Today after practice a couple of the other guys and I went to the dentist's office to get fitted for a mouthguard. The dentist is one of our team's sponsors and is providing us with a custom form-fitted mouthguard. Which, as you can imagine, can be helpful in our line of work. I dont always wear one but think it is probably a good idea, especially as I don't look back on the experience of having my tooth go through my lip a while ago all that fondly - yep it was just as pretty as it sounds.
But it wasn't just a normal visit. When we got to the dentist's office this was the sign that was hanging on the reception desk - Pretty nice welcome if you ask me.
Thanks!
We have been to a few different continents and one thing I noticed is that people like coffee, but they way they get "their fix" varies from place to place. All of these places have many different ways of getting coffee (such as: you can probably find a good coffee shop to go and order a coffee anywhere you are, or, Keurig Machines where you brew an individual cup of coffee at a time gaining popularity, but I tried to focus on the main way people get their caffeine fix, at least as we saw it).
U.S.
As you may know many people in the U.S. drink coffee from coffee pots that look like this:
Australia:
When we were in Australia in 2008 and 2009, a lot of instant coffee was consumed (the kind that you put into a glass with hot water, stir and drink.
Available in individual packets or a larger jar.
In Europe (or at least in Germany and Austria) the culture was more about going to get a cup of coffee to sit and talk with your friends. It was very common to meet at a coffee shop for a cup. But, whether either in a coffee shop or in someone's personal house coffee was made by a coffee machine that ground the beans (put whole coffee beans in the top), mixed them with water and would even froth your milk if you wanted. With the settings on the machine you could control how strong or light the coffee was. We were even given one of these machines with our apartment in Austria. I'm not much of a coffee drinker but Katy said it was really good coffee.
Here in Japan, most coffee is consumed in even a different way yet. Little cans of coffee seem to be the norm here. There are a lot of 'vending' machines around town that carry different kinds of coffee (as well as other things). But the vending machines will dispense the coffee cold or very hot depending on the type. And when I say hot I am not talking about dispensing the coffee into a cup, the actual can of coffee will come out hot. Everywhere we have gone in Japan I have seen these machines and it always seems like there are people using them. I know the guys on the team use them a lot.
Another popular place to get coffee is a convenience store. But again, its coffee in the cans again. I am actually not even sure if there is another way that you can buy coffee here (except of course in a restaurant or coffee shop) but otherwise I think it is all in a can.
A couple days ago we took the afternoon and went to a baseball game with our team. It was a good team activity (team bonding) and something fun to do outside of basketball.
Japanese baseball games are a little different from the standpoint of how the fans cheer. If you sit in one of the outfield bleacher sections you will be pretty much standing and cheering the whole time your team is up to bat. Whether you are for the home team or the away team there will be a section for you to do this if you want to. The fans don't just yell and clap, they have actual 'choreographed cheers.' For some of the cheers the person leading it will blow a whistle and you follow what he is doing. Other cheers are led by pounding on a big drum, while others are led with a trumpet (yes all this stuff is in outfield bleachers during the game - not sure if someone brings it in or if the team gives it to the fans). And of course what would a cheer section be without chants, claps and yelling peoples names? For the game we went to - the Orix Buffaloes (the team Ichiro used to play for) and the Seibu Lions fans even had 4 massive flags that they waved around while the home team, Buffaloes, were up to bat.
(At the end of the season last year Katy, Myla and I went and watched the Chiba Marines play the Soft Bank Hawks and it was the same with the chants, cheers and flags - really cool to see)
Then in the seventh inning you blow up ballons - balloons are long, like a bat, and everyone realeses them at the same time up into the air. For the 5-10 seconds the balloons are flying it is really cool to look around the stadium and see the teams colors floating through the air. Our coach was kind enough to get a bunch of balloons and we all got to participate. (Heres a little video so you can see what it is like)
The place we went to watch the game was the Osaka Dome (Osaka is a major city that is next to Kyoto). The dome itself sticks out a little bit, as it looks like a massive alien spaceship. No Joke. When we were walking up to this thing I couldn't help but think that if the world were going to end and I needed to get out I would come here, find a seat and wait for it to take off.
Picture your stereotypical flying saucer/alien spaceship looking thing.......got a picture in your head?.......yep, this is exactly what the dome looked like. It even had little lights on the side that pretty much said, "Im ready for blastoff."
When we got to the game and got our tickets we found out that we were in the upper deck. Forget the tractor beam, I thought with all the stairs we had to go up that we were marching right up to the cockpit of the mothership. I half expected to turn around and see something staring me in the face during the game. Luckily I was spared.
I guess though if it really is a stadium and it cant fly (which I find hard to believe) than I think it should be called a UnFO (Un-identifed non-flying object).
Whatever the thing is, we had a good time in it and enjoyed the time we spent there as a team. Hope you may get the chance to go to baseball game some day in Japan as it was a cool experience - both times were (whether it be somewhere else in Japan, in Osaka at the dome, or off in some far away galaxy when the spaceship takes off).
