Season Opener vs. Yomiuri at Meiji Jingu Stadium

It was kind of a wet weekend, that Friday, Saturday and Sunday when the 2008 season began for the teams of NPB's central league. The Tokyo derby was hosted at Jingu stadium and we were there for all three games.

The rain was particularly bad for the Sunday game after Tokyo had already beat Yomiuri easily in the first two games of the series. I had publicly stated before the series that Yomiuri was the team to beat this season, but they sure didn't look like it during that first series. Tokyo won all three games: 6-2 (Fri); 6-3 (Sat); 10-2 (Sun) leading to a central league table that looked very different from last year's.

Luke and Sally were back in town that weekend, so they were able to make it to the game on Sunday when the clouds emptied. Stephen, Miyoko and Reina were there as well (Stephen and Miyoko only like to come to games when it's raining), and we were able to have a bit of fun once it became obvious that the game was out of reach and the mighty Giants had all but given up.

The Swallows pitching is still a little shaky, but the upshot is that there are a lot of young arms in the rotation, so that can only mean good things for the future. Additionally, it looks like we may finally have a reliable closer in the bullpen. Chang-yong Im (last name sometimes romanized as Lim) throws really hard (94-95 mph) for a sidearm pitcher, and he has been fantastic thus far. I'm guardedly optimistic about him at this point. It's still early, so we'll see what happens when opposing teams have seen him a few times.

Season Opener vs. Yomiuri at Meiji Jingu Stadium

New Translator Needed

I don't know where he snapped this shot, but my good friend, Scott Lawson, sent this one to me.

The kanji on the right can be approximately translated as "don't use", but apparently that wasn't the nuance they were going for.

New Translator Needed

Baseball Season and a Revamped Jingu Stadium

I can't believe that we're more than three weeks into April already and I haven't mentioned baseball yet. Well, I did, but not here.

I've been to seven games so far this season, which is kind of a weak tally for me. There have been a few rained out games so far, and I had planned to be at Jingu stadium for two of them, so mother nature is partly responsible for my slack attendance thus far.

Jingu stadium has been slightly revamped. There's new turf and new hi-tech scoreboards in both center-field and on top of the stands behind home plate. The turf looks gorgeous, but the scoreboards, which are the largest ones in use in Japan at this point, are still not being used to their full potential. The scorers sacrificed two columns of real estate on the left and right sides of the center-field scoreboard to advertising, so it is no longer possible to view the players' batting averages unless they're batting. That needs to change. Another problem with the scoreboards, or the people operating them really, is the fact that they still don't show replays of nice defensive plays. Much like during the former scoreboard's tenure, the only pieces of action worth replaying are home runs.

The corners of the outfield were moved out 10 meters at the foul poles as well. This means that it's now 101 meters to the left and right field poles which is about three feet further than the average professional ballpark in Japan. Straight-away center-field still sits 120 meters from home plate. Several rows of 1,900 yen seats were sacrificed for the expansion of the field, but the home team's pitching staff has breathed a collective sigh of relief that a few extra longballs will stay in the park this season.

As mentioned earlier, the new turf is beautiful, and it seems to absorb the momentum of the baseball a lot like natural grass does. The only thing that the players will have to be wary of is the fact that those artificial blades of grass are pretty slick when it rains. I've seen position players, and umpires, hit the deck on several occasions when making otherwise routine runs on the new surface.

Other than that, most stuff at the park are the same. The food's the same, the fans are the same, the team...is actually quite different, but I'll save that for another post.

Oh! One thing that is different is that there's a new t-shirt stand outside the stadium near where members of the fan club pick up their tickets. Grand Slam Sports Enterprises has begun producing a revolving line of unique t-shirts that are more in line with the thought patterns of the diehard Tokyo Swallows fan than what was previously available through the team's official catalog. I was fortunate enough to be able to chat with one of the main guys at Grand Slam before the game on Sunday, and he seems to have a lot of good ideas about promoting the team through a variety of well-designed and wearable t-shirts.

The t-shirt pictured here is a typical example of what they have to offer, and it cost me 2,500 yen. If it's not obvious, the "We are Tokyo" message is alluding to the fact that there are two teams located within the borders of the metropolis, but the claim to being Tokyo's team has been decided.

