07/04 - Jock Jams

Batting and sleeping,

great things to do in public

when you're in Japan


Today after our work week finished, Simon, Aykut and I headed to Shinjuku to do some batting. Simon had us chuckling all day because he convinced us to go to Shinjuku to the batting centre there instead of the one in Ikebukuro because he was meeting his friend there later on and he kept on saying how he kind of, maybe knew how to get there because he'd been there before, but didn't really. Shinjuku is a crazy busy area, so kind of knowing how to get somewhere isn't really enough. When we got to Shinjuku we headed out into the busy streets in the vague direction of the batting centre. The path took us through the sleazy red light district that is right near Shinjuku Station. It really doesn't look bad, in fact I can't imagine any other red light district on the planet being that clean and organized. We stopped to look at a map to compare it to the map Simon had saved on his phone and a gentleman approached us to help. He was one of the touts (a guy who tries to get you to come into an establishment of some sort) that stand in suits all around that area. He was really nice and helped us locate the batting centre on the map and gave us pretty good directions. Then he asked us if we were interested in Japanese girls and started showing us some pamphlets. We told him we weren't interested and he didn't press the issue, letting us head off to the batting centre.

On the way we grabbed a snack at a convenience store and I was convinced to get a corn dog. I thought it was funny, since we were headed to do batting and we were joking around about what they call corn dogs in Japan, as even Aykut and Simon were unfamiliar with the term corn dog. I asked the girl working in Japanese and she told us that they are called "American dog."

The batting centre was tons of fun. I gave Simon and Aykut some baseball tips that they put to good use, improving every time they stepped into the cage. It made me miss coaching rugby back in Vancouver. On top of batting we also played a drum game and also tried our hand at a special pitching cage they have at that batting centre, where you get twelve balls to knock down nine targets. It had been raining so it was a bit difficult to control the balls when you threw them, but tons of fun. I tried it twice, the second time making sure to dry the balls as best I could before each throw. I managed to knock down eight out of nine strike zone targets, but was disappointed I couldn't get them all after narrowly missing the final one standing. Two Japanese guys came when we were wrapping up and chatted with us as they waited to use the throwing cage. One guy asked me about my Blue Jays jersey and we discussed the team and Kawasaki. They were both really nice and had just about native speaker levels of English. They worked for an environmental firm here in Tokyo.

When we left Simon, Aykut and I decided to head to the Uniqlo/Bic Camera store I wrote about (here), to grab a beer, since the clothing/electronics superstore has the best selection of beer I've seen in Shinjuku. It was pretty funny getting a beer there. I chose to finally try the Japanese beer I've seen with a cat drawing on it in a few places. I asked the guy what it was called and he told us the name means "Wednesday's Cat". After enjoying a beer together the three of us parted ways, as I headed to meet up with Clayton and his friends who were eating at TGI Fridays to celebrate the fourth of July.

I took the train to Harajuku and got directions to TGI Fridays. Unfortunately, the directions were to the Shibuya location, so I walked all the way there before getting new directions and walking all the way back to the Harajuku location. I went to two TGI Fridays and spent a grand total of about four minutes inside between the two since everyone was ready to leave by the time I finally arrived. We then went to Yoyogi Park to light some sparklers. It was funny in the park when people seemed to immediately separate into Americans and non-Americans.

Clayton and I then headed to his home neighbourhood of Shimokitazawa with Sara and Matt. This meant that our crew that went to the Owl Cafe was reunited for the first time. We headed to a super weird English pub Clayton knew to watch the Germany v. France World Cup game. The place had a Japanese server and two really odd, super British looking guys DJing for an empty bar. A few French fans came in and I spoke to them in French for about a minute before we switched to English. We watched the first half while keeping up to date on the Roanic-Federer Wimbledon Semi-Final on Clayton and Matt's phones. I fell asleep lying down on the bench seat I was sitting on during half time and didn't wake up until half an hour through the second half. It is hilarious how you can sleep literally anywhere you want in Japan. Everywhere you go you see people sleeping and no one disturbs them. The pub is shockingly no different. Clayton grabbed a few Zs himself. The boring game and the fact it was the middle of the night made it hard to do anything but.