I eat a lot, I run a lot, I ache a lot.
Well, no, not exactly.
So today I went to the Jingu Taikai in the morning/afternoon. First watched the Hokkai vs. Nichidai Sanko game, which was actually the second game of the day, because I heard ND3's current ace pitcher Yoshinaga is pretty kickass. In short: he is. Sophomore in high school and he was reaching 92mph or so on the Jingu radar gun, which isn't bad at all. So Sanko won 7-1.
It was really crowded by then though, and I actually ended up sitting pretty high up for a change. I didn't bring my DSLR anyway, just my little point-and-shoot one. I ate yakisoba for lunch, and two snackbags of kakinotane during that first game.
Second game I saw was the third game of the day, Waseda vs. Aichi Gakuin. Conveniently, Aichi was on the same side as Sanko, so I could sit there and be all anti-Waseda and not have to deal with their idiotic fans. Also, as it turns out, AGU's ouendan rocks pretty hard; rather than having some stuffy dudes in traditional full black gakuran jackets (though to be fair, not all traditional ouendan dudes are stuffy, case in point the Keio and Hosei guys who are awesome), they had s guy in a red AGU t-shirt and black shorts running around on the platform yelling at the top of his lungs, dancing to YMCA with the cheer girls as the brass band played it. Stuff like that. So they were really entertaining, and AGU's team was also entertaining, but they sadly lost 4-0. It really came down to one inning where starter Urano struggled a lot and the team just couldn't score anything off Yuki Saitoh or Yuya Fukui, sadly.
The fourth game of the day was Kyushu Sangyo University vs. Kokugakuin. Now... I do not have the stamina to do three games, especially by myself, so I was not planning to stick around for this game. HOWEVER, their starter was Yodai Enoshita, and he just got drafted by the Fighters two weeks ago, so I ran down to the bullpen to watch him warm up and take a few photos. I like him quite a bit already! Shame I won't be around next year to harrass him (though he wouldn't be the first Fighters guy who I could bug about the Jingu taikai... Ohtsuka already got that honor).
I watched the first few innings of Game 4 and then ducked out around 4:30pm to go to Ai and Doug's place since I'd said I'd come visit while they packed. Now here's the second "I walk a lot, I eat a lot" thing -- I walked from Jingu to Harajuku via Omotesando and got a footlong Subway Club on the way. A footlong sandwich is a lot to eat, BUT walking that distance is also a lot to walk. And ESPECIALLY because walking in that area completely does NOT feel like Japan at all, it is completely full of big pretty buildings and stores where everything looks shiny and expensive, and all the people ALSO look shiny and expensive, and most are speaking English or other languages around you anyway, and half the cafes/restaurants show menus that aren't even in Japanese! I'm really NOT a fan of Harajuku at all and generally avoid it. I took the train one stop to Yoyogi and ate my sandwich in front of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
februaryfour and doubt72 and weyrlady.
So I hung out there for about two hours. It's surreal that they're leaving Japan this week.
Then I went up to play volleyball in Takadanobaba with Intervoll. Which involved more walking and then a whole bunch of volleyball for 2 hours. There were 10 people there including me and I was the only female, which was actually a LOT better than I thought it would be; I hadn't been there in ages and didn't play GREAT but I played pretty well all things considered, and I guess since I was the only girl there and I'm not Asian and there were no Asian girls there, I got treated just like one of the guys. (I seriously think that the presence of small Japanese women makes foreign guys just act differently whether they realize it or not.) Which meant I actually got set a decent amount, too, and was hitting okay.
But, after several hours of volleyball, having not played in so long... I swear my arms and legs already hurt and I'm dreading waking up in the morning!
I drank a small bottle of milk tea in the station, then stopped in the bakery and got a brownie and a bagel (for tomorrow's breakfast), and got some orange juice from the convenience store, and ate the brownie and juice when I got home. And I feel somewhat like that was kind of gratuitous but at the same time I also feel like I ran around a ton today. If only I could keep up insane levels of activity every day, it wouldn't matter how much I eat! Though I guess I'd get pretty exhausted after a while.
Yay.
Now, back to school tomorrow...
So today I went to the Jingu Taikai in the morning/afternoon. First watched the Hokkai vs. Nichidai Sanko game, which was actually the second game of the day, because I heard ND3's current ace pitcher Yoshinaga is pretty kickass. In short: he is. Sophomore in high school and he was reaching 92mph or so on the Jingu radar gun, which isn't bad at all. So Sanko won 7-1.
