Buy Me Some Peanuts and Yaki Soba...

Last Sunday we attended our first Japanese pro-baseball game. Nagoya's team is called the Chunichi Dragons, and they were playing the Hiroshima Carp. The baseball stadium, called the Nagoya Dome, is fairly close to us by train. Well, when you go the right direction. That's a whole other story in itself. Anyway, the games are played inside the dome and on synthetic grass. It's a rather pleasant atmosphere. No worries about the weather, but also no view of the St. Louis arch. :(

I purchased mid-range tickets for us, and we were only about 3-4 rows from the field. Unfortunately, the field is lined with a giant blue net. It was driving us crazy so we opted to move up higher so we didn't have to look through it the entire time. 

The coolest part about the game was the crowd's participation. Each player has their own customized cheer, and the entire stadium has it memorized. Everyone participates! All of the cheering made for a really fun and exciting game.

To be honest, I am rather confused by the team's mascots. There is an adult-sized dragon, a baby pink dragon (pictured above) and a blue koala bear named, Goala. I'm not sure how those all fit together, but it is Japan.

We were a little embarrassed by our lack of garb, but we'll try to do better next time. I have my eye on some koala ears.

The concessions at the game were delicious. They offered some traditional baseball game food like, hot dogs, chicken fingers and french fries. They served Japanese food like takoyaki and yaki soba, which is basically a mixture of stir fried soba noodles mixed with pork and cabbage. The best part, though, is that the game food isn't outrageously priced like it is back home. All of the prices seemed pretty reasonable. I also loved how they packaged it all together. Instead of trying to juggle all the food while dodging a crowd of stumbling drunks, they gave us a handy little tray on which each item had its special place, and everything was all rubber banded together so it couldn't spill. Check out the fries on top of the soda. You can eat your fries AND sip your soda all from the same compact container. Genius!

This last picture is of my little baseball player. Travis is playing on Toyota's baseball team here. Their team is called the Ist, which is after a popular compact car sold in Japan. I would compare his playing baseball on the team here to him playing in the old man's softball league back home. Can you believe that uniform, though? It looks so professional and even came with a fancy black belt. I couldn't believe it when he came home. It's a little different than the ripped out t-shirts I'm used to.