06/08 - Step into the Dome, Hop into the Cage

I've long dreamed of this. 

Entering the fabled dome,

Seeing, Saying, "Oh"




Hop into the cage,

lead with your hands, follow through,

keep concentrating.


Today I took a trip to another place I've long dreamed of going, but not without encountering some difficulty on the way there. The plan for a great Sunday was to go meet my friend Masa at the station close to where we both live, take the train, meet up with my friend Ken, then go to the Yomiuri Giants game at the Tokyo Dome. Since about Grade 7, when I did a project for Social Studies class about baseball in Japan, I've wanted to go to the Tokyo Dome. It always seemed like the mecca of Japanese baseball, and had that status in my mind without competition. When I think of baseball meccas in North America, many come to mind. Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium and Skydome because of my beloved Blue Jays. In Japan, I only ever really thought about the Tokyo Dome. Needless to say, I was excited to go. When I got to the station to meet Masa though, he was nowhere to be found. This did happen before when I was meeting him one day in Ikebukuro, he had overslept, but this meeting was a bit later in the day. I waited for about 30 minutes, before heading to the closest Starbucks to get some Wi-Fi and try to figure out what was going on. I messaged him, but got nothing back. About an hour and fifteen minutes after we were supposed to meet, not too long before the game was due to start, I headed to Ikebukuro to meet Ken.

When I got to Ikebukuro I went next to the Seibu department store to access some more Wi-Fi, to find a message from Masa that said "I was in trouble" and that's it. I was a bit worried until Ken showed up and told me Masa had contacted him. He had been in a bicycle accident where he was hit by a car, then his bike hit a second car. He did fall off his bike but he was completely fine. He had to wait and talk to the police and his insurance company, then go home to change his clothes, but then he headed to meet us at the Tokyo Dome. It was the first time I'd seen Ken in Japan, and seeing Masa after all that, I must say, I was really happy to be in the company of those two.

Being almost an hour late to the game, we figured there was no harm in a couple of more minutes, so we went to the convenience store to grab a beer. Here in Japan they let you walk up to the baseball game with a beer and bring it inside. The only stipulation is that you have to let them pour it into a paper cup for you. Crazy!

Getting into a baseball game just over an hour late is not ideal, but it was actually pretty cool, since I got to enter the stadium I've dreamt of for a long time with it already full and rocking to the cheers of all the fans. The Tokyo Dome is pretty amazing. The design was cool, it was full, loud, interesting, and quite Japanese in some ways. It did not let me down.

I have become a Seibu Lions fan here and really do not want to support the Giants, since they are often referred to as the Yankees of Japan, but today I wore my orange pants and decided to get behind the home team. It was a good decision especially considering they are Masa's favourite team and he was kind enough to get us tickets and take us to the game even after being hit by a car. The Giants won the game fairly easily, but I was also impressed by the fans of the other team, the Chiba Lotte Marines. They had great support with the away section, in the left field bleachers, remaining loud with all the fans jumping up and down even though their team was losing.

After the game we checked out the area just outside the Tokyo Dome, going into a couple of the baseball stores. They had lineups just to get in and were absolutely packed inside. Just across from the stadium there is a amusement park featuring a super large roller coaster and a ferris wheel. There was also a concert of some sort going on inside it as we walked to the station.

Next on our Sunday schedule, Masa, Ken and I headed back to Ikebukuro to eat some sushi. We enjoyed a good meal before Masa had to head home to wait for a call from his insurance company about his totalled bike. Ken and I then met up with another friend I hadn't seen yet in Japan, So. Ken, So and I then went to a batting centre on the roof of a building. I actually had to show them the way as I am more familiar with the area than they are. We went in and batted some balls which was super fun. I really liked how Ken, despite saying he wasn't good or experienced, insisted on trying the fastest speed along with So and I for the first round. It's this kind of behaviour that led another one of his former teachers, a former colleague of mine, Darrin, and I to call him "Japanese Kramer" due to some similarities he shares with the Seinfeld character. In Vancouver Ken used to try and buy lunch for the lowest possible price everyday, often with hilarious results. He also once accidentally drove to the US border, not once, but twice in the same day. Today he had me cracking up as he kept using British slang since he wants to go visit the UK. He kept saying things were "minging" at the game and called the baby in front of us a "bairn" (was not expecting Scottish slang even after he started busting out some of the other vocabulary). He also called me "mate" in a message on Facebook. I also love how he says things like "yo" and "buddy" that he picked up in Canada, and today he kept using the phrase "No _______, no party." What a character!

The batting centre was fantastic! The cages are really cool, and there's even some that change speeds so you have to adjust like you would to a real pitcher. I even won a free game for hitting a "Home Run" sign, but it was actually with a ball I picked up and threw. I had no idea you even won a prize for hitting it until the PA system announced loudly in Japanese that I had won a prize. Ken called me a cheater but still went and claimed my prize for me. The place also had lots of arcade games, so we played "Taiko no Tatsujin", a game where you smack a large traditional Japanese drum to different songs. So and I played two songs, the Super Mario Theme and Offenbach's "Infernal Galop". So much fun!

The last line in today's first haiku references the legendary Japanese baseball player Sadaharu Oh. He is the world record holder for most professional home runs. The gate and pictures honouring him at the stadium reminded me very much of the ones that honour Willie Mays at AT&T Park in San Francisco, the home of baseball's other famous Giants. Interestingly, I learned about the history of how the Tokyo team came to have the same name and uniforms on a trip to San Francisco to watch the Blue Jays last year. An old ballplayer named Lefty O'Doul brought the name and style over to Japan in 1935. There is a bar and carvery called Lefty O'Doul's in downtown SF that is pretty cool and has lots of baseball (including Japanese baseball) pictures on the walls inside. If you've never heard of Lefty and like baseball he's worth researching a bit. Very cool figure.