Tokyo-Yakult-Swallows

It’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up. Things aren’t looking good for the Dodgers. Their supposed strong point, their bullpen, is being totally trashed by the brutal Phillies offense. In fact, their starting pitching, Kuroda excluded, has been their most dominant factor and the only thing that’s been keeping them afloat most of these games. Still, you can only blow so many leads before I stop believing that your team can actually put wins on the board. In fact, the Dodgers are nice and down three games to one with little hope of winning tonight to actually make this a series. Padilla will be pitching against Cole Hamels and, since Vicente is responsible for the only Dodgers win, this is really their last chance. ...

[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=“Today’s post brought to you by Coca-Cola (Not really! Please don’t sue me!)”] [/caption] Ok, so I’m being a little dramatic in the title, but with David gone and most of the day occupied by riding bullet trains across Japan, the day was definitely on the dull side. [caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375” caption=“The thrilling remains of a lunch eaten on an exciting train ride to Fukuoka.”] [/caption] ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The famous and super-busy scramble crosswalk at Shibuya.”] [/caption] Here we are on the last (full) day of the Main Tour. It would be the last day that Dave and I were together in Japan, so we decided to hit up all our Tokyo loose ends. That mostly meant wandering around getting the last of our souvenirs and checking out some of the famous districts within Tokyo. ...

Jet lag is always a bit difficult to overcome, but when you’ve flown to the other side of the world, the body really doesn’t know what to do with itself. So it came to pass that I wrote the whole second half of Part II of this travelogue at 0600 after a half hour of tossing and turning, despite being on almost no sleep. This third part comes straight from my exhausted fingers to you, starting before the first Giants game and continuing after getting back to the hotel. ...