Going to try to catch myself up to now. Let's see...
So, Monday was my last full day in the US. Because I'd kind of punted lunchtimes last week due to dentist stuff, I emailed![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
georgejas to see if she'd want to get lunch, and she did. I went downtown and we ended up at Red Robin, where I had a non-ridiculous burger but a ridiculous amount of fries. Oops. George went back to work and I actually wandered around the waterfront area for a bit, including old places like Pirates' Plunder and the arcade on that pier (where I played Ms. Pac-Man, having gotten a pacman bug into my brain after Puzzle Hunt).
Went home and spent the afternoon packing, pretty much, along with a few other things. I put in some laundry and of course Carl got home while I was still laundrying. I wanted Pagliacci's pizza for dinner and more specifically pepperoni pizza, so we ended up ordering in. Yum! We took a last-minute trip to Fred Meyer at like 10:30pm too, where I couldn't find the things I wanted, but did buy Easter candy. I suck.
I stayed up all night packing and writing and stuff. Well, up until 6am, then I napped for 3 hours. Unfortunately I lost something on Thursdayish and still hadn't found it by the time I left Seattle, which is sort of unhappy. It might turn up in my luggage, but I'm kind of doubtful.
Carl gave me a ride to the airport, and I checked in for the flight and all. My big bag was 50.5 pounds and they let it slide, which was good. I grabbed lunch and then found myself with 45 minutes or so to kill before boarding would start... didn't really feel like paying out the nose for wireless... then, out of nowhere, I got a text message from a friend and ended up spending half an hour in a convo that way instead, which worked out really well.
I slept for the first 5-6 hours of the flight pretty much straight through. I think I ate food at some point and that's all I recall. I woke up and was going through photos on my camera when I noticed something about one of the Puzzle Hunt puzzles, namely the Clue one... a piece of the clue that we had missed. I redid the entire puzzle in 10 minutes with my new information. I felt terrible, because if I had been more awake/alert on Sunday morning I totally would have saved us a whole bunch of time. Oh well. After that, I watched Slumdog Millionnaire yet again, and it was still good, though the dance number at the end totally does not work on an airplane screen.
There were no hitches once I arrived in Narita, just a lot of turbulence on the plane BEFORE we landed which made me question if we'd survive. The weather was crappy in Japan, and I ended up springing for a Skyliner ticket for 1900 yen instead of the normal 1000 yen it takes to get to Nippori. It'd save me around 40 minutes of waiting and of train time, plus I'd get a nice seat. And for the record, by that point it was Wednesday evening, since going back to Japan you always lose a day.
When I got back to Akabane, it was raining yet again and I caught a cab yet again, but this time the CAB DRIVER WAS ONLY MILDLY STUPID! Yay! I mean, he helped me lift my heavy bag, and I told him where I live, and he... went the wrong way. Well, he went a way that was wrong offhand but plausibly correctable, only every time I thought he'd correct it, he didn't. Finally I'm like "Umm, you have to go UP the hill." "Where?" "Turn left here... I'm not sure from this direction." But eventually we did get up the hill, and he was a lot nicer about being directed around by a foreigner.
I unpacked some, and waited for the room to warm up some, and then just kind of zonked out; I ended up not eating dinner but just having some rice crackers. I fell asleep around 9 or 10pm and woke up around 8am today, though I did wake up several times during the night with a dry mouth, which isn't too surprising.
Today, that being Thursday, I thought I'd maybe grab some lunch and do some errands, but then I realized OMG THE FIGHTERS AND MARINES MINOR LEAGUE TEAMS WERE PLAYING AT LOTTE URAWA! so instead, I grabbed my big camera and zoom lens, got some tempura lunch at the station, and went up to the stadium. I got there at like 1:15 for a 12:30 game, which I felt really bad about, it was already the fourth inning. But I managed to run into my friend Mariko -- well, I don't know if she's really my "friend" per se, I think she thinks I'm crazy but she puts up with me because some of her other friends like me. Either way, she let me sit with her and the others she was with in the front row, none of whom I'd ever seen before but one of whom turned out to be second baseman Imanami's mother. No joke. I think I have met more parents of Fighters players now than of any other baseball team I've followed EVER.