It sounds like Grand Slam is going to bring out some new designs every couple of weeks, so be sure to check back every so often and see if they have your favorite player's tee out there. It sounds like they will be offering a lot of limited edition t-shirts this season.

I'm hoping that they make an Iihara t-shirt soon because the team has been so slow to make shirts for some of their young stars (unless they're pitchers). Grand Slam Sports Enterprises is being billed as one of the official t-shirt outlets for the Tokyo Swallows fan club this year.

Baseball Season and a Revamped Jingu Stadium

Fingerprinting and Photographing: Japanese Immigration

Just for fun, I thought I'd throw this pic in here.

This is from our return leg to Japan (from Korea). As most people know, the new fingerprinting regime has long since been in place, and unlike other nations with similar systems in place for documenting foreign tourists, Japan likes to book all foreigners every time they enter/re-enter the country (even if they already pay taxes here).

Anyway, we were given this piece of paper after we were told to stand in the wrong line. It's intended to help them figure out how long people are standing in line. The immigration officials that are in charge or shepherding the hundreds of people coming off the planes every half hour stay on the move and try not to stand in one place for very long. It's mostly an act of self-defense as they know that everyone is angry and they are trying not to become a target for verbal abuse. One annoying side effect, at least in our case, is that they tend not to listen very well when they are walking around, so we wasted about 15 minutes in the mile-long line for tourists.

Apparently they have set up another line for people with re-entry permits (people who live and work/study in Japan) in their passports in order to expedite the process, but it was quite a challenge for us to figure out where that line was located. The immigration officials spent a lot of time escorting VIP's through gaps in the line to avoid fingerprinting/mug shot taking. Quick question: everyone knows that politicians are criminals, so shouldn't they be prime suspects for post-landing booking?

Well, we finally got ourselves in the correct line, and after a computer failure and the requisite reshuffling of the lines of people, we made it through immigration at about 2:21 pm. That's 31 minutes after we started standing in line according to the sheet of paper pictured above left. I have no idea how their system of checking waiting time works, but our case probably skewed some of their results. We undoubtedly spent less time in line than the tourists did (by my estimates they were waiting for 45-60 minutes), so if they use our 31 minute wait as evidence that the system is getting faster, then this post is evidence that they need to double-check their methods.

Endnote: when the computer was restarted after it crashed, it was just hilarious/ironic to see the Windows OS screen appear on the monitor as it rebooted.

Check this website, Re-entry Japan, for more information on this topic.

Fingerprinting and Photographing: Japanese Immigration

Weird English at the Stationery Store

I make a point of visiting stationery stores when I go to Korea. It's a one stop shop for all of your study and souvenir needs.

It's also one of my favorite places to find wacky permutations of the English language, many of them worthy of admission at Engrish.com.

One such example is pictured to the right. This is a shopping/gift bag that was on sale at a shop in front of Busan National University.

Intending to spruce the text up with a little extra English, the designer of this bag unwisely opted for plagiarizing the first 22 words of an article in the JoongAng Daily English newspaper (which can be found here). The resulting creation is just plain weird.

On the plus side, at least this example is grammatically correct except for the fact that it's a sentence fragment.

Weird English at the Stationery Store

Chicken and Beer

One of the staples of the Korean culinary landscape, at least if one heads out to eat, is chicken. And beer. There are shops everywhere that sell the two together. It's a wonderful thing.

The accompanying shot is of a shop near my brother-in-law's new apartment. Chicken in abundance. The place is called "Boor", but it should be spelled "bueo" when romanized. I'm being a bit nitpicky, but I think it's obvious why the proprietor chose the spelling that she did.

How else would they be able to borrow the Hooters logo that is the central part of the storefront advertising? Incidentally, Seoul got it's first Hooters last year.

Intellectual property rights aside, this type of advertising plagues the nation of Korea. It's no wonder that nobody seems to give a hoot about architecture because the building's facade is going to be plastered with these vinyl encased beds of fluorescent lights anyway.

Apparently there are moves afoot up in Seoul to cut down on this type of advertising. One can only hope that it catches on nationwide.

Until then, I'll try to get my brother-in-law to pop by this place and check what type of outfits the waitresses wear.

Chicken and Beer

Mitsui Outlet Park Iruma

**Although it's no longer new, this post continues to draw a lot of interest. I have therefore updated it slightly to remove some of the information that is no longer relevant. Updated July 7th, 2011.

