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Weekend, volleyball and hockey
Friday, I didn't do much after school. I was totally zonked after being at school until almost 7pm, so came back to Akabane and grabbed a bunch of food from Sunmerry's for dinner, and zonked out at home.
Saturday, I didn't leave the house until the late afternoon, when I went down to Mita and the Minato-ku Labor Hall, where Tokyo Gaijins was having a volleyball session. Unlike Monday which had been mostly women and very much for fun, Saturday's game had mostly men and was really super-competitive. There were a gang of German guys who were really tall and were spiking everyone regardless of the game situation, and they were kind of annoying to me in general. The good part is that we kept counting off into 3 teams and playing 3 games and switching, so at least I never got stuck with the same teammates for too long. I played decently, but there were a LOT of ball hogs and so it was annoying fighting for the ball with them. One funny moment was when Ichiro, this Brazilian-Japanese kid who is by far the best player there, was rotated out for a bit and suddenly his team was scoring a lot of points, and he sat down next to me on the bench and said in Japanese, "Hey, do you think my team is doing well because I'm rotated out?" and I'm like "Hahaha no way you must be joking."
I rode my bike to/from Motohasunuma station because then there would be no transfers to take the subway there, so when I got back to Motohasunuma around 10pm I was STARVING, having eaten only some bread and some dorayaki all day. I went to Origin Bento and their time special was a chicken katsu bento for 390 yen. It was pretty good :)
Sunday...
I woke up this morning and went down to Shin-Yokohama and met up with Simon! We went to watch a double-header of some hockey. He had gotten tickets for himself and his dad for both Saturday and Sunday's games, but his dad has been sick recently and I had asked Simon about the game a few days ago and so I ended up going with him for the Sunday games.
First game was the Oji Eagles (based in Tomakomai) vs. the Tohoku Free Blades. The Free Blades are a new team formed this year and they have a few former Seibu players that I remembered, Ryuichi Kawai and Bin Ishioka, as well as a goalie named Michio Hashimoto who is actually from Hachinohe where the team is based, and then they have a couple imports and a whole ton of rookies fresh out of college. Interesting team though. We were sitting way the hell out in the back reaches of their cheering side, and Simon apparently supports them, at least more than the Eagles. The Eagles, they have Yosuke Kon, who I remembered quite well from the Seibu Rabbits as being a dude always getting in fights. He didn't disappoint today either and started several. The Eagles eventually ended up winning 3-1.
Between games, after taking photos of players warming up for the second game, Simon and I took a walk down the street to a convenience store to get some food and stuff. We passed by the Free Blades bus and a ton of the players were hanging out outside talking to fans and signing things and taking photos and all -- almost like a minor-league baseball game! I saw Kawai and Ishioka and was like "Should we try to get photos with them or something?" but Simon already had put on his Nikko Icebucks jersey and was like "Probably not." Which is silly because he's a Kawai fan and was telling me earlier how Kawai and his brother spent a month or two training in Canada with Ryan Fujita (who happens to be from Taber, Alberta, same as Devin Setoguchi) who retired after Seibu folded. Oh well. If I were more fanatical about hockey I would have probably tried to get a photo or signature or something. Maybe next time :)
Second game was the Nippon Paper Cranes vs. the Nikko Icebucks. The Cranes, I saw them last year when they won the Asia League hockey championships, and their team is largely the same, so I remembered most of their key players. Nikko happened to take the guy I had chosen as my favorite Seibu player last year, Takahito Suzuki, who was also the Japan national team captain. Suzuki kicks ass and I enjoyed watching him play again, though he didn't do much the first period. The second period he became super-aggressive and was just out there pushing to score as much as possible, and between him and Bud Smith and a few others the team managed 4 goals in that period and the Icebucks won 4-2. Which was good because apparently the Icebucks had just lost like 9 games in a row or something.
Also the Icebucks wear orange and white and black and look a lot like the Flyers. It's surreal.
Simon and I rode the train back to Shibuya together and hung out for a bit chatting, and then I came back to Akabane, grabbed some food at Nakau, and went home.
I shot 730 photos during the games but have only looked through the first 200 or so :( Hockey photography is tough. But Shinyokohama is a really small arena, only like 1000 seats or so? 5 rows on each side and none behind the nets. I swear it reminded me of like, a neighborhood iceskating rink in the US. So at least we were pretty close to the action.
