A typical Life

Konichiwa!  Well I have finally made it to the start of my adventure in Japan which is awesome but there have been a few glitches.  I finally have a temporary internet connection but it’s not on my computer so you won’t be hearing from me regularily until next week.

So let me recap things so far:

1. The flight was long (9 hours 10 minutes) but uneventful.  I watched two movies and an episode of Shark before we touched down at Narita.
2. After landing we were ushered to immigration where the sign claimed a thirty minute wait which did not make me happy.  However a few minutes later some of us were directed to walk quite a ways over to a different station where there was not wait.  The actual immigration process was quick and relatively painless.
3. Got a luggage cart, collected my bags and met the representative for my hubby’s company who got us in a taxi for the thrity minute ride to my new home.
4. Arrived to a very cold and empty apartment and did a little unpacking while waiting for my hubby to get back from Kagoshima.
5. Got to give my hubby a BIG hug and a kiss after not having seen him for a month - the best part of the trip!
6. Went to bed and woke up at 4AM the next morning due to jet lag.

I’m almost over the jet lag and have explored our community a little bit but have mostly been taking care of houskeeping things like stocking the pantry and getting various things in order at our new home.  More later….

Ja mata (see you later - I think…)

Now that we are getting closer to the start of exhibition games in Japan I thought it would be a good time to educate everyone with some Japanese Baseball Terminology.

Let me start by saying that in Japan you will hear the term Pro-Yakyuu a lot. This is short for Professional Yakyuu with Yakyuu meaning baseball.

One of the first things that confused me when watching a baseball game in Japan was the ball-strike count. For example when you watch MLB baseball and you hear or see a count as 3-1 you know it is 3 balls and 1 strike. In Japan no such count exists! A count of 3-1 in Japan would actually be a strike out or sanshin. So when you hear or see a count in Japan keep in mind that strikes are always the fist number.

Here are a few more:

Your favorite players uniform number would be his sebango or “back number”.

A rookine is know as a shinjin or “new man”.

A double play is getto-tsuu or “get two”

Great Pitch: zekkohkyuu

Here is a link to some more Japanese Baseball Terminology if you want to expand your vocabulary further.

The countdown continues…2 days until the first baseball game of 2008!

Yesterday I told you how I was feeling as if I was in a holding pattern waiting for my Japan adventure to start. and how my home consisted of loosely labeled piles sort of ready for packing.

Well, I’ve realized that the carry-on/technology pile is going to make me really popular in the the security line at the airport - you know those people that you end up behind who have to unpack everything and put them in separate bins and then if they manage to get through without some sort or alarm going off they take forever to pack everything up on the other side. Well that’s going to be me - and I hate me already!

With a lap top, a D-SLR camera, a DVD player and a hard drive amongst my carry-on belongings I have decided to apologize in advance to the people behind me so they don’t hate me as much when I have to take everything out of my carry-on.

I sure hope they understand….

I leave for Japan in a little less than a week but feel as though I am in a holding pattern. My husband has been in Japan for almost a month and I have been holding down the fort at home and preparing for the trip.

I can’t wait to get to Japan and get this adventure started but am stuck looking at half filled suitcases and boxes, none of which I am quite ready to commit to closing. My to do list is getting shorter but a lot of things need to wait until the last minute or so it seems.

Our home looks like a tornado has blown through it with all of the different piles that I have started. There is the definitely take pile, the maybe pile, the mailing pile, and the carry-on/technology pile. Oh, and my hubby told me last night that there was something that he wanted me to bring and that it was important but he couldn’t remember what it was - how helpful??? I told him that he’d better write it down when he thought of it again otherwise he would be out of luck as the time for packing, purchasing, etc is slipping away.

I have reviewed my post on what to pack and think that I have covered most everything except the shoe part. Knowing that I wont’ be able to get shoes in Japan and that I will be doing a lot more walking has made me pay more attention to how comfortable my shoes are. Most of them aren’t suited for long stretches on my feet and even though they look comfortable I’m not so sure that I won’t be sorry later. Some solace came in a post from Thomas on how to get shoes in Japan but I’m not so sure his tip will work for women’s shoes. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on that one as I may need to buy some shoes while in Japan.