The Fighters got clobbered by the Marines, most of whom were ikusei players with uniform numbers over 100. This does not bode well for the season, but whatever. I got to see a bunch of our new guys and I also got to hear a hilarious story from Mariko about when she and Ojisan went to Hawaii to follow Yoshikawa and Yamamoto in the Hawaii Winter League and had some... issues... with driving on the right side of the highway. I told her I had the same problem.
I was wearing my Darvish shirt and told everyone I was off to cheer for him in the WBC!
Which I was. Except that I also discovered that my 18-55 LENS APPEARS TO BE TOTALLY DEAD :(
See, I got out my lens and it seems that somewhere in the last week or two, probly during my US trip, the lens cap got shattered. And it seems that some glass shards found their way into the lens, so it doesn't even want to adjust, let alone focus. Arrrgh. The lens itself doesn't appear to be scratched, but I'm not sure what to do about the rest of this crap.
Which makes me wonder if this is a sign that it's time for me to seriously consider dropping the $700 or so for the 18-200 VR which I've wanted for, oh, only like, the last few years or so. It does seem that if I'm going to do it, before baseball season starts would be ideal. On the other hand I think I'd like to have a real true signed job contract guaranteeing I will be working and getting paid, before I spend something like that.
Anyway, I basically stopped home, dropped off some stuff, picked up other stuff, got on my bike, rode to Motohasunuma, and went off to the WBC!
Met up with Pau and his friend Alfredo, who is from Panama. They had a China flag AND a Japan flag, and a random Chinese dude actually came up and wanted a photo with them. Teehee. Then while we were walking up to the gate, we actually got interviewed by a lady who claimed to be from CBS. I guess she was looking for some quotes in English. So she talks to us, to me first probably since I'm from America, and we have a conversation that sort of went like:
"...what part of America?"
"Uhh... most recently Seattle."
"Oh, so you must see a lot of Ichiro."
"Well, I used to have Mariners tickets, yeah..."
"Who do you think will win tonight?"
"Oh, Japan. No doubt."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because we've seen China in international competition several times now, and they just aren't that good. Plus, see the t-shirt I'm wearing? I'm cheering for this guy Darvish. He's really great."
"Oh, of course I've heard of Darvish, he's a great young pitcher. Do you think we'll be seeing him in the majors soon?"
"Uhhh... I certainly HOPE NOT."
"... .. .. ... What?"
"I'm a huge Fighters fan, you better not steal him from us!!"
"...?"
"Plus he always says he's not interested in going."
"Um, okay..."
...and then she turned to Alfredo to interview him. I thought it was funny because Pau's from Spain and Alfredo's from Panama, I don't think she expected that. Either way, she got our names, so if CBS quotes some random chick in Japan as saying "DON'T STEAL OUR DARVISH YOU FASCIST PIGS", that actually was me and I'm not being misquoted.
We went in and had a really difficult time finding seats. Even at a bit past 5pm for a 6:30 game, I swear the upper deck was practically full! It was unreserved seating, so... yeah. Eventually we found three seats, up behind first base, about 4 rows from the top of the fucking Tokyo Dome. Sheesh.
You can probably see what happened at the game if you really want to, but basically Japan won 4-0, which is a SUPER low margin to be beating the perennial doormat China team, and just because they had Terry Collins managing and he was in Japan for a while is really no excuse. Sadaharu Oh threw out the ceremonial first pitch though which was awesome, and the US Army band actually played the national anthems of China and Japan. There were cheering groups in the outfield and they played cheer songs for every player regardless of what team they were on, and that included old cheers for Fukudome, Johjima, Iwamura, even Ichiro. Flashbulbs went off every time Ichiro tugged his sleeve. There was an Inaba Jump at one point, and we also got to see Shuichi Murata hit a home run. Yay. And Pau and Alfredo talked in Spanish about 70% of the time and I could actually catch about half of what they said, which was interesting given I haven't studied Spanish in 15 years or so.
Afterwards we went to Yamashita bookstore and I got a meikan for this year, finally, and then we went our separate ways, or our separate Suidobashis as the case may be. Oh, we discovered that getting the WBC signs at McDonald's require eating a quarter pounder value meal. Yikes.
Ugh, my brain is totally shutting off and I still should write up today's stuff for Marinerds. I just wanted to catch up LJ first. Whee goodnight.
