The final portion of my first trip to Japan involved a brief stop. Why settle for one day when other commitments shorten the time? One Stadium is worth the time.
Day 10: One day stand in Kansai
After taking a short bullet train trip from Nagoya, the hostel I checked into let me come early, giving me an extra three hours than projected to see Osaka. I ended up taking a long walk around the Dotonburi River and heavy tourist areas.
The Dotonburi of course is where the statue of Colonel Sanders took a dive after the Hanshin Tigers celebrated a pennant in 1985. Supposedly this has lead to a "curse". It was something to just reflect and see this river up close know that people jump the bridges to celebrate things beyond baseball.
By going on foot rather than taking a train, I ran into an Osaka grocery chain called Tamade and like Nagoya, it's an underrated experience going through a regular grocery store to see how people buy supplies. Even seeing an American Flag inside was a nice touch. I bought some Kewpie at a good price (60% lower in Japan than what the costs are in the USA) as well as some Coca Cola.
Couldn't resist going to Kyocera Dome and checking out their shop. They had a solid selection of items from all 12 NPB teams if needed. Bought some souvenirs for an Orix fan I knew.
The time came for Koshien Stadium where it was hard to get a clean photo of their sign, given the highway blocks the view from the train station. There was also a high school museum given the ties to the national baseball tournament, but time wasn't on my side and I chose to not enter since it wasn't worth rushing through it.
Leo happened to be in the vicinity
Walking into Koshien Stadium felt very narrow. It's tough to see the whole building in a limited time while also trying to get to my seat. Couldn't come in as early due to some circumstances, but was able to cross this place off.
As for the game itself, it was rather anti climatic from a Lions standpoint. They had early chances and didn't score enough while the Tigers wining run came on a bases-loaded hit by pitch.
Despite the loss, it was something to cross off Koshien Stadium let alone see my team play there. Quite a few high school stars made a name for themselves in this building from Kona Takahashi, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Masahiro Tanaka and Tomoya Mori as well as many more I can't mention.
It was also great to finally meet @thehanshintiger. The photo above was featured in an online version of a Japanese newspaper publication. Trevor also put the article up in English about foreigners coming, but less English available.
I also made a cameo in their Vodcast, which can be seen here
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Day 11: Departure
This was the final shot I took before leaving Osaka for the airport in the Nishinari Ward. Wish I didn't have an early morning flight so I could have experienced more, but I left on a conservative note to get out on time.
A notable thing about this experience was seeing a difference in culture between Japanese and Chinese on the flights. I flew on JAL out of Hawaii to arrive in Narita, while using Air China to go back from Osaka to Los Angeles. It's pretty clear how polite and formal everyone on the JAL flight was in comparison.
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Final reflections:
With a few random things I spotted and saw, here were a few travel quirks and other things I noticed around this trip:
Hospitality was amazing
There's always a hit and miss when running into strangers. Unsure what you're going to get, I felt things were friendly given my limited language knowledge. From the two strangers who helped find my first crash site to a store clerk helping me read a few signs, it was something. It was comfortable being around the area even without speaking much of the language.
Behind the scenes, this trip was extremely stressful because my plan A fell through about two weeks prior to my flight leaving. My plan B contacts were on standby and had to book or reserve places while in Kanto.
Everything else was done on the fly outside of the games themselves. While I always had ideas on what to see, I finally put it out there and saw the surface while also going off the beaten path for different sites. I encourage anyone to study the train maps in advanced before going on them rather than just depending on your phone GPS.
I also want to take this time to thank all the bilingual followers who helped me around on Twitter if I couldn't read a sign or even not knowing a certain food. Had plenty of great conversations in-person and online.
Google Maps can be your friend, but also confusing
When walking to a place, I would often be led to the vicinity of where I wanted to be. As a word of advice, make sure you have a picture of where you want to go whether it's a small restaurant or a well-known site. It was easy for me to miss a spot or take a wrong turn on the street, but I never trusted the "turn left" or "turn right" instructions, just looked at my site and followed the direction from there.
There is plenty of food options beyond sushi and sashimi
The most common food among my peers has always been thought of as sushi or something cold. I personally didn't grow up with this and didn't try any, but I've researched lots of food over the years and even made my own. The only cold things I had were onigiri, soba noodles, Hiyashi chuka and several drinks. Specifically having Hiyashi Chuka was refreshing in the humid heat, now I can finally see why something like that works.
They don't call it the "Land of the Rising sun" for nothing
The sun was up at 4:00 a.m. when in Kanto? Yes! Was able to maximize my time going to places and seeing sights as a result of waking up early. I had never experienced such an early sunrise before thanks to being on the West Coast and the most western portion of central time zone most of my life.
Jet Lag was minimal, sleeping on the flights and timing it worked to perfection
It's possible my body was used to watching games live even from the States as such a crooked hour that I didn't feel as much when I arrived. There was only an extended nap when coming back, but nothing hit me once I came back to work with the night shifts I'm used to.
It felt like being in a Pokemon game, without playing Pokemon GO
Shopping through a few stories had a similar elevator music soundtrack like the Pokemon Gameboy games I grew up with. Seeing the shops have 1F or 2F to indicate the floors only enhanced this in my head. Best yet, using my JR train pass to get through the gates and showing them to the guards in uniform resembled the video game too. Real life!
Other times it felt like being in anime, when surrounded by school students
Schools have their breaks, but the summer break for students in Japan is much shorter and I saw several students of all ages taking the trains in the morning. Seeing some of the school uniforms resemble anime characters made me think of various shows and other songs popped in my head as a result.
Being in West Tokyo, it made me want to rewatch Whisper of the Heart and sing Country Roads, or "Concrete Roads".
When going through Tokyo, you went through baptism of fire
This is generally a punch in the mouth for any first-time traveller seeing so many people in a train station. With everyone going in their own directions, it felt like chaos and could be uncomfortable for anyone who is claustrophobic. I was ready for it, but as the trip went on, everything got easier. It felt like there were no crowds in Nagoya or Osaka because of experiencing Kanto first.
The most happy non-baseball scene for me was being on a train after a game
After spending the whole day hearing nothing on trains and everyone in silent mode, it was great to just unwind and hear a chatty train on the way back. Not sure how many tourists get that experience if they're just in the city, though I've heard being on a train after a concert is something. Regardless, I loved how people were just unwinding with their friends and family around them with lots of noise.
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Miscellaneous baseball activities
Last April. I went to Arkansas and was able to see Kazuhisa Makita while he was on the Amarillo Sod Poodles. He has spent most of the 2019 season in the farm level, but going to AA helped in my favor with the schedule.
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Also took a trip to Arlington to see the Oakland A's facing the Texas Rangers. Photo taken with Wei-Chung Wang, the first A's player out of Taiwan. The former NPB commissioner just happened to be in DFW and was honored during a break.
Honored to host former Ambassador from Japan, Ryozo Kato. He’s also a former Commissioner of Baseball in Japan.— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 3, 2019
He gave me these chop sticks. They are made from wood from broken baseball bats. pic.twitter.com/HOeaNP8k53
Overall, 2019 has been a fun year with making trip, which doesn't even mention the NHL games I saw outside of baseball. I hope to revisit Japan again sometime in the future.
I must also take this time to announce this site and Twitter have mostly been a solo operations since the end of 2018. Wes Mills, founder and original starter of this blog, has taken a hiatus after being the in gradate school, an internship and work in the radio business. Let's hope he can return someday for this co-operation.
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