooh but those passes were for the end of the day (9:30pm - 9:50pm!). What the... I didn't realize how popular those rides were. (In comparison there were still Space Mountain passes for 4:00pm)

Around that time Anna and Jillian arrived so they picked up fastpasses for Space Mountain and then joined us by the Pooh ride area. While we were waiting we snacked on some honey popcorn - perfect for the Pooh theme.

Our first ride together was Peter Pan.  While we were in line a parade came by so I was very entertained while waiting.

 Mickey!

After Peter Pan we sat down to eat. I had a slice of seafood pizza (half Japanese, half American) which came in a cute box with a handle.

 

Shrimp, squid, octopus, and mushrooms!

As we finished up eating, another parade happened to pass by. We were in a surprisingly good spot to watch the super energetic rabbits hopping around the street.

The bunny ladies were crazzy

Moar bunnies!

Pooh bear and friends as... bunnies!

Lots of bunnies because, for some strange reason, Tokyo Disneyland has an Easter theme until the end of June. Not that I'm complaining about the commercialization of Easter.

Somewhere in between all of this, Anna and I went to the bathroom. But this was no ordinary bathroom trip. First of all, because it's Disneyland there was a line to get into the bathroom. Inside there was an actual rope that helped organize the line. And at the beginning of the line there was a staff lady that directed people to open stalls in very polite Japanese. Wow, what an experience.

Next up was the Haunted Mansion. In one part of the waiting line there were some "graves," but two little birds were burrowing in the dirt mounds.

Whoever is "buried" here won't be able to RIP much longer.

After an interesting mix of English and Japanese audio in the Haunted Mansion, we went on Big Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain. Of course I hate hate hate drops but I pushed through Splash Mountain and still had a good time.

The cheap way of preserving memories.

After the splash (my head got all wet..) we sat down on the side of the road to save seats for the Electric Light Parade. During this time I grabbed "dinner," which was a beautiful Smoked Turkey Leg!

Heh heh heh...

This little treat has been a favorite since my family saw someone chomping on one at the LA Disneyland. I'm glad they had it here too.

It starts!

These were the coolest things of the parade! Knights riding horses!

Choo choo!

Winnie the Pooh float!

Sadly no giant bald eagle with the American flag at the end but this Electric Light Parade owns the original in terms of length and amount of floats! There were so many, mostly ones that I had never seen before. (Monster's Inc, Toy Story, Lilo and Stitch, ect)

After the parade Disneyland started to close down. Unlike LA, people (and employees) have trains to catch back home so everything, shops and all, were going to close at 10pm flat. At this time we finally used our Space Mountain fast passes so that we could bypass the main line and make it out in time for the fireworks.

Here we go! Don't know how much the Japanese people in the back appreciated this..

For dessert we went to the Disney bakery for some yummy baked goods. The best thing ever: sweet potato pastry. The Mickey shaped walnut banana muffin was a snack for school. There were also Mike (Monster's inc) melon buns and other good looking pastries - I wanted them all but couldn't fit them in my stuffed stomach.

Open one in LA Disneyland please!

Finally, we had to choose between the Monster's Inc and Winnie the Pooh for our "last" ride. Pooh-san won over in the end (they both had 40 minute lines at 9pm!) so we headed over to Fantasyland.

Oh my goodness, the queue for this ride was gorgeous! Giant story book pages with excerpts from various Pooh bear stories. The ride itself was amazing! You get to ride in a hunny pot which acts like it has a mind of its own. Three hunny pots are "grouped" together and they each go on their own "path" in some of the rooms, so theoretically there are three different experiences to the ride. You get to see everything but the areas each pot closes in on to are different. The only thing I didn't enjoy (and is a general pet peeve) was that they had to put in a crack area with wacky elephants and neon colors. It happens in Pinocchio (the ride), it happens in The Lion King 2 (the movie), it happens in the 3rd season of Digimon, ect. Oh well, the ride was still mind blowing and awesome.

