Here it Comes...

I attended my first ever Japanese baseball game. It was beyond interesting. The game was the same but all the bells and whistles that go along with it were all different. We were in the `fun` area, the farthest seats from the field. First, let me start by saying, I have never been to a stadium that is so clean in my life. A man spilled some little cracker things on the ground and a security guard came over and immediately cleaned it up.

Quite a different experience from being ankle deep in peanut shells. The audience was an interesting group of folks too. Of course you had your younger college student age fans, the families with kids enjoying the game, and of course your older-sports-fan-man group. There was also a huge number of cute girls, and a surprising number of older women who were dressed relatively nice. There was a 70-80 year old woman in front of us and a librarian women near us too all enjoying the game together....


Also, everyone partakes in song and mildly choreographed dances throughout the game. Yes we have our "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" which I have come to realize is pretty cool, BUT these were throughout the entire game and entire stands were screaming/singing and dancing together...it had a whole other feel. It seemed a lot like a soccer game in Europe except all in Japanese. They had cheerleaders who ran out onto the field every now and then and would do some silly dances and get everyone pumped. Each time a new batter went up they all sang a song that would give him good luck to hit a home run. THEN whenever the teams would switch and the Chunichi Dragons (My team) were up to bat they had a song for the whole team. It was just silly and fun. People kind of stared at us for a while, while we sat and observed the behavior.

Other things I have been noticing and loving about Japan is its sense of community, friendship, and family. This was something I also found rather powerful in my trip to Africa. Japan is a little different though. At any time of night (usually between 9 and 12 at night, people just "come over." They always always always bring some kind of present, usually a box of small sweet treats that are to be enjoyed with tea. It's pretty rude to show up at someones house for anything empty handed. Tonight, for example, my host-aunt and host-uncle and their children came over at about 9:00pm. They brought some sweets and people just sat and talked and had tea for an hour or so then they left. It was just a casual "stop by" type of thing. Other visits have included past students of my host parents, friends, and family. This is something that rarely happens in America, with my family at least. Dinner with the grandparents, or a stop by usually has to be planned out and wouldn't be that late. It's these little things that I think I'll miss the most when I have to go home. Other things I'll miss include amazing tea, great food, and heated toilet seats. You haven't truly experienced all a toilet has to offer until you've sat on a heated toilet seat. (They also tend to have many other features with weird sprayers and other buttons that I haven't really experimented with...)