New Years in Japan

New Years, or Shogatsu here, is the most important holiday throughout the year in Japan
One webiste said "Years are traditionally viewed as completely separate, with each new year providing a fresh start. Consequently, all duties are supposed to be completed by the end of the year, while bonenkai parties ("year forgetting parties") are held with the purpose of leaving the old year's worries and troubles behind."
Pretty much everything shuts down from the 1st-3rd of January and people spend the time with their families. 
On New Years Eve night exactly at midnight the Buddhist Temple bells are rung 108 times - according to Wikipedia it is to symbolize the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires regarding sense and feeling in every Japanese citizen. Japanese believe that the ringing of bells can rid off their sins during the previous year"

Then on the 1st - 3rd the thing to do is to go to a temple or shrine, I guess the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo has millions of visitors during these 3 days. 
Today, the 31st, we went into Tokyo and even though it wasn't the 1st yet the Temple that we went to already was preparing for people with food stands lined up outside. 

 So what do you at a temple you ask? There are many things - from offering prayer to recieving good luck.
1) Get as close as you can to the altar and cast coins or paper money. Then you clap your hands, as to summon the gods - and offer your prayer. (If you are at a local shrine where there is less money you put money into the box of offering, pull the cord to ring the bell, clap your hands to summon the gods and offer your prayer)
2) Another custom will give you a fortune. After paying a small fee - the equivalent of $1 or $2 - you shake a small box containing bamboo sticks. When one of the sticks comes out you read the number engraved on the end of it. Next to the sticks are many boxes, each with a fortune corresponding to the number on your stick. So you find your number and choose your fortune. (When we did this we had a little trouble finding the corresponding box as the numbers were Japanese characters and then when we did find it out fortune was of course in Japanese - more than likely it says we will get rich :) )
Once you have finished reading your fortune you can either take it with you or tie it to a branch/wire nearby

 
3)   Another thing you might do for good luck involves buying a little amulet/trinket which are said to carry good luck for one year. At the temple/shrine there is also a place to dispose of your good luck charm from the previous year and after the holidays they are ceremoniously burned.

Hard Off?

What if I told you there was an arena here called Hard Off - what would you think goes on there? If your three guesses had to with: balls, getting down and dirty and an 18 yr old age limit, 2 of your guesses would be correct - it has to do with a baseball stadium.

A couple weeks ago we played up north in Niigata. As we were driving to one of our games I saw a sign for Hard Off stadium. I had to admit I chuckled a little to myself as I didnt see that one coming. Here in Japan there are a series of stores with the ending of 'off.' Hard Off, at least to me, has to have to most interesting name of the group but others include Garage Off, Off House, Book Off, Mode Off and Hobby Off. All are 2nd hand goods stores specific to a certain type of good and the stores are quite large (as an example hard off sells hardware, book off sells books, dvds, cloths, purses, sporting goods) We actually got a lot of Mylas b-day presents at Book Off and saved a lot of money.
If we need something these are the stores we will probably look to first. They are great stores and seem to have most everything but I have to say the names are a little eye-catching.
Its probably a good thing that the Hard Off stadium is a baseball stadium and doesnt have anything to do with the bj basketball league I play in.
I can see it now.....tonights matchup at Hard Off features two greats from the bj league -
now that might need an under 18 warning :)

Tokyo Midtowns Lights and Illumination Show

I forgot to include these 2 videos with the last post - these are from our trip into Tokyo in early December to look at the Christmas lights.
These 2 videos are from Tokyo Midtown - their lights and illumination show

Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!
I hope the holidays are going great for you and you're able to spend some quality time with family. Here we have just put Myla to bed and are getting ready to put the presents under the tree and some cookies (or other sweets) out for Santa so he will be good to us this year :)
You may be wondering if they celebrate Christmas here and the answer is yes. Christmas here though is very detached from God. Christmas means presents and reindeer and Santa, but not much more. We have been told that many Japanese people don't believe in any thing, any God, or if they do most people are not Christian.
The Japanese culture, at least from what I have seen so far, is a gifting culture. Many fans give gifts to players after the games here (I have been lucky enough to be on the recieving end a few times - please see the next post about what fans gave us for Christmas), and I think it is a common thing to give a gift and not just for Christmas. Here though the Christmas music started on the 1st of November. We practice in a public facility. The arena we use has three courts on it and we only practice on one of them. During practice, or probably the whole day, they have music playing softly through the speakers and since November 1st the Christmas tunes have been going steady. Hard to have a bad day with the Christmas songs to brighten the day.
I would have to say though that it isn't quite as big here as it is in the states. Many stores carry Christmas stuff, but it will be only one tiny section in a store rather than a whole area devoted to it. And we have been able to find some houses with Christmas lights on them, but they are quite scattered and few and far between. We did make it in to Tokyo about 2 weeks ago though to see two different mall's Christmas lights (Roppongi Hills & Tokyo Midtown) - it was pretty cool!
This is the first time in 4 years though that I have been off the 24th and 25th and we are fully enjoying spending these two days together. Hope all is well where you are and Merry Christmas.