A new outlet shopping center, Mitsui Outlet Park Iruma (三井アウトレットパーク 入間) opened in Saitama this week, and we paid the place a visit yesterday afternoon. It's big.

We found some good "opening" sales, but not every shop was providing shocking discounts.

I counted no less than 204 outlets in my facilities map. Important details that I discovered during my wanderings through the enormous two-floor mall: expensive coffee can be purchased at a few different places including the Tully's coffee shop on the second floor near the bus terminal exit, cheap coffee can be found near the register at the Family Mart convenience store on the first floor; in terms of sportswear, Puma had the coolest shoes and Nike the best prices; there's a food court on the second floor called "Forest Kitchen" if you're in search of slightly cheaper fare--bento (boxed lunches) and onigiri (rice balls) can, of course, be found in the Family Mart; kids with just a little too much energy can be brought to Club Yu Kids on the second floor next to Family Mart.

Transportation

The closest train station is Iruma-shi on the Seibu-Ikebukuro line. But then it's a 20 minute bus ride from the station to the outlets (map in Japanese).

Or at least it would be on a normal weekend. As you can see from the picture to the right, there were lines to get into some of the shops, and the place was packed even though it was a weekday. The free shuttle bus from Musashino-fujisawa station was supposed to take only 15-20 minutes, but it ended up being about a one-hour-trip because of the traffic (shuttle bus service will cease after Golden Week 2008). Mitsui Outlet Park is equipped with six separate parking areas, so they're prepared for the onslaught, but the poor roads surrounding the place aren't. The shuttle bus approaches the outlets from a right turn lane on route 16 that doesn't have a protected green light, so a vehicle is able to squeeze through oncoming traffic about once every two to four minutes. It's ridiculous.

I recommend paying for a bus ticket from Iruma-shi station instead. It should cost between 190 and 300 yen per person (there are several buses that head toward Mitsui Outlet Park including the number 30 and 31), and the buses won't get as bogged down in traffic because they don't try to turn into the poorly governed entrance. Actually, I can't swear that the number 30 doesn't turn into the parking lot as it's a new line set up specifically for the shops and we didn't take it. We did, however, take the 31 back from the shops, and that took 20 minutes on the nose. That bus goes to Iruma-shi station as well. It cost 190 yen per person. The bus stop is across the street from the outlets to the left of the Eneos gas station.

Mitsui Outlet Park and Costco

This is Mitsui's fourth, and largest, outlet mall in the Kanto region. They also have shops in western Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. While not the easiest to get to on busy days, the Iruma outlets carry the added bonus of sitting directly adjacent to a Costco wholesale market. For those who aren't familiar with the many wonders available at the giant wholesaler (membership required to shop there), you're missing out! Membership cards work at all 500+ Costco's worldwide, and the range of items sold there is shocking. Additionally, Costco's little dining area provides a cheap, albeit not very healthy, alternative to the pricier food in the restaurants in the outlet mall. Remember those huge slices of pizza and bottomless cups of cola? Yup, Costco in Japan is pretty much the same as back home. Membership for one person/family costs 4,200 yen (per year).

Anyway, the place is worth a visit, but I recommend waiting a week or two, or maybe until after Golden Week. There's something for everyone--from LEGO Clickbrick to Coach accessories, from Fred Perry to Bose, and from BCBGMAXAZRIA to Franc franc.

Mitsui Outlet Park Iruma

Changwon Starbucks has Smoking Lounge

Changwon city, South Korea, is a rapidly growing city. It sits about 50 minutes west of Busan by bus, and it's one of the only properly planned cities in the country. Canberra, Australia, apparently, was used as a template for the city.

The population is still rather small, but it's attracting jobs and development like few other municipalities. What that happens, the chains come flocking.

This is a picture from the inside of the city's first Starbucks. It's massive. The one thing that I found to be different about this particular shop was the fact that it is the first Starbucks I've seen with my own eyes that has a smoking room in it. I have no idea why Starbucks felt compelled to do that as the Korean citizenry is quite amenable to the idea that smoking should be done outside.

Starbucks outlets in Japan, by all accounts a much more tobacco-friendly nation, have ashtray-equipped tables outside their outlets.

Changwon Starbucks has Smoking Lounge