Lots of sports this weekend, no baseball. How weird :) Seems I am missing the Jingu taikai, but that's okay.
Saturday, I didn't leave the house until the late afternoon, when I went down to Mita and the Minato-ku Labor Hall, where Tokyo Gaijins was having a volleyball session. Unlike Monday which had been mostly women and very much for fun, Saturday's game had mostly men and was really super-competitive. There were a gang of German guys who were really tall and were spiking everyone regardless of the game situation, and they were kind of annoying to me in general. The good part is that we kept counting off into 3 teams and playing 3 games and switching, so at least I never got stuck with the same teammates for too long. I played decently, but there were a LOT of ball hogs and so it was annoying fighting for the ball with them. One funny moment was when Ichiro, this Brazilian-Japanese kid who is by far the best player there, was rotated out for a bit and suddenly his team was scoring a lot of points, and he sat down next to me on the bench and said in Japanese, "Hey, do you think my team is doing well because I'm rotated out?" and I'm like "Hahaha no way you must be joking."
I rode my bike to/from Motohasunuma station because then there would be no transfers to take the subway there, so when I got back to Motohasunuma around 10pm I was STARVING, having eaten only some bread and some dorayaki all day. I went to Origin Bento and their time special was a chicken katsu bento for 390 yen. It was pretty good :)
Sunday...
I woke up this morning and went down to Shin-Yokohama and met up with Simon! We went to watch a double-header of some hockey. He had gotten tickets for himself and his dad for both Saturday and Sunday's games, but his dad has been sick recently and I had asked Simon about the game a few days ago and so I ended up going with him for the Sunday games.
First game was the Oji Eagles (based in Tomakomai) vs. the Tohoku Free Blades. The Free Blades are a new team formed this year and they have a few former Seibu players that I remembered, Ryuichi Kawai and Bin Ishioka, as well as a goalie named Michio Hashimoto who is actually from Hachinohe where the team is based, and then they have a couple imports and a whole ton of rookies fresh out of college. Interesting team though. We were sitting way the hell out in the back reaches of their cheering side, and Simon apparently supports them, at least more than the Eagles. The Eagles, they have Yosuke Kon, who I remembered quite well from the Seibu Rabbits as being a dude always getting in fights. He didn't disappoint today either and started several. The Eagles eventually ended up winning 3-1.
Between games, after taking photos of players warming up for the second game, Simon and I took a walk down the street to a convenience store to get some food and stuff. We passed by the Free Blades bus and a ton of the players were hanging out outside talking to fans and signing things and taking photos and all -- almost like a minor-league baseball game! I saw Kawai and Ishioka and was like "Should we try to get photos with them or something?" but Simon already had put on his Nikko Icebucks jersey and was like "Probably not." Which is silly because he's a Kawai fan and was telling me earlier how Kawai and his brother spent a month or two training in Canada with Ryan Fujita (who happens to be from Taber, Alberta, same as Devin Setoguchi) who retired after Seibu folded. Oh well. If I were more fanatical about hockey I would have probably tried to get a photo or signature or something. Maybe next time :)
Second game was the Nippon Paper Cranes vs. the Nikko Icebucks. The Cranes, I saw them last year when they won the Asia League hockey championships, and their team is largely the same, so I remembered most of their key players. Nikko happened to take the guy I had chosen as my favorite Seibu player last year, Takahito Suzuki, who was also the Japan national team captain. Suzuki kicks ass and I enjoyed watching him play again, though he didn't do much the first period. The second period he became super-aggressive and was just out there pushing to score as much as possible, and between him and Bud Smith and a few others the team managed 4 goals in that period and the Icebucks won 4-2. Which was good because apparently the Icebucks had just lost like 9 games in a row or something.
Also the Icebucks wear orange and white and black and look a lot like the Flyers. It's surreal.
Simon and I rode the train back to Shibuya together and hung out for a bit chatting, and then I came back to Akabane, grabbed some food at Nakau, and went home.
I shot 730 photos during the games but have only looked through the first 200 or so :( Hockey photography is tough. But Shinyokohama is a really small arena, only like 1000 seats or so? 5 rows on each side and none behind the nets. I swear it reminded me of like, a neighborhood iceskating rink in the US. So at least we were pretty close to the action.
Lots of sports this weekend, no baseball. How weird :) Seems I am missing the Jingu taikai, but that's okay.