Gifts for us from fans

We are lucky...we have some great fans. Here is a picture of some of the gifts they gave us after the games on the 22nd and the 23rd of December. (I am even missing a very nice Christmas stocking that one of the fans gave). I guess I do have to be honest - some of this was for Katy and me, but a lot was for Myla - she's a lucky girl :)

Earthquake

     Last week there was a 7.3 earthquake to hit off the coast of Japan. I think the news made it seem a little worse than what it was though. Here by Tokyo the earthquake we felt was in the 3's or 4's someone said. Those numbers dont really mean a whole lot to me yet, but I am beginning to understand the scale a little. I just hope we dont have to understand the force of a 6 or 7. The earth quake was way in the north, of the coast a ways, and 22 miles deep underwater. There were tsunami warnings (3 feet in some places, 1.5 feet in others) for the northeast coast, but here in Tokyo we didnt have to worry about that. So far we have probably felt 20 or more little earthquake during the night or some during the day - lasting only a few seconds and not very strong. The earthquake last week was a little different. I was in the locker room after practice and things started to shake a little. I thought it was just another little one, but the intensity picked up and it kept going. The bench I was sitting on was moving and the room was visibly shaking. Out in the gym there was a badminton practice going on and they quickly hurried all the people outside. My coach said he was standing by the glass entry/exit doors and quickly got away from them in case they were to shatter. The earthquake probably went for 15-20 seconds. That may not seem very long, but count to 15 seconds in your head - now imagine everything is shaking and you have no control/cant do anything to stop it. It feels like much longer believe me.

     Being from WI, were not really used to the earthquakes (the California boys said the happen much more frequently out here too) nor did we have a plan of what to do in case a big one were to hit and all power were to go out.. We now have a plan on what to do to be prepared just in case - where to meet, extra food and water and how to try and get a hold of family back home. It wasn't that bad of an earthquake and I think it was a good thing it happened.

Whats in a name?

Here in Japan the league I play in is called the bj league - for Basketball Japan (not other things). Next year for the 2013-14 season there will be an expansion team from the prefecture (state) of Nara. Part of setting up a team is to decide what name your team will have. Here is how this team decided to choose their name.
(this is part of an article taken from Japan Times)

"Nara nickname revealed: The Western Conference's next expansion squad will be known as Bambitious Nara, it was announced on Friday before the Osaka Evessa-Shimane Susanoo Magic series opener in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture.

Bambitious Nara will enter the league for the 2013-14 season along with the Aomori Wat's.

Nara Prefecture is known for having deer, especially as part of the history of Kasuga Shrine. As noted on Wikipedia, "the path to Kasuga Shrine passes through Deer Park (in Nara)." The entry added: "In Deer Park, deer are able to roam freely and are believed to be scared messengers of the Shinto gods that inhabit the shrine and surrounding mountainous terrain. Kasuga Shrine and the deer have been featured in several paintings and works of art of the Nambokucho Period (1336-1392)."

In the 1920s, Austrian writer Felix Salten penned a book that was translated into English as "Bambi, A Life in the Woods." It was made into a Walt Disney Studios film in 1942. Bambi, a strong, cunning deer, remains one of the most well-known animals in popular culture around the world, with Salten's books being translated into a number of other languages.

With that in mind, the team created its nickname, combining Bambi and the goal to "be ambitious.""

observations 1

There are a lot of things that are different here and I will try to give some quick observations of things I notice that might not be long enough for their own post. (These are from an American/foreigner's perspective and no disrespect is meant at all - this is just the way I see it 1) for a woman's voice the desirable characteristics seem to be high pitch and nasaly, where the higher pitched your voice is and the more nasaly it is the more attractive you are. Sometimes voices - especially with people on radio and tv - are hard to listen to because of this fact. 2) In Japanese "hi" means yes. So if someone asks a question a normal response would be "hi." For an English speaking foreigner this leads to some pretty funny telephone conversations. Think about when you are on the phone how often you say yes, uh huh, yep, yeah or any other similar phrase to mean yes. Now put your self in Japan next to a Japanese person talking on the phone where every yes is "hi." The first phone conversation I heard I almost started laughing as it sounded like the person was talking to 16 different people but only long enough to give a greeting. "Hi" "hi" "hi" "hi" the next phone conversation you have tell the person you are talking to you learner some Japanese and say "hi" every time you would say yes and see what kind of response you get :)

Trip to Akita (Northwest Japan)

Last weekend we played up in the north of the main island of Japan - in Akita. Last year when the team made the trip they took the bus and different people said the trip took between 8-10 hours. Luckily this year the team decided not to take the bus but rather the bullet train - or as it is called in Japanese - Shinkansen. The bullet train only took us 4 hours.

The bullet train has seats sort of like an airplane but with a little more knee room, and you can get up and move around whenever you want. They also have a snacks cart that comes through every so often and offers snacks for purchase. And if you happen to be able to fork over the money for a first class ticket they have a first class cabin. We just saw it through the window and it looked pretty nice.
The tickets for the bullet train for our trip, there and back (round trip) costed 35,000 yen - so with the exchange rate that would be $425.
If your wondering how fast the trains go they can reach speeds of 240–300 km/h (149–186 mph) and they have plans to increase speeds on one of the routes to 320 km/h (199 mph).
Last weekend we played Akita and they are near the top at our conference. We played a great 1st half the first game, but then it seemed like we got content and stopped moving and attacking the second half and ended up losing. In the second game (we play Saturdays and Sundays here) we played a lot better and played solid the whole game and ended up winning.