Oh, and I’ve also decided that I don’t really like most of my clothes and that they are all really boring! Just great!!!!

This weekend I had the privilege of seeing Barefoot in the Park, a play by Neil Simon, at the Diamond Head Theater in Honolulu. Here is a line spoken by the Corie Bratter character in the play to her husband:

…There are watchers in this world,and there are doers. And the watchers sit around watching the doers do.

Corie is frustrated with her new husband after a night out on the town because she had a great time and her husband sat quietly in the corner ‘watching’.

I am definitely a doer. Which one are you?

Spring Training for Japanese professional baseball has been underway since February 1st and for the first time in many years all of the teams will remain in Japan for Spring Training. This is a full two weeks ahead of MLB where most teams pitchers and catchers reported today.In the MLB spring training is divided between balmy Arizona and sun-drenched Florida. In Japan most teams head south for spring training but this spring has been unseasonably cold, wet and in some cases snowy!

As a result of the poor weather many teams have been forced to hold more practices indoors than outdoors. This leads me to one of the interesting things about Japanese baseball. Most teams have state of the art indoor facilities with weight rooms, pitching mounds and a full infield. Below is a photo of the minor league complex for the Chiba Lotte Marines which has an area of almost 22,000 square feet. Most minor league teams in the US could only dream of having such a facility at their disposal.

So where is your favorite Japanese team holding their spring Training? Here’s a run-down:

Central League
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters - Nago, Okinawa
Seibu Lions - Miyazaki
Fukuoka Softbank Hawks - Miyazaki & Fukuoka
Chiba Lotte Marines - Ishigakijima Marines Ball Park in the Ryukyus & Okinawa
Orix Buffaloes - Miyakojima Island in Okinawa & Kochi, Shikoku
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles - Kumejima, Okinawa

Pacific League
Chunichi Dragons - Chatan, Okinawa
Hanshin Tigers - Ginoza, Okinawa & Aki, Kochi
Tokyo Yakult Swallows - Urasoe Stadium, Okinawa
Yomiuri Giants - Miyazaki
Hiroshima Carp - Okinawa City, Okinawa & Nichinan, Miyazaki
Yokohama BayStars - Ginowan, Okinawa

Information summarized from an article in The Japan Times by Wayne Graczyk.

For some more information on this years spring training in Japan take a look at Jim Allen’s column with the Daily Yomiuri where he tells us about the Do’s and Dont’s of Spring Training in Japan and touches on the weather and training regimens of each team.

More next week on Japanese Baseball terminology.

The countdown continues….9 days until the first baseball game of 2008!

I have always wanted to visit the Tsukiji Fish Market in Japan and it was one of the things that I never got around to doing the last time I was in Japan. Now it appears that it may be too late for me to get to see the tuna auction in action. The Tsukiji Fish Market has promoted itself as a tourist destination and is now so popular that it will have to stop due to the volume and irresponsible behavior of visitors. Click on the photo to check out an article from 3yen.

Starting in April the market will be discouraging visitors citing sanitation concerns and disruption to the auctions that the site is famous for. Strollers, babies and large packages will no longer be allowed into the market and flash photography will not be permitted. Further, an application for entry must be made in advance and those people wanting to visit merely for sightseeing will be asked not to enter.

I think that the real shame in this is that it is another one of those cases where the rotten apple spoils the bunch. This Tsukiji Fish Market is a place of business and as such the visitors have a responsibility to respect that. No-one wants to have their job be harder or take longer as a result of distractions caused by people not there to conduct business.

I am not disputing that the Tsukiji Fish Market has a valid concern but I would suggest that an alternative would be to limit the number of people who enter and ensure that they are with a guide at all times. A minimal entrance fee could cover the cost of the guide, ensure that guests do not stray into areas where they would disrupt business and possibly even be able to provide some insights and history of the site which would enhance the visitor experience. The guests should also have to agree to abide by the rules and stay in designated areas at all times before being allowed entry.
My suggestion may be too late or too much to do logistically since the site has several gates and it is estimated that 42,000 people and 19,000 trucks enter and leave the facility every business day but I think that it is definitely better than banning or discouraging visitors completely.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were overwhelmed or numb? Our emotions can sneak up on us and can live on well after the event that inspired them.

