Haircuts, Hajemi, and Hanshin Tigers

Trip Start Sep 25, 2002

Trip End May 15, 2004

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Flag of Japan Nishinomiya, Japan
Thursday, May 1, 2003

I got my first Japanese haircut this week! Although I had no ability to tell the guy how I wanted it cut, we somehow managed to communicate and get it done. Ahh, the service - the guy was awesome and had such attention to detail. After the haircut I got a shave with a facial massage...he even shaved my earlobes!! It truly must be experienced to be understood. Also, I was so excited because I had made plans to go to Bali on a great deal, round trip air and 4 nights hotel for $300, but later in the week the travel agent called and said the company was canceling the flight for some SARS related reason, so now I have 6 days vacation and no vacation plan!!

In other happenings, I bought a new digital camera this week. It's the same style and make as my old one, but its immensely better with double the quality and video recording capability!

At the end of the week, with Mike, I attended my first Japanese baseball game. The Japanese are fanatical about baseball, especially when it's the Hanshin Tigers (local team) vs. the Yomiuri Giants (Yankees of Japan). Well, we got tickets to the game and Mike and I went to the souvenir shop and got geared up with noisemakers and headbands and went to the game. The crowds here are amazing...the entire stadium is chanting and cheering in unison and they allow musical instruments and small plastic bats to use as noisemakers! Can you imagine ballparks in the States allowing small plastic bats inside the stadium - there'd be a riot! Anyway, we sat in the Giants section with our Tigers gear on and got into it (friendly) with some Giants fans. In the 7th inning they do something really cool at the games. In the 7th inning everyone breaks out these balloons with these squeaking attachments and then they release them in unison and cheer wildly! There are 55,000 screaming colorful balloons flying around all over the place...I got a great video clip of it! Anyway, some of the most amazing events happened after the game as many Tigers fans stuck around the stadium area to celebrate the win and we are talking with a few when I yell out "picture" so I can take Mikes picture with a few fans. Well, every Japanese fan in the vicinity must know the English word picture because all of a sudden we were surrounded by 30 Tigers fans, screaming and yelling, and I have to keep backing up to get everyone in the picture! It was one of those "you had to be there moments", but Mike and I were like semi-celebs for about 20 minutes as we hung out with the fans cheering and the fans began cheering OUR names because they thought it was so cool that two foreigners were Tigers fans! It was truly amazing and I can't wait to go back to another game!