As you may have heard on the news, Kyoto was hit by a typhoon not too long ago and it affected a lot of people. 260,000 people were forced to evacuate and wait until the typhoon had passed.
As you can imagine a storm that had winds of over 100 mph could do some damage. In the days after the storm there were a lot of people/groups that volunteered to help out and our team was one of them.
I think there were different volunteer stations in different cities around the prefecture (state) of Kyoto (as Kyoto is a prefecture/state as well as a city) and we went and registered there. Then after a short wait we were off to where we were going to help.
A farmer on the outside of one of the local towns had a mudslide go over a road on his property that separated the back of his farm (or another small village - it was hard to understand with the translation difference). So we were all given shovels and gloves, hopped in some vehicles and headed to the farmers land to work. We were working on the side of a rice paddy and had a lot of dirt to clear. There must have been 20 of us working on this one area and it took us a number of hours to shovel all the dirt into the back of small trucks or wheelbarrows and make the road passable again.
It was definitely a good workout, digging and moving the dirt all day, but more importantly it was a good thing to do. We were able to help out the farmer who really needed it. Otherwise, he would have probably spent weeks clearing the mess up, valuable time he could be using doing something else.
(Filling the road/potholes with the dirt that took from the landslide pile)
On Friday Sept 13th, our daughter Haven was born. It has been amazing to get to meet the little one you have been talking and dreaming about the last 10+ months.
When we had her we waited to find out if it was going to be a boy or a girl and it was truly a great surprise! Many people had said that they thought it was going to be a boy, but both of us thought that it was going to be a girl.
The two weeks before she was born I was in Japan as the season is starting over here and I had to come to start practice. We were both a little worried that the little one was going to decide to come too soon and that I wouldn't be able to be there for the birth. But, she waited. Thanks Haven!
I think her big sister will be a great big sister and has already given her many kisses.
We couldn't be more happy with our two little girls and are absolutely loving life.
Well I made it back to Japan, and safely. Although it wasn't without a hiccup. This year to fly over to Japan I flew out of Milwaukee.
My flight went Milwaukee - Chicago - Tokyo - Osaka
When I got to the airport in Milwaukee everything was set on on time and I was good to go. When I got to Chicago though it was a different story. Instead of being on time the flight I had was delayed over 3.5 hours..... Fantastic. Not cool when you have a connection to make. So, I waited. Finally after some time and promise form the United Airlines workers in Chicago that the company employees in Tokyo would help either get me a different flight to Osaka or a hotel room I was ready to go. So we all got on the plane and.....more delay..... Excellent.
The flight was a good flight but I should have enjoyed something nice while I had the chance because things weren't so rosy in Tokyo.
When we got in, they had different lines that you had to go to depending on which kind of connecting flight you missed. If you had an international connection you had two different lines you could go to, or if you had a domestic flight that you missed you had a different line to go to. Since I missed my domestic connecting flight I moseyed into that line. The guy behind the makeshift table they had set up told me that there were no more flights to Osaka that evening and that I would have to wait until the morning to be able to fly. I had kind of guessed this much was going to happen as we got to the baggage claim (where the United people were waiting to help) at 8:30pm. I was a little disappointed but told the guy no problem as I would just hop on the flight in the morning.
But until then I needed somewhere to go. Because I missed my flight United should have paid for my hotel room right? Ha.
The United guy asked me where I was going to stay the night. I saw all the other people in the line being handed red and white vouchers for hotel rooms and said wherever you guys are going to have me stay. He left for a minute and came back. I thought it was going to be to hand me a voucher for the hotel room, instead he handed me some great advice. He told me that because my ticket was booked in two different parts: from Milwaukee to Tokyo and then from Tokyo to Osaka (I think the team did it this way to save a little money) they wouldn't give me a hotel room because their part of the ticket ended in Tokyo. My attempts to explain that if it wasn't for United's mistake I would have made my flight and there wouldn't be a need for us to be talking, fell on deaf ears. He graciously let me know though, that if I needed a place to sleep I could find myself some space out in the arrivals hall and sleep in the airport :) Thanks guy!
But, thats not all. After he told me that they wouldn't get me a hotel room, he went to switch my flight (luckily he didnt tell me I had to buy a whole new airplane ticket). He did however tell me that I would not be able to leave from the same airport I flew into. Instead I would have the privilege of flying out from the other Tokyo airport on the whole other side of Tokyo. How long does it take to get there you ask? A 1.5 hour bus ride..... Super!
I managed to talk the guy into paying for my bus ticket, and dog-tired made it to the other airport (almost slept through my stop). Once I got to the there I checked into the $140 hotel room I found, and got some sleep. The last leg of the trip from the other Tokyo airport to Osaka, and then the car ride from Osaka airport to my place in Kyoto went well, but my goodness what a disaster...... and feat of customer service.
I guess though, I did make it here safely and that's the most important thing.
