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Hosei again, Hanami with Shin, and earthquake wheee
You know, I'm sure if I was 10 years younger, I'd be a lot prouder of myself for giving my email address to two cute college boys today and telling them to write to me sometime when I'm in the US.
Um, so anyway, I went down to Hosei's ground again today to watch some preseason baseball, this time Hosei vs. Toyo. I had hoped and prayed that Takahiro Fujioka would start for Toyo. Guess what, he did :) So yet again I found myself at Hosei's ground... sitting in their stands on the Hosei side, ostensibly cheering for Hosei, and yet taking 1293248928 photos of the opponent's lefty starter. Oh, Fujioka, I love him so much. I still remember the first time I saw him pitch, he was a sophomore, I was hoping to see junior lefty Masahiro Inui, I got Fujioka instead, and was like "...this guy is ninety times BETTER than Inui..."
So basically I kinda had two goals for the afternoon. Well, really three:
1) get a photo with Fujioka
2) give a baseball bat omamori to Egashira... and give him my email address too
3) hang out with Toda-kun
I managed to do all 3. Infact, all 3 at once.
Hosei lost the game 4-2, not too surprising. They really just aren't hitting, and Toyo has very good pitching. Kazuki Mishima, the boy who shares my birthday, started for Hosei, and had a really rough first inning. I dunno. It's probly a good thing I won't be here this year, though who knows, maybe Hosei will pull some hitting out of nowhere. People are excited about Ryosuke Itoh at least, and hoping Kawai and Taki can do something.
After the game Toda and I went and waited for the Toyo players to come out. But where we were sitting was also where all the Hosei guys ran by. So I was also saying hello/otsukare/whatever to various Hosei players (Toda's like "Damn, you know everyone" and I'm like "...not really... just the ones I know are the ones running by!") and Egashira came by, he'd said hi to me earlier in the stands so this time I'm like "hey! hold on a sec I have something for you" and I got out the omamori. Talked to him a bit, told him I was going back to the US next week, he's like "So you won't be back here again for any of our games or anything?" and I'm like "...no... but... here..." and gave him a Seattle postcard, I wrote my email address on it and a note like 'please write to me! I want to hear about baseball in Japan since I won't be here' on it. It's not a business card but close enough I guess :) So... assuming he didn't lose them while running (they had to do running practice right after that but dammit those guys have pockets) maybe he'll email me sometime. That would be nice. I told him that I really hope his shoulder gets better, I'd like to see him play baseball again sometime.
Anyway...
After that Toda and I hung out for a while outside the Toyo bullpen. Several Toyo players did come out but... no Fujioka. We recognized some, said otsukare to a bunch, watched one guy hit his head on the roof of the tent we were sitting under... etc. We also saw the Hosei guys running and I'm pointing some of them out like "hey that's Junpei Morimoto!" and he's like "how do you know that?" and I'm like "...I watched Chukyodai Chukyo way too much at Koshien..." He said how he doesn't really like HS baseball mostly because it's just impossible to keep up with all the players -- guys really only play for a year, maybe 2 years, whereas with college ball they're around for 4 years, or industrial league ball, also for 4-8 years, maybe longer. (But at the same time he actually DOES know a decent amount about HS ball. Whatever.)
Finally Fujioka came out. I was actually not sure it was him at first because he was wearing a jacket that said "Matsubara" on it but we had noticed that lots of players were wearing their sempai's jackets -- one boy had Inui for crying out loud! I was pretty sure of his face so I asked politely if I could get a photo with him. He looked kinda confused but said sure.
Toda explained to him the situation -- that I was a big fan, but kinda shy, and was going back to the US next week and really had wanted to meet him. So Fujioka kinda smiled -- but he was clearly exhausted, I think he'd had to do some kinda TV interview before that, there were a ton of people there to see him today, scouts with radar guns and some guys with big TV cameras. So. Still, he was nice and we told him he pitched well and ganbatte kudasai and all that stuff.
And whatever, I got my photo with Fujioka!
