Allan Rides (Writes) Again

I recently went with friends to see the Yokohama BayStars play. You might think baseball's the same the world over, but the experience is different in Japan.

The basics of the game are the same, in fact there were several American players on each team. There are cheerleaders, mascots and each team has it's own fans. The difference can be attributed to the fans. These are not what we think of as typical.

The fans have their own trumpets and drums. Each player has his own song, but unlike the American game, where the song is an original recording, the fans here make up a song, which is more like a cheer.

There are rules to cheering as well. You can only cheer when your team is at bat and you don't boo the other team or the umpires.

As the game progressed and the crowd imbibed in more alcohol, the cheering got louder and louder. Speaking about drinking, the concession personnel walking up and down the stadium are mainly women.

They carry at least a case of beer (cans) up and down the stadium. Remember that 5', 100 lbs. is average for a Japanese woman. The food was good, but also just a little different. I had yakisoba, which is fried noodles. You could get a hot dog, but not with a bun.

The band would play the tune for "CHARGE" and only we few Americans shouted. The Japanese really enjoyed us.

I went with Paul, Cheryl and Bailey Brochu, and we met some of their friends. Everyone seemed to have a great time.

The weekend after the baseball game, Liz and I went to Enoshima Island. It rained the entire time we were there. We walked to the island from the train station, up to the top and down the other side to go into some caves carved from the waves. We climbed back up and over, and it never stopped raining. It seemed like a place to go in the summer, beach area and a nice Aquarium. Hopefully we'll get a chance to go back when the weather is better. On the way back to the train, we stopped and Liz had an apple/mango ice cream.

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Last week, when Liz was in the states, I went with some friends to the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. It was interesting because of the unique animals. They had a large exhibit of various species of birds with the most unique, a huge condor.

They also had a silver back gorilla and something called a dhole. A dhole is a type of wild dog, I guess similar to a dingo. After the zoo, we went to lunch, a Japanese version of Korean barbeque. Awesome... maybe it was the beer that made it so good.

The sign above is pretty self-explanatory. Signs like these are a good idea, as we see below, boys will be boys.