Misero Ochiai Asia Ichi!

I went to the final game of the Asia Series today. It was the Chunichi Dragons representing Japan, against the SK Wyverns representing Korea. The game was really a lot closer than it felt at times -- and the Wyverns proved that by sending an 8th-inning game-tying 2-run home run into the upper deck that probably would have gone all the way to Suidobashi station had there not been a wall in the way.

But, the Dragons prevailed. Or, more like, Ibata prevailed, and Iwase. Once all of the streamers went flying as did Ochiai-kantoku, the only question on most Dragons fans' minds was: whither Kenshin?

My goal for next year is to get my picture taken with the Chunichi mascot Doala. the2belo has promised to help me with it.

I sat for the game with my friend Pau (who is from Spain), and his friend Martin (who is from Germany), and they are both literature graduate students at Tokyo University. I feel inherently intimidated by people who can speak so many languages fluently, and even well enough to study the literature in their second (okay, in this case more like fourth-) language. I get the feeling Europeans are just smarter than us in general.

Anyway, it was a pretty good day, if rainy. On my way back from the game I deigned to eat at Matsuya for once. I had mapo tofu and it wasn't too terrible.

I guess I didn't write a Saturday entry, but there's not much to say. I forgot to eat all day, so by 8pm I was starving. I went down to Ikebukuro and got sushi at my favorite kaiten place, and then I went to the "Ikebukuro" Bookoff in Kanamecho, which I hadn't been to in a bloody long time (not since I moved to Japan, it seems). I got a few things, among which were an HY concert video from 2004 which I watched when I got home. They've really changed in 3 years... back then they looked a lot more like an Okinawa indie band.

Another funny thing from Saturday is that one of my students actually explained to me what the hell was going on in the movie Hero, the scenes I didn't understand. I would have felt bad wasting class time on it, if not for the fact that I ended up teaching him a whole bunch of words too. I recommended he should watch The Princess Bride - I think it'd be a decent one for some students because it doesn't have a ton of dialogue. I dunno.