KGU Football

4/16 - 4/23

Sorry that it's been a week since I last updated, I've been pretty busy with homework. I have to give a 40 minute presentation in my Japanese Business class and preparing for that has just drained me. The lecture is on the Japanese Contemporary Economy and I had to read a lot of books so that I could understand what actually happened in the past few years. Anways, it's been crazy and the other homework has been pilling up as well but at least I had a few fun things happen this week. Letsee, the beginning of the week was quite drab. Nothing but classes and reading books, but Wednesday, I met with my Japanese partners and we talked about various things. It's good practice and they are both extremely nice so I enjoy our time together. I think I will have one of the help me find the Volleyball Club meeting place so that I can sign up and start participating and practicing even more Japanese there. I tried to find it on my own, but the school's Student Center (where all the club rooms are) is HUGE. I found the right area to look in, but in the end, wound up not being able to find it. I asked some people if they knew where it was but no luck. This building is massive, I mean 5 or 6 stories high with each level having about I don't know... maybe 50 or 60 club rooms each. Kansai Gakuin has a ton of clubs... you can find a club for anything you can think of and so that is why there are so many rooms just dedicated to those clubs where they can hold meetings and store their equipment, etc... So I will eventually find this place and join.
Friday was interesting as well because it was Allen's birthday party. He is an exchange student from a Canadian college but he has grown up in Korea as well for a good portion of his life. We have a few classes together and have gotten to become friends in a short time. He lives on his own so a good number of the exchange students went over to celebrate his 23rd birthday. We all had a good time and then parted ways around 10pm. Half of the group was going to go clubbing, and the other half was just going home. I decided to go home because going to the club meant missing the last train. Trains in Japan only run until 12:20 at night and so if you miss that one, you have to wait for the next one at 5:30. I really didn't feel like staying at the club until 5 so me and a few of the others just headed home.
The next day was KGU's first football game. They played a college from Tokyo (Prime Minister Koizumi's old college) and a ton of students from KGU went to support the team. The game was at a park near Sannomiya (so about 30 minutes away from campus) so a bunch of the exchange students met at Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi Station and headed out together. It was not hard to find the place and we all ended up getting there a little before the game started. It was a good, but slightly boring game only because our school was too good. KGU is supposedly extremely strong in Football and has been winning a lot the past few years. The final score for the game was 42 - 0. A complete shutout. I kind of felt bad for the other team because they came all the way from Tokyo just to have to deal with that... Anyways, it was still fun and the atmosphere was great. I can't wait for next Friday because I get to go to my first Japanese Hanshin Tiger's baseball game. Apparently, baseball is just huge here... and apparently, the baseball team representing this area is very very good. Simply put, a great atmosphere, an interesting game, and crazy fans... oh yeah.. the fans... The craziest you'll ever see. Talk about pride and support for a team. I've never seen such loyal, outrageous, and passionate fans. Rain, snow, earthquake, whatever... these people will be screaming and shouting and having a blast supporting their team. I can't wait to go and experience such a feeling so the next post should be an interesting one. Ok, well it's back to study for me... I'll try to take more pictures as I have not been so good lately with doing that.

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