Weddings & Volleyballs
What a strange title for a blog post. Well, I got 2 emails the other day that were very exciting and inspired me to this level of literal greatness. Firstly, my friend Kirsten emailed me to say she'll be coming to Osaka soon. Kirsten is, even amongst all my amazing friends, very impressive. Not only is she a lawyer in Toronto, but she is a pro beach volleyball player. Just like that great old movie "Side Out". OK it was never a great movie but my friend Kirst is certainly great. She and her partner will be playing at the Osaka stop on the international beach volleyball tour FIVB at the end of May. Check out the details here. Yukiko and I will definitely go to watch some of it, and something tells me it won't be difficult to cajole my friends into watching womens' beach volleyball.
The other neat email was from my friend Don. He and his longtime girlfriend Susan (check out their blogs on the right side of this page) have decided to get married at the same place that Yukiko and I did. How cool is that. Actually they won't technically be getting married at the same place as we got married in a chapel at the Hilton and they'll be getting married on the beach. That was my first idea for our wedding too though. They're staying at the same place though. The fabulous Waikoloa Villas. I'm sure they'll enjoy it, the place was fantastic. Great prices and right across the street from the mega hotels (free use of their facilities) and turtle infested beaches. Of course I use 'infested' in the best possible sense.
Earlier I had been complaining, nay slightly bitching, about the utter subservience of anything and everything to baseball at my high school. So my friend Don and I decided to go to Koshien stadium and check out one of their games at the All-Japan High School Baseball Tournament. It was my first time going into the stadium and it was pretty nice. Nothing fancy but a certain warm feel that I'm sure many old ball parks in the States have. Most of the outside was covered in ivy and that certainly gave it an old-school charm. Even better was the fact that all the outfield seats were free. Hey, in a country that even charges for oxygen sometimes anything free is a minor miracle. The (covered) infield seats incurred a fee but it was only nominal. The left and right sides of the stadium were reserved for cheering sections of the playing teams. Our game was between my highschool vs Keio high school from Kanto (near Tokyo). Despite being the local team Keio had far more supporters. They also had female cheerleaders that were heads and shoulders above the 5-boy screamers that led my school's cheers. What are you gonna do with a boys only school though? Winning the cheer award would be the only thing that Keio would achieve this day though. My school went on to trounce them 15-1. Bless my boys, it's good to see them do something they love and do it well. As opposed to watching them in class. I still felt proud though, and wanted to stand up and announce to the crowds that I, yes I, was a Kobe Kokusai English teacher. This thought quickly vanished as I shuddered to think of someone in the crowd asking any of the boys a challenging question in English such as: tell us how the game went? or what was your strategy? or even, how are you?
Beside enjoying the stomping going on in the baseball diamond it was very enlightening to hear my friend Dan's comments. He is somewhat of a baseball afficiondo. Just check out his blog (listed on the right) to see what I mean. He knows the game inside out. He can even make it interesting for regular humans like me that usually find the game very, very, very boring. For instance, once my school was up 10-1 Dan noted that it was strange that they continued to bunt and try to steal bases. According to Dan, in American baseball, this would be considered very 'cheap' and if it occured the losing team's pitcher would intentionally hit the next batter. He said the winning team wouldn't stop playing to win, but they would try to do it by really hitting ball, not resorting to "small ball". Fascinating stuff.
Another exciting day we had included a birthday party for our friend Fuka. We also invited her mum and several other friends to celebrate too.
Mama Yoko, Fuka and Yukiko.
Fuka is really focused on eating this whole thing.
Fuka, Yoko, moi and Hiroko.
The other neat email was from my friend Don. He and his longtime girlfriend Susan (check out their blogs on the right side of this page) have decided to get married at the same place that Yukiko and I did. How cool is that. Actually they won't technically be getting married at the same place as we got married in a chapel at the Hilton and they'll be getting married on the beach. That was my first idea for our wedding too though. They're staying at the same place though. The fabulous Waikoloa Villas. I'm sure they'll enjoy it, the place was fantastic. Great prices and right across the street from the mega hotels (free use of their facilities) and turtle infested beaches. Of course I use 'infested' in the best possible sense.
Earlier I had been complaining, nay slightly bitching, about the utter subservience of anything and everything to baseball at my high school. So my friend Don and I decided to go to Koshien stadium and check out one of their games at the All-Japan High School Baseball Tournament. It was my first time going into the stadium and it was pretty nice. Nothing fancy but a certain warm feel that I'm sure many old ball parks in the States have. Most of the outside was covered in ivy and that certainly gave it an old-school charm. Even better was the fact that all the outfield seats were free. Hey, in a country that even charges for oxygen sometimes anything free is a minor miracle. The (covered) infield seats incurred a fee but it was only nominal. The left and right sides of the stadium were reserved for cheering sections of the playing teams. Our game was between my highschool vs Keio high school from Kanto (near Tokyo). Despite being the local team Keio had far more supporters. They also had female cheerleaders that were heads and shoulders above the 5-boy screamers that led my school's cheers. What are you gonna do with a boys only school though? Winning the cheer award would be the only thing that Keio would achieve this day though. My school went on to trounce them 15-1. Bless my boys, it's good to see them do something they love and do it well. As opposed to watching them in class. I still felt proud though, and wanted to stand up and announce to the crowds that I, yes I, was a Kobe Kokusai English teacher. This thought quickly vanished as I shuddered to think of someone in the crowd asking any of the boys a challenging question in English such as: tell us how the game went? or what was your strategy? or even, how are you?
Beside enjoying the stomping going on in the baseball diamond it was very enlightening to hear my friend Dan's comments. He is somewhat of a baseball afficiondo. Just check out his blog (listed on the right) to see what I mean. He knows the game inside out. He can even make it interesting for regular humans like me that usually find the game very, very, very boring. For instance, once my school was up 10-1 Dan noted that it was strange that they continued to bunt and try to steal bases. According to Dan, in American baseball, this would be considered very 'cheap' and if it occured the losing team's pitcher would intentionally hit the next batter. He said the winning team wouldn't stop playing to win, but they would try to do it by really hitting ball, not resorting to "small ball". Fascinating stuff.
Another exciting day we had included a birthday party for our friend Fuka. We also invited her mum and several other friends to celebrate too.
Mama Yoko, Fuka and Yukiko.
Fuka is really focused on eating this whole thing.
Fuka, Yoko, moi and Hiroko.
posted by Jason at 7:35 PM
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