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Back from Osaka/Koshien/etc
Well, woke up this morning at 7:10 briefly to see that the Koshien games had been cancelled again due to rain. This is the first time since 1985 that two consecutive days of Senbatsu have rained out. Crazy.
Went back to sleep and woke up in time to check out a little before 10am. My stomach felt kinda sick and heavy, probly from the yakiniku. But we went up to Osaka station and threw our stuff in lockers, and then went off to buy souvenirs. Well, first we stopped in the Hanshin Department Store and looked at the Tigers shop there out of amusement with all the crap they have. They had a really cool Johjima shirt that I debated about but decided not to get. Then we decided to go to Koshien, only we ended up eating lunch first because we wandered through the food floor of the department store and it was like "HEY, WE DIDN'T EAT FREE HOTEL BREAKFAST TODAY OMG STARVING" and so we stopped at an okonomiyaki place. I had an omusoba/okonomiyaki set that was decent but not spectacular.
Then, off to Koshien. As it turns out, they keep one store open even when there are no tournament games, so we went in there. I got a keychain for myself and one for Edwin (I'll have to figure out how to get it to him, probly send it back to the US with Mike), I figure it's the least I can do given how much time he puts into his Koshien blog. We got a bunch of random stuff, and then went to the Tigers Alps store, where I found the coolest t-shirt ever -- seriously, part of what pisses me off about Tigers fans is that there are so many of them that the team can take chances on making all kinds of cool merchandise because no matter what, it'll sell. This t-shirt is like a parody of an 8-bit Nintendo game or the like -- with Zero-Wing-esque text - "SELECT FAVORITE PLAYERS / WITH THE MEGA-HON / AND MAKE-WA SHOI / FOR ROKKO-OROSHI" and it says "push start button" and "credits: 144" and the back says "Continue?". Now, normally I would never, ever, ever, EVER wear a Hanshin shirt most of the time, but this one is so cool I'm sure I'll wear it back in the US if not here. I can just see trying to explain it now... "no, I'm not a Hanshin fan but THIS IS SO COOL!" Or I guess I'll just claim that I followed Futagami there. Hm. No, not really.
Then we headed back to Osaka station, got our stuff, got shinkansen tickets, and got on a shinkansen. Hooray. I did my Japanese homework and studied kanji for most of the trip and V pretended to help me (but mostly made fun of me for being such a slacker, although he did say that he realized that being from Hong Kong he has an unfair advantage in knowing all the kanji).
All in all aside from the rain, it was actually a pretty good trip, and V made a really good travelling partner for someone that I pretty much only knew from the Koshien chats. I have to admit that almost everyone I've met up with from the japanesebaseball.com forums has turned out to be a pretty decent person in real life. (Of course, I've never met up with the people who I think are complete psychos, so I might be kinda skewing the data.) Hopefully he'll be coming to one of the Fighters games next week before running back off to HK (I think Ken will kill him if he doesn't).
The shinkansen got into Tokyo station at 5:13pm, so I decided to run and drop my shit off at home before Japanese class (at 6:45pm). Got to Akabane station at 5:47, walked home with my bags in the rain, got home at 6:02pm, spent like 10-15 minutes trying to just lightly unpack and then check email and then repack to go to class, and unfortunately, missed the 6:26pm train and ended up on a 6:30, getting to Ikebukuro at 6:38, RAN to the Yamanote, got to Takadanobaba station at 6:42 and then hustled to the Japanese school, and got to class at 6:46pm. The door was already shut and people were getting ready to start the kanji test, but I came in and apologized and all.
I actually think I did ok on the kanji test -- not great -- last week I got a 31/60 on the first one I took, I think I got at least upper 40's on this one, but can't be sure. Then we had our usual hour of discussing grammar forms. Oh, and I did fairly well on the homework assignment, which was encouraging, I guess. (She marked them while we were taking the kanji test.)
After class I ran to the ATM at the 7-11 and got money to enroll in the next semester, SO, I'm going to be taking Japanese classes every Thursday night pretty much until July 1st, starting on April 8th. Still haven't decided whether to do N2 or N3, but I have a little while to think about it at least. I'm really not sure I'll be up to N2 even after this class, BUT at least it's getting me to study things and work my way through these textbooks I have. Like, I feel like a complete idiot in the class, I'm definitely the lowest level of the 4 of us, having just joined and all, BUT on the other hand in a bizarre way I feel good about myself for actually hunkering down and taking a class at all.
I went to the kaitensushi place I like on the west side of Ikebukuro on the way back because I was dead starving, and ended up eating 9 plates. Oops :) It was so damn yummy though.
Tomorrow should be spending the afternoon doing laundry and watching Teikyo at Koshien and basically kinda catching up from being away the last few days -- and then heading to Chiba in the evening to cheer for the Fighters, assuming the game hasn't sold out by the time I get there (man, that'd kinda suck, but it wouldn't be the end of the world). So, off to sleep in a bit, I guess.
