The pride of my trip to Japan no doubt has to be the 12 jersey collection I brought home with me. Here is a quick rundown of each of the jerseys, a little background behind each, and what I think of it. I’m gonna cover them in the order that I got them, so that puts the Giants jersey a little later, even though that was the first game I went to. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The greatest sign I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world.”] [/caption] This was one of the days I was most looking forward to on the trip. The Hanshin Tigers may not have the raw popularity of the Yomiuri Giants, but they’ve definitely got the most rabid fanbase in the entire country. Beyond that, Koshien Stadium is said to be the “soul of Japanese baseball,” most likely because, beyond the already crazy Tigers that play there, everything from college games to the high school championships are housed within Koshien. It’s a storied stadium most often compared to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park here in the States. ...
Folks, from here on out, the SITB (that’s Super Ichiban Travel Blog for the uninitiated) will be shifted to a Tuesday/Thursday(/maybe Saturday) schedule (there are really only nine or so posts left, including this one) so that the blog can return to its regularly scheduled programming on MWF. The MLB playoffs have started and here I am still talking about my time in Japan. I need to be covering this! You’ll recall that I wrote daily posts about the playoffs last year. Neither the Marlins nor the Rays made it this year, but that won’t necessarily keep me from adding in extra coverage as I see fit. ...
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Brilliant Advertising”] [/caption] Today’s story is no ordinary tale. It is the story of how two otherwise ordinary men became extraordinary. This is the story of how Dave and I overcame obstacles and became the Official Japanball Vice-Presidents of Diplomatic Affairs (and then went to a baseball game). It started on a day like any other. Dave and I got up as usual for our early morning brief to take a tour of the local sights. On the agenda were Ryōan-ji and Kinkaku-ji, two Buddhist temples in the area. During the briefing I started to feel something getting really hot in my pockets. Alarmed, I started trying to dig through my pockets and felt my change was all really hot and so were my batteries. I successfully pulled all of that out of my pocket and learned an important lesson: Never put your batteries in the same pocket as your coins, lest they complete some sort of bizarre short circuit and set your pants on fire or explode. From then on, I kept my change and my batteries in opposite pockets. ...