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Was I on the NBC Nightly News?
It occurs to me sometimes that there are people who live life, and then there are people who LIVE life. I never want to be someone who isn't LIVING.
So yesterday I met up with Kozo by the subway&train stations and we walked to Jingu together. We went to do the earthquake relief donation thing first -- there was a huge line since it was just starting at 11am! But I saw that Yasushi Iihara was out there and I have an Iihara jersey so I wanted to be in his line :) We waited... we waited... we walked... and just as we were getting towards the donation area, we see these two white guys with cameras and they yell out to me "Hey, we're from NBC. Can we talk to you a bit?" and I'm like "Sure, can you catch me AFTER the donation line?"
We go through the line. I steer us towards the table that turns out to just be Yasushi and the mascot Tsubakuro. Fortunately it turns out Kozo really wanted to shake hands with Tsubakuro and I really wanted to shake hands with Yasushi so we both got what we wanted :) I said "Ganbatte kudasai!" and smiled. Yay. No picture of that but I did get one of Kozo with Tsubakuro. And THEN the NBC guys caught us. They mostly wanted to talk to me until I'm like "You really ought to talk to Kozo too, he also speaks English."
Mostly they asked things like, "Why are you here today? What do you think of all of the donation stuff? What do you think of the earthquake and the way things are now?" Me being me I just babbled all this stuff about how much I love Japanese baseball and go to a whole ton of games and how I think that the donation thing is EXACTLY what they should be doing -- bringing people together, lifting up spirits, collecting money to help the earthquake victims, etc. I babble a lot and sound like an idiot when I'm under pressure like that. Kozo, on the other hand, with his years of debate and speech practice, sounded really good and eloquent. (Take that, foreign press -- the gaijin is a moron but her Japanese friend that you never would have noticed is the well-spoken one!) He pointed out that I probably gave the reporters a lot of good information, even if I sounded like a big big dork.
We have no clue if either of us will actually be on the news, though. The guy who interviewed us was Lee Cowan, and he said he was with NBC Nightly News. He also said that he'd been in Japan for 3 weeks covering the earthquake stuff and that I was the happiest person he'd talked to -- mostly because they'd been up north, I guess. I told him I was just happy to be back at a game, to see my friends again and to watch baseball and to help the earthquake and all. It turned out their crew had never actually been to a Japanese baseball game, so we were like "We'll be at the top of section D in the outfield with some other English-speaking friends if you want to come chat with us later!" But they were kinda iffy because it was unclear they'd be able to actually bring their equipment into the park.
That was exciting.
Then we went into the park, sat down, hung out for a while, because most of the people we know weren't there yet. I went to get lunch and ended up finding the new Pizza-La, but since I hate Pizza-La got some butadon from the place next to it, which was really good.
Oh yeah, and I bought an Aoki cellphone strap and shitajiki. I figure that well, he's likely to jump to the MLB next year so it was my last chance, even though I'm not paticularly a fan of his or anything.
After a while, people we know showed up. Mizushima actually came to this game -- but since he doesn't know anyone I felt kinda weird. (I even told him, "I can save you a seat but I'll mostly be with my English-speaking friends...") I thought it would be him and his dad actually, but then his dad decided to bring the camera and sit in the infield. Akinori showed up a bit later, and Mac and a friend of his, so we had a decent group. Simon didn't come. Shrug. Kentaro might have been there but if he was, he was on the other side.
Yuya Fukui started for the Carp, which was exciting since I saw him play so much with Waseda. Kyohei Muranaka started for the Swallows. The game was kinda just average until basically the 4th inning when the Swallows blew it wide open with Wladimir Balentien hitting a 3-run homer. He also hit another homer later on. So, the Swallows won 6-1 eventually.
It was mostly just fun to be there with friends and cheering and watching baseball!