So, Monday was my last full day in the US. Because I'd kind of punted lunchtimes last week due to dentist stuff, I emailed
georgejas to see if she'd want to get lunch, and she did. I went downtown and we ended up at Red Robin, where I had a non-ridiculous burger but a ridiculous amount of fries. Oops. George went back to work and I actually wandered around the waterfront area for a bit, including old places like Pirates' Plunder and the arcade on that pier (where I played Ms. Pac-Man, having gotten a pacman bug into my brain after Puzzle Hunt).Went home and spent the afternoon packing, pretty much, along with a few other things. I put in some laundry and of course Carl got home while I was still laundrying. I wanted Pagliacci's pizza for dinner and more specifically pepperoni pizza, so we ended up ordering in. Yum! We took a last-minute trip to Fred Meyer at like 10:30pm too, where I couldn't find the things I wanted, but did buy Easter candy. I suck.
I stayed up all night packing and writing and stuff. Well, up until 6am, then I napped for 3 hours. Unfortunately I lost something on Thursdayish and still hadn't found it by the time I left Seattle, which is sort of unhappy. It might turn up in my luggage, but I'm kind of doubtful.
Carl gave me a ride to the airport, and I checked in for the flight and all. My big bag was 50.5 pounds and they let it slide, which was good. I grabbed lunch and then found myself with 45 minutes or so to kill before boarding would start... didn't really feel like paying out the nose for wireless... then, out of nowhere, I got a text message from a friend and ended up spending half an hour in a convo that way instead, which worked out really well.
I slept for the first 5-6 hours of the flight pretty much straight through. I think I ate food at some point and that's all I recall. I woke up and was going through photos on my camera when I noticed something about one of the Puzzle Hunt puzzles, namely the Clue one... a piece of the clue that we had missed. I redid the entire puzzle in 10 minutes with my new information. I felt terrible, because if I had been more awake/alert on Sunday morning I totally would have saved us a whole bunch of time. Oh well. After that, I watched Slumdog Millionnaire yet again, and it was still good, though the dance number at the end totally does not work on an airplane screen.
There were no hitches once I arrived in Narita, just a lot of turbulence on the plane BEFORE we landed which made me question if we'd survive. The weather was crappy in Japan, and I ended up springing for a Skyliner ticket for 1900 yen instead of the normal 1000 yen it takes to get to Nippori. It'd save me around 40 minutes of waiting and of train time, plus I'd get a nice seat. And for the record, by that point it was Wednesday evening, since going back to Japan you always lose a day.
When I got back to Akabane, it was raining yet again and I caught a cab yet again, but this time the CAB DRIVER WAS ONLY MILDLY STUPID! Yay! I mean, he helped me lift my heavy bag, and I told him where I live, and he... went the wrong way. Well, he went a way that was wrong offhand but plausibly correctable, only every time I thought he'd correct it, he didn't. Finally I'm like "Umm, you have to go UP the hill." "Where?" "Turn left here... I'm not sure from this direction." But eventually we did get up the hill, and he was a lot nicer about being directed around by a foreigner.
I unpacked some, and waited for the room to warm up some, and then just kind of zonked out; I ended up not eating dinner but just having some rice crackers. I fell asleep around 9 or 10pm and woke up around 8am today, though I did wake up several times during the night with a dry mouth, which isn't too surprising.
Today, that being Thursday, I thought I'd maybe grab some lunch and do some errands, but then I realized OMG THE FIGHTERS AND MARINES MINOR LEAGUE TEAMS WERE PLAYING AT LOTTE URAWA! so instead, I grabbed my big camera and zoom lens, got some tempura lunch at the station, and went up to the stadium. I got there at like 1:15 for a 12:30 game, which I felt really bad about, it was already the fourth inning. But I managed to run into my friend Mariko -- well, I don't know if she's really my "friend" per se, I think she thinks I'm crazy but she puts up with me because some of her other friends like me. Either way, she let me sit with her and the others she was with in the front row, none of whom I'd ever seen before but one of whom turned out to be second baseman Imanami's mother. No joke. I think I have met more parents of Fighters players now than of any other baseball team I've followed EVER.
