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Hiroshima Carps song As the rainy season continues, the days are getting hotter and more humid. But last weekend I managed to escape the island during a couple of dry days to celebrate Nick’s (English teacher on neighboring island, Ikina) birthday in Hiroshima city. We went to our favorite team, the Hiroshima Carps’, baseball game against the Tokyo Giants. Japanese baseball games are really crazy and fun. Of course, I can’t compare them to baseball games in the U.S., because I’ve never been to one in the U.S. But, another American I was with, Adam, said that baseball fans in the U.S. are nowhere near as enthusiastic and crazy as Japanese baseball fans are. I believe him because the fans here just don’t stop cheering through the whole game, and it’s not just random shouts. They have very organized cheers and songs that thousands of people chant all at once. And if you’re not wearing the color of your team (like I wasn’t), then you definitely feel left out.
So, we cheered for hours on the bleachers under a relentless sun while consuming large amounts of popcorn, edamame, and kakigouri (the best summertime snack…like a snow cone, but somehow better…probably because they
have melon flavor). In the end our team won! And I’m sure it was because of our fabulous cheering. Be sure to watch the video I posted at the top of my blog to watch the fans singing the Hiroshima Carps song.
Other than baseball, we ate at our favorite restaurant, Otis. It’s a Mexican restaurant that advertises “black music,” which is the Japanese way to describe any music including jazz, reggae, rap, hip hop, R&B, etc. Can you imagine “black music” being the title of a music genre in the U.S.?! In spite of this, the restaurant has great Mexican food (the only Mexican food in all of Hiroshima), great music, and great husband and wife owners. They even remembered us from the last time we were there way last fall.
We also did quite a bit of shopping, which is when I found this hat I took a picture of. It was really random. There was only one hat that looked like this in the store. If you take in to consideration the fact that many Americans don’t know what West Virginia is, you can probably guess that most Japanese people have never heard of it.
Still, whatever sells, right? I thought it was particularly interesting that this hat depicts the three crosses on the hill that can be seen all over America.
And of course we played the ritual bowling game that is required of any trip to the city. And as ritual requires, I lost horribly.
Then it was back to the islands once again. And the big news on the islands is that in September a major band is coming to perform at our town on Iwagi Island. They are a band from Okinawa, and I have no clue why they decided to go out of their way to travel to our remote islands for a show, but everyone here is thrilled. I’m pretty excited too, especially since local islanders (that’s me!) only have to pay 3,000 yen, while outsiders have to pay 5,000 yen. So, in celebration of this joyous occasion, our town just decided to make a whole festival out of the day. All of the community musical groups (such as the chorus, mandolin group, traditional singing group, taiko group etc.) will be performing as pre-show concerts leading up to the final, professional act. So, as I am a
member of the mandolin group, I will be performing as well. We just had a rehearsal for the big show and they informed me that I will be playing three solos on my fiddle with mandolin and guitar accompaniment. Yikes. At least the music is simple enough.
Not much else is happening on the islands. I spend most my time cooped up in my office or in my apartment trying to escape the torrential downpours. This may be why I posted more pictures of my culinary masterpieces than usual. So enjoy the photos, and don’t forget about the video at the top!
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Dad
non-member comment
Yum!
Jen, you made me hungry! You are getting to be such a cook. Also, I liked the colorful photos. It was a good idea to take a shot of the snow cones at the baseball game. Very colorful.