Unlike Saturday, though, Sunday was pretty cold. Saturday had a high of 19 and Sunday had like 11. So after the game we (me and Kozo and Akinori) walked to Shinjuku Gyoen. But the wrong end. So we walked to the RIGHT end and by then everyone we knew had packed up from their hanami party except Ben. So having added him to our group, and having walked to Shinjuku, we went to an izakaya that Kozo knew about -- I forgot the name, but it was very... european themed. Like the architecture was very much reminiscent of a european pub, it was very wooden, with chandeliers and stuff. The food was a lot of Italian/spanish/etc stuff -- we had things like chile con carne (which they called "chilekonkan"), chips and salsa, mix pizza, chicken wing gyoza, a variety of other stuff. The guys had basashi and some kinda pickled egg yolk and such. It was interesting to be sure. I even drank a few alcoholic drinks -- a cassis orange to be normal and then a "Strawberry fizz". Only thing is that since we ate and drank so much it ended up being like 4000 yen each! Yikes.
Then we did karaoke for 3 hours. Woohoo. I feel like the only downside of spending probably at least 24 hours total this trip doing karaoke with Kozo is that he has such a wide repertoire and I don't -- at least not compared to him -- that I can't help but repeat some stuff. (I actually do have a wide amount of stuff I can sing, but I'm just not sure how much of it is actually interesting.) On the other hand I felt like I actually could get the right voice I wanted for a few things, which was nice. Like Do As Infinity, and HY, and almost kinda but not exactly with Angela Aki. Shrug.
Then I came home and collapsed.
It's Monday afternoon now and today's kind of a down day, which kinda sucks but whatever. I'm gonna go see a movie in a bit I think, and I did laundry in the afternoon and ate a katsu bento for lunch for a change (rode my bike out to Saboten). I've been going through some stuff deciding whether to trash, keep, donate, give away, whatever... I talked to the Salvation Army this morning and they do take clothing donations, if I can come to their store in Nakano, so I may do that. I don't like the SA to be perfectly honest -- but I'd kinda prefer to donate clothes over just throwing them out, if I'm not bringing them to the US with me, you know?
So yesterday I met up with Kozo by the subway&train stations and we walked to Jingu together. We went to do the earthquake relief donation thing first -- there was a huge line since it was just starting at 11am! But I saw that Yasushi Iihara was out there and I have an Iihara jersey so I wanted to be in his line :) We waited... we waited... we walked... and just as we were getting towards the donation area, we see these two white guys with cameras and they yell out to me "Hey, we're from NBC. Can we talk to you a bit?" and I'm like "Sure, can you catch me AFTER the donation line?"
We go through the line. I steer us towards the table that turns out to just be Yasushi and the mascot Tsubakuro. Fortunately it turns out Kozo really wanted to shake hands with Tsubakuro and I really wanted to shake hands with Yasushi so we both got what we wanted :) I said "Ganbatte kudasai!" and smiled. Yay. No picture of that but I did get one of Kozo with Tsubakuro. And THEN the NBC guys caught us. They mostly wanted to talk to me until I'm like "You really ought to talk to Kozo too, he also speaks English."
Mostly they asked things like, "Why are you here today? What do you think of all of the donation stuff? What do you think of the earthquake and the way things are now?" Me being me I just babbled all this stuff about how much I love Japanese baseball and go to a whole ton of games and how I think that the donation thing is EXACTLY what they should be doing -- bringing people together, lifting up spirits, collecting money to help the earthquake victims, etc. I babble a lot and sound like an idiot when I'm under pressure like that. Kozo, on the other hand, with his years of debate and speech practice, sounded really good and eloquent. (Take that, foreign press -- the gaijin is a moron but her Japanese friend that you never would have noticed is the well-spoken one!) He pointed out that I probably gave the reporters a lot of good information, even if I sounded like a big big dork.