Favorite picture of the day:

I love eggs! And strange faces.

Haha, I love all of their faces.

21st Birthday

Hey all, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. :)

Sooo... on Monday (6/7) I got to celebrate with the host family. The kids came over and Britt (secretly) baked a brownie cake and topped it with homemade chocolate sauce! Although the pieces were the cut the same, the kids ended up fighting over who got the bigger sized bowl.

But before I came home, I went (by myself.. haha) to Akihabara to scope out the restaurant I wanted to eat at the next day. And, since I was there, I had to check out the UFO catchers. At the Taito arcade, I stalked watched a couple clear out a machine of its prizes so I observed their tactics and waited to attack. After they left I asked a worker to move the plushies I wanted to try and win and put in 500 yen for 6 (!!) tries. I got another Love-chan in 2 tries and then a French (Ko)Rilakkuma in 1 try! After that I didn't manage to get anything else but I was pretty darn satisfied with 2 animals for 500 yen!

The new members of the family! Capybara-san is from Jillian. This Rilakkuma is going to one of the kids in the host family.

ラブ兄弟 - They can hang out with each other.

On Tuesday first up was the Pokemon Center. If you visit within 3 days (before or after) of your birthday you get a special birthday service. First from the Tokyo shop you get a birthday Charmander for the DS games. It has the moves Quick Attack, Return, Hidden Power, and Howl (for you few who appreciate it). I also got a giant shiny Pikachu card and happened to win a free folder from the Pokewalker scratch card promotion which is running until the middle of July. There was also the opportunity to have a birthday battle (against an employee on Pokemon Revolution for Wii) but I opted out because all my good Pokes are in my English version (are they compatible?) and we had to get back for class.

After class I went out to ゴーゴーカレー　(Go Go Curry - and they have a gorilla logo) for dinner with Britt, Elizabeth, Anna, Jillian, and Gary (Keung-san! who happened to be visiting Japan). This place serves Ishikawa-ken style curry which I saw on TV one night and wanted to try it out. The curry sauce is thicker than usual and although the whole pile of rice is completely covered the sauce doesn't soak through. They also put shredded cabbage on top with whatever other toppings you choose.

来た！ Looks soooo good!

Katsu curry!

And for the very reasonable price of 1000 yen, Jillian got the jumbo sized Major Curry.

Oh my goodness!!!

She did a good job and whittled it down to about 1/8 left. Toppings: 2 sausages, 1 hardboiled egg, 2 chicken katsu-s, 2 ebi fry (fried shrimp) - all piled on an extra large rice. Apparently there's a Go Go Curry in New York so all you East Coast people go find it and eat!

Afterward we went to look at the UFO catchers (again... but they change them a little each day!). Gary wanted to get some plushes as gifts so I showed him the easy machine from the other night. However, today it was 500 yen for 3 tries instead of 6. He was trying for a Rilakkuma but a Snuggle bear (detergent mascot) was getting in the way of one of the arms. Somehow the Snuggle bear ended up getting knocked down into the prize chute and Rilakkuma shortly followed. With a few tries left, he asked to try for a black dog holding a picture frame and ended up getting it in 1 shot. A salaryman was hanging back waiting for us to finish (kind of how I was the day before) and we inadvertently made him wait for quite while. He played after us and tried for (and eventually got) a... Snuggle bear. I wonder why they're so popular.

Finally, my parents sent me a gift basket from a shop in Japan. It came with a few fruit, muffins, and other snacks. I got a good number of people trying to peek into the box (it had a clear top) when I was carrying it home.

Thanks parents!

Wednesday after baseball practice and lunch meeting, my team sang Happy Birthday and gave me gifts. The 四年生 (fourth years) gave me a baseball charm with a message inside:

Kate - Wherever you are we are teammates! Until August have fun with baseball! From: 4th year(s)

Thank you everyone who got me things, wrote on my facebook wall, or though of me!

Elizabeth - the socks you gave me are in the wash.