Go GO Swallows!

This morning I woke up to head to the Museum district and was greeted on the subway platform by some sketchy black dude from the '2nd St & Avenue B' but who hadn't been back to NYC in 22 years and from what I could tell just travels the works wherever he feel like with his 'wife' and band mate (he's the drummer in a blues/rap band).  It was 10am and he was on his way for a 2 hour subway ride to the beach to meet his wife and kid, coming straight from the after hours club and about '10 drinks deep'.  I didn't know what to make of this character, but I humored him for my 25 minute ride as he just talked about all different places and generally characterized places as sweet or 'like Hollywood Blvd at 10pm' which I can't say I understood despite having just been on Hollywood Blvd at 10pm last week.

After a day of museum browsing:

I spent the night with 25,000 fellow Tokyo Yakult Swallows fans (actually half were for the Swallows, half for the hated opponent - the Yomiuri Giants) at Jingu Stadium tonight only to watch my new favorite Japanese baseball team fall to the team commonly referred to the "Tokyo Yankees".  The scene was phenomenal.  People were going nuts the whole game, banging noise makers and singing special songs for every player and whenever the home Swallows scored the whole stadium breaks out these mini umbrellas and does a whole choreographed umbrella raising dance to celebrate.

  

Half of the stadium seemed to be set aside for the Giants fans, which seemed appropriately Japanese and polite.  Concessions were predictably bizarre with all sorts of noodle dishes and dinner plates that you have no idea what's in them.

  The fan favorite was a canadian dude named Aaron Guiel who hit a home run and made a sliding grab the next inning, stoking the already electric crowd.  Every time he hit, people broke out Canadian flags, sang the beginning of 'Oh Canada' and then chanted "Go-Go-GuiEL" over and over until his at bat was over.  Amazing.

All in all it may have been the most enjoyable experience here.  On to Beijing in the morning, excited for a change of scenery, but no complaints about Tokyo and the Japanese in the least.