It was really crowded by then though, and I actually ended up sitting pretty high up for a change. I didn't bring my DSLR anyway, just my little point-and-shoot one. I ate yakisoba for lunch, and two snackbags of kakinotane during that first game.
Second game I saw was the third game of the day, Waseda vs. Aichi Gakuin. Conveniently, Aichi was on the same side as Sanko, so I could sit there and be all anti-Waseda and not have to deal with their idiotic fans. Also, as it turns out, AGU's ouendan rocks pretty hard; rather than having some stuffy dudes in traditional full black gakuran jackets (though to be fair, not all traditional ouendan dudes are stuffy, case in point the Keio and Hosei guys who are awesome), they had s guy in a red AGU t-shirt and black shorts running around on the platform yelling at the top of his lungs, dancing to YMCA with the cheer girls as the brass band played it. Stuff like that. So they were really entertaining, and AGU's team was also entertaining, but they sadly lost 4-0. It really came down to one inning where starter Urano struggled a lot and the team just couldn't score anything off Yuki Saitoh or Yuya Fukui, sadly.
The fourth game of the day was Kyushu Sangyo University vs. Kokugakuin. Now... I do not have the stamina to do three games, especially by myself, so I was not planning to stick around for this game. HOWEVER, their starter was Yodai Enoshita, and he just got drafted by the Fighters two weeks ago, so I ran down to the bullpen to watch him warm up and take a few photos. I like him quite a bit already! Shame I won't be around next year to harrass him (though he wouldn't be the first Fighters guy who I could bug about the Jingu taikai... Ohtsuka already got that honor).
I watched the first few innings of Game 4 and then ducked out around 4:30pm to go to Ai and Doug's place since I'd said I'd come visit while they packed. Now here's the second "I walk a lot, I eat a lot" thing -- I walked from Jingu to Harajuku via Omotesando and got a footlong Subway Club on the way. A footlong sandwich is a lot to eat, BUT walking that distance is also a lot to walk. And ESPECIALLY because walking in that area completely does NOT feel like Japan at all, it is completely full of big pretty buildings and stores where everything looks shiny and expensive, and all the people ALSO look shiny and expensive, and most are speaking English or other languages around you anyway, and half the cafes/restaurants show menus that aren't even in Japanese! I'm really NOT a fan of Harajuku at all and generally avoid it. I took the train one stop to Yoyogi and ate my sandwich in front of
februaryfour and doubt72 and weyrlady.So I hung out there for about two hours. It's surreal that they're leaving Japan this week.
Then I went up to play volleyball in Takadanobaba with Intervoll. Which involved more walking and then a whole bunch of volleyball for 2 hours. There were 10 people there including me and I was the only female, which was actually a LOT better than I thought it would be; I hadn't been there in ages and didn't play GREAT but I played pretty well all things considered, and I guess since I was the only girl there and I'm not Asian and there were no Asian girls there, I got treated just like one of the guys. (I seriously think that the presence of small Japanese women makes foreign guys just act differently whether they realize it or not.) Which meant I actually got set a decent amount, too, and was hitting okay.
But, after several hours of volleyball, having not played in so long... I swear my arms and legs already hurt and I'm dreading waking up in the morning!
I drank a small bottle of milk tea in the station, then stopped in the bakery and got a brownie and a bagel (for tomorrow's breakfast), and got some orange juice from the convenience store, and ate the brownie and juice when I got home. And I feel somewhat like that was kind of gratuitous but at the same time I also feel like I ran around a ton today. If only I could keep up insane levels of activity every day, it wouldn't matter how much I eat! Though I guess I'd get pretty exhausted after a while.
Yay.
Now, back to school tomorrow...
no subject
no subject
No, really.
http://student-baseball.or.jp/
Infact, I hear more about it from my JHS students than my college ball friends, as the high school kids seem to take it a lot more seriously, and yesterday the place was swimming in high school boys from tons of schools not appearing in the tourney.
Really, I know who the hell Hokkai and Sanko are, and I really did watch two high school teams play yesterday.
I'm pretty sure I'm a bit more intune with what's going on with student baseball than you are, being as I've actually gone to games in the last 30 years.
no subject
no subject