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monday, tuesday
The problem with only seeing my best friend a few times a year (my fault, not his, he moved to Seattle after all) is that I'd rather spend time talking to him than blogging about it.
So, Monday. Day started off with me going shopping up in Alderwood. I managed to get a bunch of things on my list of Stuff I Need That I Can't Get In Japan -- smaller size work pants, smaller suit jacket, a few more dress shirts that should be good once it's summertime, and don't require ironing. Got some underwear and stuff at Macy's. Got some Superfeet inserts at REI and a new messenger bag that I think will kick ass for taking to ballgames when I don't have my big camera (and maybe even when I do). Looked for other stuff (read: shoes) and failed, but that's ok. Stopped by the Mariners team store to get tickets to the two Royals games. Went home.
Went to Safeco Field for the game. Got there at 5:25 or so. Went down to the field and... and... and introduced myself to Trey Hillman, who used to be the manager of the Nippon Ham Fighters for five years. He's now the manager of the Kansas City Royals and he is super super super nice. Anyway, he knew who I was, actually, thanks to Larry, but there was some confusion because he also thought I wanted to interview him. Whoops. Anyway he signed my old Fighters board and posed for a picture with me:
So now that's two NPB managers I've met in two weeks. Go me?
Brett and his mom showed up around that point and I ended up going to the upper deck with them, where we waited for Gomez. Found Gomez. I got Ivar's fish'n'chips for dinner. Jason showed up after a bit too. Three innings in, we moved down to section 108, where Brett proceeded to spend the rest of the evening heckling Jose Guillen, and we all FROZE TO DEATH because it is freaking COLD here. Brent and his girlfriend showed up in the ninth inning -- he was like "THAT CAN'T BE DEANNA, ISN'T SHE IN JAPAN?" Funny stuff. The Royals won the game something like 5-1.
Went home, talked to Carl, blogged, etc.
Today, I spent the morning doing my taxes and running nearby errands -- went to the post office to drop off taxes and stuff, went to Goodwill to drop off all the stuff I brought back, went to Big 5 to get a new scorecard book but THEY DON'T MAKE THE HORIZONTAL ONES ANYMORE, LAAAAAAAME, and then went back to Safeco Field for another game.
This time I showed up at 2:30 for a 3:40 game. Sat down in the front row and just watched batting practice. Brent showed up and sat down next to me and we talked for a while. Hillman-kantoku came over again and said hi (but I think he was really saying hi to some friends of his there) and I bugged him with some questions and he told us stories about when he set fire to his pants by accident last week. and I think I was rude 'cause I interrupted him to ask more questions and I'm a horrible person and I can't believe he was so nice to me anyway. Seriously. I got him to sign a Japan Series 2007 baseball card, and he was like "dude, I've never even SEEN this before, BBM is pretty awful about giving them to players". I wonder if I could somehow send him a set of the Japan Series cards... there's got to be a "fan mail" address on the Royals site somewhere.
Anyway, Brett also showed up, so I went out to section 108 with them, except this time I really had a ticket for that section. I met up with Chris and Rachel, who I had met a month ago in Japan, and also with Edwin, who is a crazy Koshien fan who posts to japanesebaseball.com, and I sat with them. I had brought presents -- a Mariners Snoopy capsule thingy for Rachel, a Chunichi Dragons monthly magazine for Chris, and the Shukan Baseball special issue on spring Koshien for Edwin. (He totally freaked out over it, which I kind of expected -- I didn't remember Kino here ever getting in the cool special issues of stuff.) I also sold a big pile of 2007 BBM baseball card doubles to Chris, so now I don't have to worry until after I go nuts with 2008 BBM cards. Teehee.
Mariners won this game 11-6. I got to see John Bale (former Hiroshima Carp) pitcher start for KC, I got to see Hideo Nomo (you know who he is) pitch an inning, and I got to see Yasuhiko Yabuta (former Chiba Lotte reliever) pitch as well. Yay! Thanks Hillman-kantoku!