There are 5 guys on the cover of the Shube college baseball issue this semester: Fujioka, Sugano, Hayata Itoh, Yusuke Nomura, and Yuhei Nakaushiro. These 5 are considered to be the top guys going into the draft this year out of college. I've now got photos with 3 of them. And Nakaushiro is in Osaka and Nomura hates me. So, shrug. :)
Toda and I walked back to the train station and rode to Shibuya together. He's interesting; he's starting his 3rd year at Rikkio this year. Despite that Rikkio is a Christian university (it's basically St. Paul's University) and has a huuuuuge focus on English, Toda neither cares about religion NOR speaks English. (I told him I'm not religious either, he thought that was weird, apparently their impression is that all Americans are Christian, pretty much.) He showed me some photos from his campus though, it's very pretty, I wish I'd gotten a chance to visit sometime. He told me he'd show me around someday if I come back to Japan while he's still a student, of course. Sigh. I gave him a postcard with my email address too -- so we'll see if he writes to me either. Though we might end up meeting up on Sunday at Big 6... depending on how the damn rain goes this weekend!
Still, yay.
I went home and called KDDI to cancel my phone and internet. Got stuck for like an hour on the phone dealing with the internet. So I have mostly gotten that done -- but still haven't gotten the phone cancellation done because it's complicated. What a pain :P
Took a train to Oji and met up with Shinsuke there. We had plans to get dinner at 餃子の王将 and then go to Asukayama Park to do night hanami. So, we ate a ton of Chinese food and then went through the park. There were a LOT of people doing hanami surprisingly. It sounded like a big party there. I think it was mostly younger folks though, college kids, people in their 20's. We found a little playground area up there though that was awesome -- it had this huge mountain of sliding boards and rock climbing, and various other stuff, and a Toden car and a steam train engine (like, a real inactive one). So we played with those and took photos, and did playground stuff like swings and whatnot, and we looked at the cherry blossom trees. Then we went to the arcade at Oji and played videogames for a while. And air hockey (he won). And some Quiz Magic Academy (we placed 2nd).
It was a good evening. It's weird, I feel like I don't have that many friends in Tokyo but I'm sure going to miss the ones I do have here.
The only downside is that my stomach felt really crappy on the way out. I drank some Coke and am feeling a bit better now, or at least no longer feeling like I may throw up.
There was a really fucking big earthquake right after I got home, too, at 11:30 or so. I had just gotten into the house, put my stuff down, and gone to the bathroom, and was washing my hands when I realized... hey the house is shaking. So, I had the briliant idea that I should just go outside. THAT was nuts as I ended up standing in the middle of my "street" watching the houses shake and feeling the ground shake underneath me too. It lasted for like a minute, maybe more. I've been told I just got to experience "March 11th Lite", basically. This one was a 7.4 near Miyagi, so still pretty rough.
Um, so anyway, I went down to Hosei's ground again today to watch some preseason baseball, this time Hosei vs. Toyo. I had hoped and prayed that Takahiro Fujioka would start for Toyo. Guess what, he did :) So yet again I found myself at Hosei's ground... sitting in their stands on the Hosei side, ostensibly cheering for Hosei, and yet taking 1293248928 photos of the opponent's lefty starter. Oh, Fujioka, I love him so much. I still remember the first time I saw him pitch, he was a sophomore, I was hoping to see junior lefty Masahiro Inui, I got Fujioka instead, and was like "...this guy is ninety times BETTER than Inui..."
So basically I kinda had two goals for the afternoon. Well, really three:
1) get a photo with Fujioka
2) give a baseball bat omamori to Egashira... and give him my email address too
3) hang out with Toda-kun
I managed to do all 3. Infact, all 3 at once.
Hosei lost the game 4-2, not too surprising. They really just aren't hitting, and Toyo has very good pitching. Kazuki Mishima, the boy who shares my birthday, started for Hosei, and had a really rough first inning. I dunno. It's probly a good thing I won't be here this year, though who knows, maybe Hosei will pull some hitting out of nowhere. People are excited about Ryosuke Itoh at least, and hoping Kawai and Taki can do something.
After the game Toda and I went and waited for the Toyo players to come out. But where we were sitting was also where all the Hosei guys ran by. So I was also saying hello/otsukare/whatever to various Hosei players (Toda's like "Damn, you know everyone" and I'm like "...not really... just the ones I know are the ones running by!") and Egashira came by, he'd said hi to me earlier in the stands so this time I'm like "hey! hold on a sec I have something for you" and I got out the omamori. Talked to him a bit, told him I was going back to the US next week, he's like "So you won't be back here again for any of our games or anything?" and I'm like "...no... but... here..." and gave him a Seattle postcard, I wrote my email address on it and a note like 'please write to me! I want to hear about baseball in Japan since I won't be here' on it. It's not a business card but close enough I guess :) So... assuming he didn't lose them while running (they had to do running practice right after that but dammit those guys have pockets) maybe he'll email me sometime. That would be nice. I told him that I really hope his shoulder gets better, I'd like to see him play baseball again sometime.