Went back to sleep and woke up in time to check out a little before 10am. My stomach felt kinda sick and heavy, probly from the yakiniku. But we went up to Osaka station and threw our stuff in lockers, and then went off to buy souvenirs. Well, first we stopped in the Hanshin Department Store and looked at the Tigers shop there out of amusement with all the crap they have. They had a really cool Johjima shirt that I debated about but decided not to get. Then we decided to go to Koshien, only we ended up eating lunch first because we wandered through the food floor of the department store and it was like "HEY, WE DIDN'T EAT FREE HOTEL BREAKFAST TODAY OMG STARVING" and so we stopped at an okonomiyaki place. I had an omusoba/okonomiyaki set that was decent but not spectacular.
Then, off to Koshien. As it turns out, they keep one store open even when there are no tournament games, so we went in there. I got a keychain for myself and one for Edwin (I'll have to figure out how to get it to him, probly send it back to the US with Mike), I figure it's the least I can do given how much time he puts into his Koshien blog. We got a bunch of random stuff, and then went to the Tigers Alps store, where I found the coolest t-shirt ever -- seriously, part of what pisses me off about Tigers fans is that there are so many of them that the team can take chances on making all kinds of cool merchandise because no matter what, it'll sell. This t-shirt is like a parody of an 8-bit Nintendo game or the like -- with Zero-Wing-esque text - "SELECT FAVORITE PLAYERS / WITH THE MEGA-HON / AND MAKE-WA SHOI / FOR ROKKO-OROSHI" and it says "push start button" and "credits: 144" and the back says "Continue?". Now, normally I would never, ever, ever, EVER wear a Hanshin shirt most of the time, but this one is so cool I'm sure I'll wear it back in the US if not here. I can just see trying to explain it now... "no, I'm not a Hanshin fan but THIS IS SO COOL!" Or I guess I'll just claim that I followed Futagami there. Hm. No, not really.
Then we headed back to Osaka station, got our stuff, got shinkansen tickets, and got on a shinkansen. Hooray. I did my Japanese homework and studied kanji for most of the trip and V pretended to help me (but mostly made fun of me for being such a slacker, although he did say that he realized that being from Hong Kong he has an unfair advantage in knowing all the kanji).
All in all aside from the rain, it was actually a pretty good trip, and V made a really good travelling partner for someone that I pretty much only knew from the Koshien chats. I have to admit that almost everyone I've met up with from the japanesebaseball.com forums has turned out to be a pretty decent person in real life. (Of course, I've never met up with the people who I think are complete psychos, so I might be kinda skewing the data.) Hopefully he'll be coming to one of the Fighters games next week before running back off to HK (I think Ken will kill him if he doesn't).
The shinkansen got into Tokyo station at 5:13pm, so I decided to run and drop my shit off at home before Japanese class (at 6:45pm). Got to Akabane station at 5:47, walked home with my bags in the rain, got home at 6:02pm, spent like 10-15 minutes trying to just lightly unpack and then check email and then repack to go to class, and unfortunately, missed the 6:26pm train and ended up on a 6:30, getting to Ikebukuro at 6:38, RAN to the Yamanote, got to Takadanobaba station at 6:42 and then hustled to the Japanese school, and got to class at 6:46pm. The door was already shut and people were getting ready to start the kanji test, but I came in and apologized and all.
I actually think I did ok on the kanji test -- not great -- last week I got a 31/60 on the first one I took, I think I got at least upper 40's on this one, but can't be sure. Then we had our usual hour of discussing grammar forms. Oh, and I did fairly well on the homework assignment, which was encouraging, I guess. (She marked them while we were taking the kanji test.)
After class I ran to the ATM at the 7-11 and got money to enroll in the next semester, SO, I'm going to be taking Japanese classes every Thursday night pretty much until July 1st, starting on April 8th. Still haven't decided whether to do N2 or N3, but I have a little while to think about it at least. I'm really not sure I'll be up to N2 even after this class, BUT at least it's getting me to study things and work my way through these textbooks I have. Like, I feel like a complete idiot in the class, I'm definitely the lowest level of the 4 of us, having just joined and all, BUT on the other hand in a bizarre way I feel good about myself for actually hunkering down and taking a class at all.
I went to the kaitensushi place I like on the west side of Ikebukuro on the way back because I was dead starving, and ended up eating 9 plates. Oops :) It was so damn yummy though.
Tomorrow should be spending the afternoon doing laundry and watching Teikyo at Koshien and basically kinda catching up from being away the last few days -- and then heading to Chiba in the evening to cheer for the Fighters, assuming the game hasn't sold out by the time I get there (man, that'd kinda suck, but it wouldn't be the end of the world). So, off to sleep in a bit, I guess.
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