Went to the Mariners team store after the game with Edwin, then walked to Elliott Bay and met up with Carl to go home. For lack of anything better to do, we went to Chinook's for dinner. Sadly it is not fruit season yet, so we didn't have desserts, but I guess that's good. After that we went to Fred Meyer, where it was closing in 30 minutes so I didn't really get to shop around much. I wanted to get jeans there -- but, the retarded thing is -- I originally figured I'd get a pair in the size smaller than I usually wear, except that was still a little big in the style I wanted, so I went down to two sizes smaller. And that fit great, except they didn't have that style in the COLOR I wanted! Grrrrrr! I picked up some random other stuff like soap though, so eh.
Carl helped me go look for my Japanese grammar book in the closet full of my boxes, but to no avail. We did however find my Intermediate Kanji Book so that saves me like 3500 yen should I decide to use it, plus a book on differentiating similar kanji. (The worst was reading through it and being like "ARGH I KNOW THIS BOOK IS SUPPOSED TO FUCK WITH MY HEAD AND MAKE ME CONFUSED ABOUT KANJI BUT IT'S SO AWFUL WHEN I LOOK AT THE KANJI AND GET THEM CONFUSED AND REALIZE IT'S FUCKING WITH MY HEAD!!!")
Oh yeah, and we played music together. Kinda. I played guitar and Carl played flute and clarinet. That was kinda wacky.
Now I am blogging and doing laundry. Wheee.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) night I fly to Pittsburgh. I get to Pittsburgh at 8:53am Thursday. We'll see if I can manage to meet up with Bayani before I go to campus or not -- but I'm gonna try to get over there at least in time for the Kiltie Concert which I think is at 3pm either way. I hope I can see everyone!
So, Monday. Day started off with me going shopping up in Alderwood. I managed to get a bunch of things on my list of Stuff I Need That I Can't Get In Japan -- smaller size work pants, smaller suit jacket, a few more dress shirts that should be good once it's summertime, and don't require ironing. Got some underwear and stuff at Macy's. Got some Superfeet inserts at REI and a new messenger bag that I think will kick ass for taking to ballgames when I don't have my big camera (and maybe even when I do). Looked for other stuff (read: shoes) and failed, but that's ok. Stopped by the Mariners team store to get tickets to the two Royals games. Went home.
Went to Safeco Field for the game. Got there at 5:25 or so. Went down to the field and... and... and introduced myself to Trey Hillman, who used to be the manager of the Nippon Ham Fighters for five years. He's now the manager of the Kansas City Royals and he is super super super nice. Anyway, he knew who I was, actually, thanks to Larry, but there was some confusion because he also thought I wanted to interview him. Whoops. Anyway he signed my old Fighters board and posed for a picture with me:
So now that's two NPB managers I've met in two weeks. Go me?
Brett and his mom showed up around that point and I ended up going to the upper deck with them, where we waited for Gomez. Found Gomez. I got Ivar's fish'n'chips for dinner. Jason showed up after a bit too. Three innings in, we moved down to section 108, where Brett proceeded to spend the rest of the evening heckling Jose Guillen, and we all FROZE TO DEATH because it is freaking COLD here. Brent and his girlfriend showed up in the ninth inning -- he was like "THAT CAN'T BE DEANNA, ISN'T SHE IN JAPAN?" Funny stuff. The Royals won the game something like 5-1.
Went home, talked to Carl, blogged, etc.
Today, I spent the morning doing my taxes and running nearby errands -- went to the post office to drop off taxes and stuff, went to Goodwill to drop off all the stuff I brought back, went to Big 5 to get a new scorecard book but THEY DON'T MAKE THE HORIZONTAL ONES ANYMORE, LAAAAAAAME, and then went back to Safeco Field for another game.