Anyway...
After that Toda and I hung out for a while outside the Toyo bullpen. Several Toyo players did come out but... no Fujioka. We recognized some, said otsukare to a bunch, watched one guy hit his head on the roof of the tent we were sitting under... etc. We also saw the Hosei guys running and I'm pointing some of them out like "hey that's Junpei Morimoto!" and he's like "how do you know that?" and I'm like "...I watched Chukyodai Chukyo way too much at Koshien..." He said how he doesn't really like HS baseball mostly because it's just impossible to keep up with all the players -- guys really only play for a year, maybe 2 years, whereas with college ball they're around for 4 years, or industrial league ball, also for 4-8 years, maybe longer. (But at the same time he actually DOES know a decent amount about HS ball. Whatever.)
Finally Fujioka came out. I was actually not sure it was him at first because he was wearing a jacket that said "Matsubara" on it but we had noticed that lots of players were wearing their sempai's jackets -- one boy had Inui for crying out loud! I was pretty sure of his face so I asked politely if I could get a photo with him. He looked kinda confused but said sure.
Toda explained to him the situation -- that I was a big fan, but kinda shy, and was going back to the US next week and really had wanted to meet him. So Fujioka kinda smiled -- but he was clearly exhausted, I think he'd had to do some kinda TV interview before that, there were a ton of people there to see him today, scouts with radar guns and some guys with big TV cameras. So. Still, he was nice and we told him he pitched well and ganbatte kudasai and all that stuff.
And whatever, I got my photo with Fujioka!
There are 5 guys on the cover of the Shube college baseball issue this semester: Fujioka, Sugano, Hayata Itoh, Yusuke Nomura, and Yuhei Nakaushiro. These 5 are considered to be the top guys going into the draft this year out of college. I've now got photos with 3 of them. And Nakaushiro is in Osaka and Nomura hates me. So, shrug. :)
Toda and I walked back to the train station and rode to Shibuya together. He's interesting; he's starting his 3rd year at Rikkio this year. Despite that Rikkio is a Christian university (it's basically St. Paul's University) and has a huuuuuge focus on English, Toda neither cares about religion NOR speaks English. (I told him I'm not religious either, he thought that was weird, apparently their impression is that all Americans are Christian, pretty much.) He showed me some photos from his campus though, it's very pretty, I wish I'd gotten a chance to visit sometime. He told me he'd show me around someday if I come back to Japan while he's still a student, of course. Sigh. I gave him a postcard with my email address too -- so we'll see if he writes to me either. Though we might end up meeting up on Sunday at Big 6... depending on how the damn rain goes this weekend!
Still, yay.
I went home and called KDDI to cancel my phone and internet. Got stuck for like an hour on the phone dealing with the internet. So I have mostly gotten that done -- but still haven't gotten the phone cancellation done because it's complicated. What a pain :P
Took a train to Oji and met up with Shinsuke there. We had plans to get dinner at 餃子の王将 and then go to Asukayama Park to do night hanami. So, we ate a ton of Chinese food and then went through the park. There were a LOT of people doing hanami surprisingly. It sounded like a big party there. I think it was mostly younger folks though, college kids, people in their 20's. We found a little playground area up there though that was awesome -- it had this huge mountain of sliding boards and rock climbing, and various other stuff, and a Toden car and a steam train engine (like, a real inactive one). So we played with those and took photos, and did playground stuff like swings and whatnot, and we looked at the cherry blossom trees. Then we went to the arcade at Oji and played videogames for a while. And air hockey (he won). And some Quiz Magic Academy (we placed 2nd).
It was a good evening. It's weird, I feel like I don't have that many friends in Tokyo but I'm sure going to miss the ones I do have here.
The only downside is that my stomach felt really crappy on the way out. I drank some Coke and am feeling a bit better now, or at least no longer feeling like I may throw up.
There was a really fucking big earthquake right after I got home, too, at 11:30 or so. I had just gotten into the house, put my stuff down, and gone to the bathroom, and was washing my hands when I realized... hey the house is shaking. So, I had the briliant idea that I should just go outside. THAT was nuts as I ended up standing in the middle of my "street" watching the houses shake and feeling the ground shake underneath me too. It lasted for like a minute, maybe more. I've been told I just got to experience "March 11th Lite", basically. This one was a 7.4 near Miyagi, so still pretty rough.