Urawa Reds Game!

My dear friend and #1 Urawa Reds fan Chie invited me to one of their last home games for the J-League season. I went with her and another friend to a charity game back in April, but this was entirely different and way more awesome (aside from the fact that they lost 0-3).

Chie and her husband are season ticket holders for the Reds, but her husband couldn't go to this game so I got to use his seat instead. I don't think I've ever been to a game of any professional sport in America, so this was SUPER exciting! The cheer section, the flags, all the sort of Engrish-y fight songs, even the booing was great. I didn't know you were supposed to boo at the opposing team's top players and ignore the other guys.

That cheer section is organized and HUGE.

At each Reds home game, they feature one of the players on certain pieces of merchandise. That night was Tsukasa Umesaki's night, so fans sitting in a special Wonder Seat section got to take home Umesaki bobblehead dolls and everyone received a trading card with his photo and stats. There was even cheer song dedicated to him!

Not a bad looking j-boy.

Unfortunately the Reds lost the game. I don't know much about soccer so I wouldn't be able to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, but the Reds seemed like they were lagging a bit. One of their star players, Genki Haraguchi (who I love mostly because I can read all of the kanji in his name), got run over in the first 10 minutes and never seemed to recover. He was limping by the end of the game. They couldn't hold onto the ball and were just kinda MEH the whole time.

#12 is reserved for Reds fans!

I'd say they lost to a better team, but the refs screwed up a few calls (like forgetting to call one of the Reds' players back in, forcing them to play a man down for a while) and the other team kept pulling drama queen antics. YEAH I'M SURE OUR GUY REALLY HIT YOU SO HARD THAT YOU JUST HAD TO CURL UP IN THE FETAL POSITION ON THE SIDE, YOU DESERVED THAT YELLOW CARD YOU FAKER. AND OTHER IWATA GUY WHO TRIPPED A REDS PLAYER, YOU DESERVED YOUR YELLOW CARD, TOO.

Some people are calling this game the worst of the season, but that's okay. The next time I watch a Reds game I'm sure they'll win and be amazing!

BIRTHDAY POST

My birthday was last week YAY. But I haven't updated this blog for TWO weeks, so here we go~

Two weeks ago I went to my first Urawa Reds game! It was a charity game against Yamagata to raise money for those affected by the earthquake and tsunami. I went with two friends I "inherited" from the teacher I replaced back in February, and they used to teach some of the players' kids so they are BIG fans of the Reds. It was my first time to see the Saitama Stadium, where they played some World Cup games back in 2002. It is possible my brother has those very games on a VHS tape somewhere. The Reds didn't have a cheer section that day so I wasn't able to hear the slightly Engrish Urawa Reds fight song, but I still had a good time. We won the game and I gave a nice sum of money to some cute player afterward (who wasn't Genki, unfortunately).

The day after the game, I went to the Aeon Laketown mall to go explore. Apparently it is the largest mall in all of Japan, and I can believe that. I can usually conquer a mall in a day, but this one was a little overwhelming. Didn't help that I was kind of sick and and I got to experience a lovely 6.6 magnitude earthquake while I was there. I kind of thought I was going to die, or at least get stranded on the Musashino line. No photos, unfortunately, but just imagine a really nice and spacious American mall transplanted into Japan.

This past weekend, I FINALLY WENT CLUBBING OMG. Half-dragged Tracy and Marissa to my faaaaavorite club evarrrrr --- ATOM. Lots of j-boys with crazy hair, lots of good music, and lots of fake eyelashes on my face (see photo). Finished work at about 7pm, met up with the ladies at about midnight, and came home about 7am the next morning. Can't be pulling too many of those anymore, but I had a blast.

I should really buy a legal copy of Photoshop now that I can afford one.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but drunk Japanese people are HILARIOUS. We don't have to do much to stand out anywhere in Japan, since we're gaijin and all, but crazy people kept coming up to us. My favorites were a group of kickboxers with one non-kickboxer friend who kept asking us to punch them in their stomachs, because obviously they can handle it. Not sure if he wanted to be punched, but I personally made sure non-kickboxer friend wasn't left out.

I spent most of the next day sleeping and went to Gyu-Kaku later in the evening with a friend. I couldn't read the menu or anything useful, but I do know I ate a lot of really good meat and cow tongue. There were no $7 pitchers of Kirin or dipping sauce trio like we have in Hawaii (they had shoyu, oil, spicy stuff and minced garlic on the side), but IT WAS SO GOOD OMG. Too bad I didn't think about taking pictures until after I was already full. 

$30 meat platter YUMMMMM.

See the fatty meat in the shoyu? DELICIOUS.

The next day, which was this past Monday if you haven't been keeping track, I met up with Tracy and Marissa so they could take me out to dinner for my birthday. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe at the bottom of some hotel/fancy shopping mall and I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I MISS AMERICAN FOOD. Never thought I'd ever miss nachos and barbeque chicken. Some lucky person had a birthday early during dinner and there was a big show about it, so OF COURSE I got the same treatment at the end of our dinner. I was slightly embarrassed but I thought it was very sweet of the girls to do that for me. I got an ice cream brownie sundae, a big Hard Rock photo keychain, and a 15% off coupon for the gift shop which I promptly used to buy a Hello Kitty Hard Rock cell phone strap. SUPER SUGOI.

And this past week I've been getting all kinds of boxes and packages from my family for my birthday! Here's a big photo of most of the stuff I've gotten:

I didn't even know Tokidoki made a charity shirt!!! IT'S SO AWESOME. I love it as much as Caroline loves her floppy hat and I wish I could wear it every time I look at it~

Thank you to everyone who made my birthday special~ I look forward to one more kindofnotreallybirthday thing next week with my two coworkers who had birthdays recently, too. BECAUSE I LOVE THEIR CHICKEN FACES (inside joke, don't worry about it).