Baseball

Sushi delivery!

After spending days travelling around Kyushu, on Tuesday we stayed in Fukuoka.  We had a nice easy morning, doing the chores (laundry, tidy up etc), catching up on Tom's scrapbook and reading and generally enjoying not rushing around.

We then headed to Yodobashi Camera for lunch - Tom's choice, so it was shinkansen sushi, however, this time the sushi wasn't delivered on a shinkansen, it was delivered by an F1 car instead.  Just as novel, and we probably all over-ate somewhat (my tummy seems to have settled down now - so no ill affects this time).

The washing up...

We then walked to a shop Matt had found for me: 'Kitchen Paradise'.  I am after a Japanese knife to cut my cakes with.  All my knives at home tend to crush the cake when I cut them.  If anyone makes a knife to combat this, the Japanese do, so I gave Matt the challenge of finding me one during this holiday.  He found this kitchen shop so we went along.  It was quite small, but the owner was incredibly helpful.  She knew exactly what we were after and instead of trying to sell me one of her limited supply, she called another specialist knife shop to check if they had any.  They did, and it was in walking distance, so she printed off a map for us and sent us on our way.  How kind.

We found the shop - it was a proper knife shop and they were waiting for us.  We have been sold what is called a Castella Knife which has a long, rounded and very flat blade which is supposed to be great at cutting sponge - especially when you heat it up with hot water.  The blades on offer went from £50 to £190.  I decided on the £50 one and am looking forward to testing it out when I can.  Tom got very excited, he really wants to make me a cake now so I can try it out.

Tsuyoshi Wada - the Hawks' starting pitcher

After that we found a coffee shop for tea and a bun before heading to a second hand camera shop where Matt found his dream lens at a much reduced price, so that was purchased too.  It was a good shopping day as Tom had also bought himself another Japanese train to add to his collection (this time a freight train).



We had a little look round the other shops in the area as we were now in Tenjin, the main shopping area of Fukuoka.  We were hoping to get Tom another jimbei but have so far drawn a blank, mainly we think because it isn't summer yet and they only come out then.  We weren't successful!

Enjoying the game.

Next on the agenda was to find a bus to Fukuoka Dome as we had tickets for the baseball game tonight.  The bus seemed to take an age to get there, but we got there with half an hour to spare and joined the throngs of supporters into the dome.  Wow!  It was huge and full of families - there were babes in arms, loads of toddlers, teenagers, those in their 20s right through to those in their 70s - it certainly is a night out for all ages.  The atmosphere was great.  We got Tom some baseball bat-shaped megaphones - most people had them, you bang them together to a beat to help create the atmosphere.

The 7th inning stretch

It was a great night out, we all really enjoyed ourselves.  We saw the local team (Soft Bank Hawks) vs The Marines (from Chiba) with 35,000 people in a stadium with a closed roof.  Matt had to explain most of what was going on to start of with, but we soon got to grips with it and got into the swing of things.  Towards the end I was even able to join in the chants.  The Hawks started off well, getting lots of strike outs and scoring 4 runs, but when they changed pitcher, the Marines scored 4 runs - we were most upset.  The game continued to be a draw until the end of the 9th inning.  They then went into extra innings, but as it was already 9.30 we left to get home (very efficient we walked out of the stadium and found a huge line of empty buses ready to take us straight to Hakata - brilliant).  We were glad we left when we did as after extra innings they were still 4:4 and the game was declared a draw.

Oh - we had our tea at the stadium - and it was mediocre! Tepid takoyaki and chicken bits with cold chips for 3,000 yen (including drinks).  So, pretty much the most expensive meal and worst meal!  Nice to know they can't do stadium food either.

AND, guess what, I took my new knife into the stadium.  When we went in our bags were searched - but for beer and wine, not super sharp knives!  Only in Japan!!!!!!!!!!!!