Baseball!!!!!!

I am getting a little bit out of sequence here but on Friday 15th April, Mami and I travelled to Hiroshima to watch the Hiroshima Carps, our baseball team, play the Tokyo Giants.

The trip to Hiroshima is an hour by car or a half hour by shinkansen. I love train travel so I persuaded Mami to make the trip by ‘Densha’ which is the equivalent of our trains, except that they run on time. The trip by densha took 2 hours and ran the scenic route around the coastline, stopping at towns along the way. It was a very relaxing trip and nice to travel in a train where you could still open a window to get some fresh air. Mami was so surprised by how much she enjoyed the ride she chose to travel home by densha the next day instead of using the shinkansen.
On arriving in Hiroshima at 12.00 noon we put our bag in a locker at the station and had a look around the city before booking into our hotel. It was a nice hotel and true to Mami’s diligent research, also very cheap with breakfast thrown in.
Then it was off to the game. The ballpark was walking distance from the hotel, so after purchasing a Bento Box (packaged meal), we joined the throng making their way through the twilight to the game.

Giants started very well with 3 runs in the first innings and then there was no scoring from either team until the seventh innings where Carp scored 2 runs. In the eighth innings we kept Giants scoreless and scored a run to equal the game. The ninth and final innings saw Giants steal the lead back with another run and with the Carps two out and the third batter, Ishihara, who was discarded by another team because he was too old, on two strikes and no balls I thought it was game over. However Ishihara toughed it out fouling numerous balls and astutely leaving any pitch that was not a strike and after about 12 pitches finally got a walk to first. The crowd, including Mami and I went wild. Ishihara was then replaced by a pinch runner who stole first on the next pitch. More furious cheering!! The next batter hit a one base centre field hit which brought the runner home and the crowd went bananas!! Unfortunately the next batter went out, leaving us with a 4-4 draw in a very close and exciting game. It was a great night.
The balloons you see in the picture are released in the home team’s seventh inning and have whistles attached so when they are set free the air coming out of the balloon sounds the whistle. It sounds like a bombing raid with thousands of these balloons released simultaneously. As you can see the crowd really gets involved in the game and becomes a spectacle in itself.
We needed a calming ride home on the densha the next day to unwind from the previous night’s excitement.