By sheer coincidence, I was in Japan for the opening weekend of their baseball season.
I'm not sure how I found out, but I wanted to go to a game. This had long been on my "to do" list, and it helped that I like baseball.
I tried to buy some tickets online, but all the systems were completely unhelpful. Instead I went directly to the stadium on game day and tried to find some tickets. Even that was a exercise in patience as all I found was ticket booth after ticket booth that was closed. It didn't seem like it would be happening. Finally, I got to the very last ticket booth and found that it was indeed open. All that was left were some standing room tickets.
They were cheap, so that was fine by me.
I was lucky. I was watching opening day between the Yomiuri Giants (the Yankees of Japanese baseball) and the Yakult Swallows. It was a completely full stadium, but I still found myself a nice spot to stand along the 3rd base line.
The cleanliness of the stadium was nothing I had ever seen before. I had been to a hockey game in Switzerland, but this was even cleaner. The convenience of everything was also incredible as the stadium had girls with beer kegs on their backs who would bring the beers directly to you. I thought about whether this was something which could be done in Australia, but then thought the better of it. This would be a terrible idea in Australia!
The best part of whole experience was the fans.
The Japanese fans are the classiest fans I have ever had the pleasure of attending any sporting event with. Standing in my spot watching the game, I was surrounded by others who also clearly only had standing room tickets. After a while, there were probably a few rows deep of people watching the game. Around the 7th inning, I needed to go to the bathroom so I politely moved away from my perfect spot at the front to go to use the facilities. Too bad I've lost the spot I thought. After finishing my business, I made my way back to the general area to keep watching the game and I was confronted by something truly shocking.... the other fans had saved my spot. As they saw me coming, they even all opened up a path so that I could walk back to the exact same spot I had been standing in!
The Giants got ahead quickly. As home runs were hit, the crowd roared and began to do seemingly choreographed chants and dances (in their seats of course). Scarves waved in the air at the precise moment of the chants. It was a special thing to see, this crowd all moving and cheering in unison. On the other side of the stadium, the fans for the Yakult Swallows danced and played their musical instruments. I've been lucky to go to a few sporting events around the world, but for the atmosphere this was definitely one of the best places I had been.
I'm not sure how I found out, but I wanted to go to a game. This had long been on my "to do" list, and it helped that I like baseball.
I tried to buy some tickets online, but all the systems were completely unhelpful. Instead I went directly to the stadium on game day and tried to find some tickets. Even that was a exercise in patience as all I found was ticket booth after ticket booth that was closed. It didn't seem like it would be happening. Finally, I got to the very last ticket booth and found that it was indeed open. All that was left were some standing room tickets.
They were cheap, so that was fine by me.
I was lucky. I was watching opening day between the Yomiuri Giants (the Yankees of Japanese baseball) and the Yakult Swallows. It was a completely full stadium, but I still found myself a nice spot to stand along the 3rd base line.
The Japanese fans are the classiest fans I have ever had the pleasure of attending any sporting event with. Standing in my spot watching the game, I was surrounded by others who also clearly only had standing room tickets. After a while, there were probably a few rows deep of people watching the game. Around the 7th inning, I needed to go to the bathroom so I politely moved away from my perfect spot at the front to go to use the facilities. Too bad I've lost the spot I thought. After finishing my business, I made my way back to the general area to keep watching the game and I was confronted by something truly shocking.... the other fans had saved my spot. As they saw me coming, they even all opened up a path so that I could walk back to the exact same spot I had been standing in!
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