The Fighters got clobbered by the Marines, most of whom were ikusei players with uniform numbers over 100. This does not bode well for the season, but whatever. I got to see a bunch of our new guys and I also got to hear a hilarious story from Mariko about when she and Ojisan went to Hawaii to follow Yoshikawa and Yamamoto in the Hawaii Winter League and had some... issues... with driving on the right side of the highway. I told her I had the same problem.
I was wearing my Darvish shirt and told everyone I was off to cheer for him in the WBC!
Which I was. Except that I also discovered that my 18-55 LENS APPEARS TO BE TOTALLY DEAD :(
See, I got out my lens and it seems that somewhere in the last week or two, probly during my US trip, the lens cap got shattered. And it seems that some glass shards found their way into the lens, so it doesn't even want to adjust, let alone focus. Arrrgh. The lens itself doesn't appear to be scratched, but I'm not sure what to do about the rest of this crap.
Which makes me wonder if this is a sign that it's time for me to seriously consider dropping the $700 or so for the 18-200 VR which I've wanted for, oh, only like, the last few years or so. It does seem that if I'm going to do it, before baseball season starts would be ideal. On the other hand I think I'd like to have a real true signed job contract guaranteeing I will be working and getting paid, before I spend something like that.
Anyway, I basically stopped home, dropped off some stuff, picked up other stuff, got on my bike, rode to Motohasunuma, and went off to the WBC!
Met up with Pau and his friend Alfredo, who is from Panama. They had a China flag AND a Japan flag, and a random Chinese dude actually came up and wanted a photo with them. Teehee. Then while we were walking up to the gate, we actually got interviewed by a lady who claimed to be from CBS. I guess she was looking for some quotes in English. So she talks to us, to me first probably since I'm from America, and we have a conversation that sort of went like:
"...what part of America?"
"Uhh... most recently Seattle."
"Oh, so you must see a lot of Ichiro."
"Well, I used to have Mariners tickets, yeah..."
"Who do you think will win tonight?"
"Oh, Japan. No doubt."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because we've seen China in international competition several times now, and they just aren't that good. Plus, see the t-shirt I'm wearing? I'm cheering for this guy Darvish. He's really great."
"Oh, of course I've heard of Darvish, he's a great young pitcher. Do you think we'll be seeing him in the majors soon?"
"Uhhh... I certainly HOPE NOT."
"... .. .. ... What?"
"I'm a huge Fighters fan, you better not steal him from us!!"
"...?"
"Plus he always says he's not interested in going."
"Um, okay..."
...and then she turned to Alfredo to interview him. I thought it was funny because Pau's from Spain and Alfredo's from Panama, I don't think she expected that. Either way, she got our names, so if CBS quotes some random chick in Japan as saying "DON'T STEAL OUR DARVISH YOU FASCIST PIGS", that actually was me and I'm not being misquoted.
We went in and had a really difficult time finding seats. Even at a bit past 5pm for a 6:30 game, I swear the upper deck was practically full! It was unreserved seating, so... yeah. Eventually we found three seats, up behind first base, about 4 rows from the top of the fucking Tokyo Dome. Sheesh.
You can probably see what happened at the game if you really want to, but basically Japan won 4-0, which is a SUPER low margin to be beating the perennial doormat China team, and just because they had Terry Collins managing and he was in Japan for a while is really no excuse. Sadaharu Oh threw out the ceremonial first pitch though which was awesome, and the US Army band actually played the national anthems of China and Japan. There were cheering groups in the outfield and they played cheer songs for every player regardless of what team they were on, and that included old cheers for Fukudome, Johjima, Iwamura, even Ichiro. Flashbulbs went off every time Ichiro tugged his sleeve. There was an Inaba Jump at one point, and we also got to see Shuichi Murata hit a home run. Yay. And Pau and Alfredo talked in Spanish about 70% of the time and I could actually catch about half of what they said, which was interesting given I haven't studied Spanish in 15 years or so.
Afterwards we went to Yamashita bookstore and I got a meikan for this year, finally, and then we went our separate ways, or our separate Suidobashis as the case may be. Oh, we discovered that getting the WBC signs at McDonald's require eating a quarter pounder value meal. Yikes.
Ugh, my brain is totally shutting off and I still should write up today's stuff for Marinerds. I just wanted to catch up LJ first. Whee goodnight.