We have no clue if either of us will actually be on the news, though. The guy who interviewed us was Lee Cowan, and he said he was with NBC Nightly News. He also said that he'd been in Japan for 3 weeks covering the earthquake stuff and that I was the happiest person he'd talked to -- mostly because they'd been up north, I guess. I told him I was just happy to be back at a game, to see my friends again and to watch baseball and to help the earthquake and all. It turned out their crew had never actually been to a Japanese baseball game, so we were like "We'll be at the top of section D in the outfield with some other English-speaking friends if you want to come chat with us later!" But they were kinda iffy because it was unclear they'd be able to actually bring their equipment into the park.
That was exciting.
Then we went into the park, sat down, hung out for a while, because most of the people we know weren't there yet. I went to get lunch and ended up finding the new Pizza-La, but since I hate Pizza-La got some butadon from the place next to it, which was really good.
Oh yeah, and I bought an Aoki cellphone strap and shitajiki. I figure that well, he's likely to jump to the MLB next year so it was my last chance, even though I'm not paticularly a fan of his or anything.
After a while, people we know showed up. Mizushima actually came to this game -- but since he doesn't know anyone I felt kinda weird. (I even told him, "I can save you a seat but I'll mostly be with my English-speaking friends...") I thought it would be him and his dad actually, but then his dad decided to bring the camera and sit in the infield. Akinori showed up a bit later, and Mac and a friend of his, so we had a decent group. Simon didn't come. Shrug. Kentaro might have been there but if he was, he was on the other side.
Yuya Fukui started for the Carp, which was exciting since I saw him play so much with Waseda. Kyohei Muranaka started for the Swallows. The game was kinda just average until basically the 4th inning when the Swallows blew it wide open with Wladimir Balentien hitting a 3-run homer. He also hit another homer later on. So, the Swallows won 6-1 eventually.
It was mostly just fun to be there with friends and cheering and watching baseball!
Unlike Saturday, though, Sunday was pretty cold. Saturday had a high of 19 and Sunday had like 11. So after the game we (me and Kozo and Akinori) walked to Shinjuku Gyoen. But the wrong end. So we walked to the RIGHT end and by then everyone we knew had packed up from their hanami party except Ben. So having added him to our group, and having walked to Shinjuku, we went to an izakaya that Kozo knew about -- I forgot the name, but it was very... european themed. Like the architecture was very much reminiscent of a european pub, it was very wooden, with chandeliers and stuff. The food was a lot of Italian/spanish/etc stuff -- we had things like chile con carne (which they called "chilekonkan"), chips and salsa, mix pizza, chicken wing gyoza, a variety of other stuff. The guys had basashi and some kinda pickled egg yolk and such. It was interesting to be sure. I even drank a few alcoholic drinks -- a cassis orange to be normal and then a "Strawberry fizz". Only thing is that since we ate and drank so much it ended up being like 4000 yen each! Yikes.
Then we did karaoke for 3 hours. Woohoo. I feel like the only downside of spending probably at least 24 hours total this trip doing karaoke with Kozo is that he has such a wide repertoire and I don't -- at least not compared to him -- that I can't help but repeat some stuff. (I actually do have a wide amount of stuff I can sing, but I'm just not sure how much of it is actually interesting.) On the other hand I felt like I actually could get the right voice I wanted for a few things, which was nice. Like Do As Infinity, and HY, and almost kinda but not exactly with Angela Aki. Shrug.
Then I came home and collapsed.
It's Monday afternoon now and today's kind of a down day, which kinda sucks but whatever. I'm gonna go see a movie in a bit I think, and I did laundry in the afternoon and ate a katsu bento for lunch for a change (rode my bike out to Saboten). I've been going through some stuff deciding whether to trash, keep, donate, give away, whatever... I talked to the Salvation Army this morning and they do take clothing donations, if I can come to their store in Nakano, so I may do that. I don't like the SA to be perfectly honest -- but I'd kinda prefer to donate clothes over just throwing them out, if I'm not bringing them to the US with me, you know?