…It was hard to feel the right emotions at the right time. They didn’t come at all when you set a place for them, and they sacked you when you weren’t ready, when you were just innocently flossing your teeth, for example, or eating a bowl of cereal…

Excerpt from The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares.

This post is the second in my weekly series on Japanese baseball. The first post was an overview of the Nippon Professional Baseball League and this post will provide you with some information on the minor league system.

We hear a lot about the major leagues in Japan but relatively little about the minor leagues which are not at all like those in the United States. In the Unites States most major league teams have at least five minor league affiliates while each professional team in Japan has only one, which is part of either the Eastern League or the Western League. Minor leagues teams in Japan usually carry the same name as the parent team and are differentiated by the term Second Team. The First Team being the major league equivalent in the United States.

The Eastern and Western Leagues are organized by region rather than by their division affiliation and break out as follows:

Eastern League
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters
Yomiuri Giants
Tokyo Yakult Swallows
Yokohama BayStars
Seibu Lions
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles
Chiba Lotte Marines

Western League
Hanshin Tigers
Hiroshima Carp
Fukuoka Softbank Hawks
Orix Buffaloes
Chunichi Dragons

Jim Allen is the author of the The Hot Corner, a weekly baseball column for the Daily Yomiuri, and provides some great information on his website. Jim Allen’s Guide to Japanese Baseball is a must read for anyone interested in the Japanese version of the game and is a great source for an overview of many aspects of the game. (Please note that some of the information is a bit out of date.)

Jim describes four unique rosters as follows:

Organizational – maximum of 70 players per team.
First team (majors) – 40 players which is set for the entire season with a few exceptions under the rules.
First Team Bench – 28 players
First Team Active – 25 players for any given game (a subset of the First Team Bench Roster)

This means that on any given day there are between 30 and 42 players on the minor league or Second Team roster. Any player assigned to the Second Team is required to spend a minimum of 10 days prior to being re-activated by the First Team which is limited to four foreign roster players, only three of which may be on the field at any given time. There is no such restriction in the minor leagues.

Most Second Team games are played during the day at facilities that don’t resemble an American ballpark at all. There are no grandstands at most minor league facilities and no food or souvenir hawkers. The minor league teams are owned and operated by the parent club and are there solely to prepare the players to move up to the big leagues. Most minor league players are required to live in company dorms and have curfews and rules that they are required to adhere to at all times. The photo above is of the Second Team field for the Chiba Lotte Marines (note the all dirt infield which is common in Japan).

If you want to follow the prospects on your favorite Japanese Professional Team here is a link to the Second Team Standings from 2007. (I will update the link when the 2008 information is available) Please review my Japanese Baseball – An Overview post to determine the Kanji for your favorite team as I was not able to find an effective translation of the previous link. You can also use this post to head off to your favorite teams website and click on the tab titled Farm (ファーム or 2軍) for more information on the Second Team.

The countdown continues….16 days until the first baseball game of 2008!

I have recently come across an interesting concept to keep me in books while I am in Japan. In preparation for my stay I have been hoarding books like crazy. Why? Because English books in Japan aren’t cheap. BookCrossing is a new site where you can leave your books in a public locations for others to pick up for free - yes, I said free!

There website defines it as follows:

n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
(added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in August 2004)

But it gets even more fun because you log you book via the BookCrossing site and it assigns and ID number. You place a sticker with the ID number on the books and the next person picks the book up can enter the ID number in the computer and you can track you book all over Japan or the world for that matter! The site has a world map of various catches and releases.

I came across this via a post by Maethelwine at Wide Island and decided to do a search for books in Japan. There are 227 books currently in Japan and the folks of Osaka have the most at 27. Not all of the books are in English but if you are near the Todaimae-Station in Tokyo, Tuesdays with Morie was released into the wild on January 25th. If you can read Kanji, check out the Japaneses version of the site.

This is a great concept and I will definitely be ‘releasing’ some of my newly hoarded books after I have read them. Take note anyone in the Chiba area….