Japan trip report, with pics

[daryn]

somehow still every time i hear baby you can drive my car i think of that show i saw

[HoldingFolding]

1. A Hanshin Tigers home game (preferably against the Giants) is phenomenal. My friend, who's a MLB scout, who visited, said it was the best atmosphere he'd ever experienced at a baseball game - anywhere.
2. Mrs Weir was not being racist. Foreign words are transposed into Japanese using a 'restricted' set of phonetics. So the word 'chips' transposed into Japanese, then transposed back into English would read 'chippusu'. They are often abbreviated.

See if you can guess what these are:
1. konbini
2. sekuhara
3. makudonarudo
4. rorikon

[BretWeir]

[ QUOTE ]
1. A Hanshin Tigers home game (preferably against the Giants) is phenomenal. My friend, who's a MLB scout, who visited, said it was the best atmosphere he'd ever experienced at a baseball game - anywhere.
2. Mrs Weir was not being racist. Foreign words are transposed into Japanese using a 'restricted' set of phonetics. So the word 'chips' transposed into Japanese, then transposed back into English would read 'chippusu'. They are often abbreviated.

See if you can guess what these are:
1. konbini
2. sekuhara
3. makudonarudo
4. rorikon

[/ QUOTE ]

We tried to get tickets to see the Tigers, but every Hanshin game -- home or away -- was completely sold out at least 6 weeks in advance. Same deal with the high school tournament at Koshien, which was going on while we were in the country. But yeah, I've heard Giants-Tigers rivals the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and would love to see them some day.

We both knew about phonetic transliteration, but white guilt took over when she had to put it into action. It took us a while to figure out "Makudonarudo," but we had a good laugh once we did.

[ImsaKidd]

[ QUOTE ]
http://www.silverbeats.com/english/about.html#04

check out some of the nice engrish in the bios

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh my god:

"He pees on demand."

[YoungOne]

BW,

Post more random pictures of men and women living their life.

Fav picture so far is those two cute vendors working the counter.

thanks

[NoahSD]

Please post more trip report.

How accessible is Japan for someone who only speaks English?

How ridic awesome is the food?

[El Diablo]

BW,

Japan is 1 of the 2 places on my list of "haven't been but must visit" destinations (Australia is the other).

Hopefully I'll have a trip in the next year or two. This is an incredible trip report, thanks!

[RobBizzle]

[ QUOTE ]
Please post more trip report.

[/ QUOTE ]

[BretWeir]

Here's the second part of the Japanese baseball report; if you guys are still interested, I'll post some non-baseball stuff here tonight or tomorrow. Sorry for the novel-like length; Cliff Notes are below.

Chiba Lotte Marines v. Seibu Lions

On our last evening in Tokyo, Mrs. Weir and I headed out to the suburb of Chiba -- about 45 minutes east of Tokyo -- to watch the Marines play the Seibu Lions, who are based about 45 minutes north of Tokyo. (Yes, there are like six Japanese League teams within an hour of Tokyo.)

Marine Stadium looks like somebody picked up Shea and dropped it on the shore of Tokyo Bay. Same round, blue, 1960s style architecture, even the same blue and orange color scheme inside. It's even on the flightpath for Narita airport.





The Shea parallels are appropriate, because the Marines are managed by ex-Met skipper Bobby Valentine. They also feature a few ex-Mets on the roster, like Benny Agbayani.

Unlike some of the other Japanese teams, the Marines really seem to embrace their foreign players. Japanese pro teams are limited to four foreign players each, who are called "suketto" -- literally, "helpers." In recent years, foreign players (often MLB castoffs) have dominated the league and challenged most of the Japanese hitting records, but get a fraction of the attention of native born Japanese players.

Last year, for example, two ex-MLB players, Adams Riggs and Alex Ramirez, led most offensive categories for the Yakult Swallows. Both were back this year, but I couldn't find a Riggs or Ramirez jersey at any souvenir shop in the Swallows' stadium. And the cheers for these guys were noticably quieter than for Japanese hitters.

Anyway, thanks to Bobby Valentine, the Marines seem to play a more "American" style of baseball than most other Japanese teams, and the fans seemed really into their Western players. Unfortunately, I missed the on-field ballroom dancing exhibition that Bobby Valentine puts on (in tuxedo) before home games, but here's a picture of him on the Jumbotron.



Marine Stadium is pretty close to Tokyo Disneyland, and the team has adopted Donald Duck as its mascot.



