Jingu Stadium, Japanese Baseball. We caught the season opener on a half-rainy day at the ballpark. The Tokyo Dome ballpark is right next door, and is protected against rain. Jingu Stadium, however, gets wet.
Natasha and I discussed the possibility of seeing baseball while we were still outside of Japan, but it wasn't in our itinerary. I think I was inspired, at least partially, by seeing the stadiums from the top of the world. The next morning, I looked to buy tickets online using the hotel's computer in the lobby. Buying tickets is the hardest part, so I'll explain the whole process.
First, I checked the Yakult Swallows website and was unable to find instructions in english. I did find a schedule, and it clearly labeled the first game as 6:00 pm on that very day. Lucky us.
Next, I tried to talk the hotel clerk into showing us how to buy tickets. He began by pretending to call someone to get a schedule, and told me, "so sorry, no game today at Tokyo Dome." I think he tried to get himself off the hook without lying. There was no game at Tokyo Dome, but there was a game at Jingu Stadium. He was probably still bitter with me for eating twice as much food as anybody else during the free breakfast. Also, I couldn't tell the difference between combustible waste-product and non-combustible. The yogurt packages, for example, look like waxy paper or maybe a plastic or part-styrofoam cup — and I have no way of knowing where to put it. It might burn if the temperature was high enough, but so would styrofoam, and I wouldn't want them to burn styrofoam. I'm pretty sure that guy was looking at me funny when I'd try to categorize my waste.
I told him that I had found a schedule online, and then showed him the webpage with all the info, and then asked him how we can buy tickets. He read through the webpage and told us that we would need to buy the tickets at a convenience store, such as 7-Eleven or AM/PM. Luckily, these are all over the place. There were probably a dozen within two city blocks. It was like trying to find a Starbucks in downtown USA.
At 7-Eleven, following the usual communication by gesture and endless repeating of a single word, the clerk communicated that we would use a special phone in the back of their store, hit the blue button, and then work out a deal with the person on the other end. So I tried this, and using a handy book of phrases I asked if the person on the other end spoke english. No. Nobody there speaks english. The phone jockeys probably speak Japanese and Malay. I tried calling a few times, got different people, and nobody could speak with me.
I'm not so egotistic as to believe that they should speak english. But it was frustrating, because we'd spent half of the morning getting this far. So we carried on with our business for the time being, toured Roppongi and other areas, and decided to wait and see if we could make it to the stadium to buy tickets in person.
Luckily, that afternoon, we were in a 7-Eleven and I found a guy who spoke english and was willing to help us. He was clearly not Japanese. He used the special Bat-Phone and dialed the red button instead of the blue, and he talked for a couple minutes with the person and found us tickets. He wanted ¥3000 (about $30) in cash. When he got the money, he went behind the counter and disappeared for a while, without telling us what was going on or providing a receipt. We both had that feeling you get when someone has just robbed you and you can't do anything about it.
After about 5 minutes, their electronic ticket machine behind the counter started working, the guy came back, and he processed the sale and gave us our tickets.
At that point, we had a plan. So we continued our sightseeing and began a long trek toward the stadium on aching feet. On the way, we found Honda's world headquarters where they have everything Honda makes on display, from cars to motorcycles to lawnmowers. We also found Sony's HQ, which had many large TVs hooked up to PS3s playing unreleased games like Gran Turismo 5.
We arrived at the stadium well ahead of schedule, and were still too late to get the good cheap seats. The first-come-first-served seating fills up early. We ended up behind the foul post in right field.
The teams playing were the Yakult Swallows and the Yomiuri Giants, Tokyo's two biggest teams. We sat in the Yakult section, but Natasha's bright orange jacket was better suited to the Giants colors. "Swallows" is, apparently, a very difficult word to say for the Japanese people. The fans were doing some cheers in english which I couldn't even tell was english until the tune set in. I first discovered that they were saying "swallows", then I figured the rest out. These small breakthroughs excite me.
Our section had flag wavers and head cheerleaders. When the team scored everybody would bring out their mini umbrellas and sing and dance.
Good thing they all brought umbrellas. It rained pretty hard during the first half of the game. I stood in a line to buy a garbage-bag marketed as a rain jacket. When I was close enough to touch, they sold out. The second half of the game was dry, though.
Natasha ate a funny looking soup. I ate an expensive bento box of mediocre food. Garlic fries would have been a welcome addition.
The scoreboard was high tech. It looked like an old card-based scoreboard, then turned into a super high-res video screen. Very neat.
We had a great time at the ballpark, and I highly recommend that you visit.
