So, on Saturday morning/afternoon we took the shinkansen to Nagoya. Mike was pretty excited to get to ride it for the first time. We grabbed food from the bakery in Akabane station, and went on our way, looking out at a festival going on outside the east exit... when I realized I didn't have my camera with me. (My little one, I wasn't bringing the big one.) DOH. That kinda sucked but Mike lent me his camera for the weekend so I still took like 400 photos.
On the shinkansen, the first guy sitting next to us was a Japanese guy who actually lives in New Zealand, selling hunting and fishing equipment there. Bizarrely, he is in Japan on a few-weeks vacation to visit his wife, who just gave birth to their second kid. So he spoke good English and talked to us for a while. BUT get this, it turns out he was actually in the wrong seat, so at Shin-Yokohama another Japanese guy took his seat (and heard us talking in English so actually asked him in English, "Are you sitting in the right seat?") Turns out that this one is a grad student at Keio in cognitive psychology, and ALSO speaks pretty good English, though hasn't really lived abroad so much as done a few homestays in the US; he said he was from Niigata and won his JHS speech contest and got to go abroad the first time then. So, yeah.
We got to Nagoya and found the hotel pretty easily, but couldn't check in until after 3pm. And they asked Mike for his passport, which is annoying, I still don't get this supposed law where they have to copy them.
By the time we checked in, put our stuff down, rearranged for the game, etc, it was almost 3:30, so we didn't actually get to the Nagoya Dome until a little after 4pm, by which point![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the2belo had already been waiting there for like 3 hours, snapping photos of insane Dragons fans and whatnot. So we met up with him, went around a bit, then went into the dome. Jeff immediately put his Big Ass Lens onto the camera and went to try to take photos of pregame stuff; Mike and I sat around a bit and then wandered around, since I hadn't been there in 2 years. We found the Dragons Museum on the 2nd floor and that was pretty awesome, lots of neat new and old Dragons stuff to look at.
We got food and then came to the seats and watched the game. We were sitting in B-seki, so in the infield, but close enough to the outfield that it was ok to bang cheersticks and sing the songs.
It was a freaking fast game too, or at least it FELT fast. The Swallows won 3-2, mostly on a Whitesell double. Ochiai put in pretty much every pitcher he had EXCEPT Masa, which made me kind of sad. On the other hand, Morino hit a home run in the 9th, that was kind of exciting. Doala failed his backflip in the 7th inning, which is, as always, a good indicator that the team will lose.
Despite the Swallows winning, there was no game hero for them or any such thing, because the Dragons clinched on Friday when Hanshin lost, with no game that day, just the team watching the game at "evening practice" and then having a beer-splashing. SO, this game, the last one of the year at the Nagoya Dome, became the Championship Victory Party, and they paraded around the field with the pennant and the trophy and so on, and tons of fans threw streamers and all until the place was covered in them. I snuck up to the netting to get a better view of the stuff, and got hit in the head and back with streamers several times.
We stuck around for about 30-40 mins of that and then had to leave so Jeff could get back to Gifu. We trailed with him to the subway and to Nagoya station -- my idea was that I would come back on Sunday to actually buy Dragons stuff since it was so crowded after the game anyway.
And so that is how Saturday ended. More about Sunday in a bit (I am catching up slowly...)
On the shinkansen, the first guy sitting next to us was a Japanese guy who actually lives in New Zealand, selling hunting and fishing equipment there. Bizarrely, he is in Japan on a few-weeks vacation to visit his wife, who just gave birth to their second kid. So he spoke good English and talked to us for a while. BUT get this, it turns out he was actually in the wrong seat, so at Shin-Yokohama another Japanese guy took his seat (and heard us talking in English so actually asked him in English, "Are you sitting in the right seat?") Turns out that this one is a grad student at Keio in cognitive psychology, and ALSO speaks pretty good English, though hasn't really lived abroad so much as done a few homestays in the US; he said he was from Niigata and won his JHS speech contest and got to go abroad the first time then. So, yeah.
We got to Nagoya and found the hotel pretty easily, but couldn't check in until after 3pm. And they asked Mike for his passport, which is annoying, I still don't get this supposed law where they have to copy them.
By the time we checked in, put our stuff down, rearranged for the game, etc, it was almost 3:30, so we didn't actually get to the Nagoya Dome until a little after 4pm, by which point
the2belo had already been waiting there for like 3 hours, snapping photos of insane Dragons fans and whatnot. So we met up with him, went around a bit, then went into the dome. Jeff immediately put his Big Ass Lens onto the camera and went to try to take photos of pregame stuff; Mike and I sat around a bit and then wandered around, since I hadn't been there in 2 years. We found the Dragons Museum on the 2nd floor and that was pretty awesome, lots of neat new and old Dragons stuff to look at.We got food and then came to the seats and watched the game. We were sitting in B-seki, so in the infield, but close enough to the outfield that it was ok to bang cheersticks and sing the songs.
It was a freaking fast game too, or at least it FELT fast. The Swallows won 3-2, mostly on a Whitesell double. Ochiai put in pretty much every pitcher he had EXCEPT Masa, which made me kind of sad. On the other hand, Morino hit a home run in the 9th, that was kind of exciting. Doala failed his backflip in the 7th inning, which is, as always, a good indicator that the team will lose.
Despite the Swallows winning, there was no game hero for them or any such thing, because the Dragons clinched on Friday when Hanshin lost, with no game that day, just the team watching the game at "evening practice" and then having a beer-splashing. SO, this game, the last one of the year at the Nagoya Dome, became the Championship Victory Party, and they paraded around the field with the pennant and the trophy and so on, and tons of fans threw streamers and all until the place was covered in them. I snuck up to the netting to get a better view of the stuff, and got hit in the head and back with streamers several times.
We stuck around for about 30-40 mins of that and then had to leave so Jeff could get back to Gifu. We trailed with him to the subway and to Nagoya station -- my idea was that I would come back on Sunday to actually buy Dragons stuff since it was so crowded after the game anyway.
And so that is how Saturday ended. More about Sunday in a bit (I am catching up slowly...)