The pre-game festivities were pretty elaborate. The featured Donald and what was apparently his duck girlfriend beating a huge traditional Japanese drum in the outfield, while a crew of kimono-clad women and little kids surrounded him in a circle and did a dance.



A bunch of other guys in traditional attire were stationed over the home dugout and beating drums, and then a troop of Western-style cheerleaders took the field and did some cheers.

After this, a car drove out to the pitcher's mound and unloaded two spaceman looking guys -- one with a yellow head that looked like a condom, and another who looked vaguely familiar.





So condom-head stood in the batter's box while Japanese El D, flanked by Donald and Mrs. Duck, threw out the first pitch. I know this makes no sense reading it, but it made even less sense if you were there.

The game was a sell-out, and Mrs. Weir and I had unreserved tickets, which means we climbed to the top of the grandstand and looked for two open seats. We ended up sitting on the edge of the oendan -- organized cheering group -- section, which had overflowed from the right field bleachers into the regular seats. Mrs. Weir was wearing a Yankees cap and keeping score, and two different people asked if she was a Major League scout.

The game itself was pretty exciting -- close most of the way through, with some great defensive plays and timely hitting. What really made the game memorable, though, were the fans. With the full stadium, the noise level was pretty high, and being in the midst of the cheering section was awesome.

Here's a long-distance view of the main home cheering section -- note the coordinated costumes. You can't really see it in this picture, but they were doing some kind of choreographed waving cheer at the time:



And here's a view from the middle of the action:



Each player had at least two personalized cheers, which were in a combination of Engrish and Japanese. Many of them had accompanying dances, arm movements, etc. After about two innings, I started getting the hang of the chants and cheering along -- pretty loudly. At first people were laughing, like it was kind of a novelty (and I'm sure I was mangling the Japanese). But after a couple more innings, I was really getting into it and the two guys behind us -- who seemed like the informal "section bosses" for our seats -- started encouraging me and teaching me some more cheers.

They didn't speak English and I didn't speak Japanese, but we managed to communicate through pantomime, pointing and pressing into service another guy further down the row who spoke a little English. Anyway, they bought us beers and shared some of their dried squid jerky with us, and I gave them my business card and invited them to Yankee Stadium if they ever made it to NYC. Here's my new friend doing a pose he called the "samurai":



The highlight came at the 7th inning stretch, where instead of singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," the whole crowd sings the team song, entitled -- I'm not kidding -- "We Love Marines." Before the song starts, everybody blows up these three-foot long white ballons, which you hold and wave while singing (my friends in the back row gave me my own balloon). At the end of the song, the crowd releases thousands of balloons, which shoot all over the field. Here's some video I shot of the event.

About 3/4 of the way through the clip, you can hear Mrs. Weir say "Good work, Chris!" This is the point where I, being so enchanted by the flying balloons, accidentally dumped my beer all over the quiet Japanese guy sitting next to me. It was only half full, but somehow got his entire body and hair soaking wet. I felt terrible and spent the next 20 minutes saying "sumimasen, sumimasen" (Japanese for "excuse me" -- one of the five or so words I knew). The guy was pretty stoic and cool about it, but my cheering section buddies thought the whole thing was hilarious.

Here are a couple of the player cheers; the video's pretty crappy, but the audio's ok.

* This was for a guy named Jose Ortiz, and it basically consists of singing "Jose, Jose, Jose" over and over again to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad"/"Battle Hymn of the Republic". Note the horn and synchronized clapping.

* This was is the "Let's Go Saburo" song for outfielder Saburo Omura; it also seems to be one of the more melodically complex cheers.

* I don't remember who this was for, but it involves synchronized hopping and the Japanese version of the tomahawk chop.

Chiba ended up dropping the game 5-4, but staged a near-rally in the ninth when they got the tying run to third. The stadium really woke up for this, with lots of un-organized cheering.

The post-game festivities were pretty surreal, with more dancing and drum playing by giant ducks, joined by the Seibu Lion and more kimono chicks.



Here are two of the Chiba Lotte geishas posing for me:



And Mrs. Weir chilling with the Seibu Lion:



And finally, bonus pic of Marine Stadium beer girl:



CLIFF NOTES: Bobby V. leaves Flushing for Land of Rising Sun; I get named honorary member of cheering section and spill beer on innocent bystander.

[hanimal]

I wanna marry a beer girl and this TR is awesome!