Life Post-Ph.D. Part II

Saturday, July 19
Eri and Noriko

Yumi and I went up to Tokyo to meet two of her friends from her Bradford (England) days, Eri and Noriko. We met them for lunch and then walked around the Harajuku area of Tokyo including the very cool Ometesando Mall. I would describe this area as the Rodeo Drive of Tokyo. It had every high class store I'd ever heard of and more: Gucci, Luis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo Shoes, Prada... Not my kind of thing but fun to gawk.

Carp vs. Swallows

Later in the day, we met up with my friend and fellow Hiroshima Carp fan, Tomo for their game against the Yakult Swallows in Jingu. What was different was the new stadium. Jingu was the third stadium I've seen the Carp play in (the other two being the Tokyo Dome and Yokohama Stadium). The thing that was the same was the result; the Carp lost again. I'm now 0-4. I did get to see the "famous" 7th inning rituals: Carp fans release hundreds of colorful balloons and Swallows fans do their umbrella dance.

A few observations: instead of peanuts and popcorn, it's noodles and rice balls. The fans are really fanatics; the Carp fans we're cheering like crazy in the top of the 9th inning while losing 8-1 (they eventually lost 8-3).

Saturday, July 26

Sea Paradise

Yumi actually had to work on this Saturday at the Sea Paradise amusement park. She is a trainer for foreigners working for Japanese companies and she chaperoned her trainee group to the amusement park for the traditional Japanese summer festival. The amusement park is only a 20 minute bicycle ride from our apartment, so in the evening, I rode over and joined them to watch some traditional dancing and music and for the fireworks show. After the show I unhappily discovered that my bike tire was flat, so I took the train home, then went back the next day, walked the bike for an hour to a bike shop and had it fixed.