This time I showed up at 2:30 for a 3:40 game. Sat down in the front row and just watched batting practice. Brent showed up and sat down next to me and we talked for a while. Hillman-kantoku came over again and said hi (but I think he was really saying hi to some friends of his there) and I bugged him with some questions and he told us stories about when he set fire to his pants by accident last week. and I think I was rude 'cause I interrupted him to ask more questions and I'm a horrible person and I can't believe he was so nice to me anyway. Seriously. I got him to sign a Japan Series 2007 baseball card, and he was like "dude, I've never even SEEN this before, BBM is pretty awful about giving them to players". I wonder if I could somehow send him a set of the Japan Series cards... there's got to be a "fan mail" address on the Royals site somewhere.
Anyway, Brett also showed up, so I went out to section 108 with them, except this time I really had a ticket for that section. I met up with Chris and Rachel, who I had met a month ago in Japan, and also with Edwin, who is a crazy Koshien fan who posts to japanesebaseball.com, and I sat with them. I had brought presents -- a Mariners Snoopy capsule thingy for Rachel, a Chunichi Dragons monthly magazine for Chris, and the Shukan Baseball special issue on spring Koshien for Edwin. (He totally freaked out over it, which I kind of expected -- I didn't remember Kino here ever getting in the cool special issues of stuff.) I also sold a big pile of 2007 BBM baseball card doubles to Chris, so now I don't have to worry until after I go nuts with 2008 BBM cards. Teehee.
Mariners won this game 11-6. I got to see John Bale (former Hiroshima Carp) pitcher start for KC, I got to see Hideo Nomo (you know who he is) pitch an inning, and I got to see Yasuhiko Yabuta (former Chiba Lotte reliever) pitch as well. Yay! Thanks Hillman-kantoku!
Went to the Mariners team store after the game with Edwin, then walked to Elliott Bay and met up with Carl to go home. For lack of anything better to do, we went to Chinook's for dinner. Sadly it is not fruit season yet, so we didn't have desserts, but I guess that's good. After that we went to Fred Meyer, where it was closing in 30 minutes so I didn't really get to shop around much. I wanted to get jeans there -- but, the retarded thing is -- I originally figured I'd get a pair in the size smaller than I usually wear, except that was still a little big in the style I wanted, so I went down to two sizes smaller. And that fit great, except they didn't have that style in the COLOR I wanted! Grrrrrr! I picked up some random other stuff like soap though, so eh.
Carl helped me go look for my Japanese grammar book in the closet full of my boxes, but to no avail. We did however find my Intermediate Kanji Book so that saves me like 3500 yen should I decide to use it, plus a book on differentiating similar kanji. (The worst was reading through it and being like "ARGH I KNOW THIS BOOK IS SUPPOSED TO FUCK WITH MY HEAD AND MAKE ME CONFUSED ABOUT KANJI BUT IT'S SO AWFUL WHEN I LOOK AT THE KANJI AND GET THEM CONFUSED AND REALIZE IT'S FUCKING WITH MY HEAD!!!")
Oh yeah, and we played music together. Kinda. I played guitar and Carl played flute and clarinet. That was kinda wacky.
Now I am blogging and doing laundry. Wheee.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) night I fly to Pittsburgh. I get to Pittsburgh at 8:53am Thursday. We'll see if I can manage to meet up with Bayani before I go to campus or not -- but I'm gonna try to get over there at least in time for the Kiltie Concert which I think is at 3pm either way. I hope I can see everyone!
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no just kidding. That might make my brains explode.
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I'm not sure you noticed me on your userinfo page, but I added you a few days ago. We share a hearty (amaena) in Y!PP, and I've been to your website and discovered that you're smart, geeky, and teaching/living in Japan. I've been learning Japanese and plan to visit in 2010, so it is interesting to read about your experiences.
Dozo yoroshiku.
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I doubt I'll still be there in 2010 unless some really bizarre stuff goes down. We'll see...
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Yeah, last night when Bayani called we were trying to figure out whether I would get to the house before or after he left for work. It wouldn't be a bad idea for me to stop by and drop off stuff at least, and depending, maybe take a nap. It'd be great if I could catch up with one of you guys beforehand definitely!
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I'll do a locked post with the address and directions in it.
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:(
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I'm in Pgh now & will probably be hanging around campus tomorrow. If I don't see you there maybe Mad Mex.
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