Kyle's World

Costco grabbed my money yet again today, 40,000 Yen to be exact. But Costco today wasn't even my primary intention. I drove to Fukuoka thinking I could grab a ticket and watch the first day of the Kyushu sumo tournament. But that wasn't to be, apparently they had already sold out. No problem, I'm always happy to unload my money at Costco. Some observations from this time around: I never thought Costco in Fukuoka could ever get to the busy levels seen back home at the Costco in Richmond, but boy did today ever come close. I wheeled around in my buggy, but the back of the store was super-clogged so I soon parked my cart and did my shopping by hand. And I think the people were on edge today...I watched a scene unfold in which the was nearly fisticuffs. You gotta remember to have patience when you go to Costco anyway, but there was this polite-looking Iranian family walking in the aisle. They couldn't move either since there was someone in front of them, and so on. Anyway, this old ojisan type comes behind them, and starts yelling to get out of the way. I actually think he was xenophobic. Then in perfect Japanese (not to mention a loud, booming voice) this Iranian father started yelling back, and so on. A short blurb of their conversation translated in English: ojisan says "get out of my way" polite foreigner says ""what are you talking about? I can't mover either" then the wheels rapidly fall off. ojisan says "don't yell back at me, damn you" polite foreigner says "leave me alone" then further along it was more like "shut the hell up" and "stop speaking to me". It was interesting to see the Costco staff come over and try to diffuse the situation. He gets in the middle, he's apologizing, then later he's telling the stupid ojisan to shut up also. I love it. There's no other place with such customer service as Japan. And there's no other place that starts fisticuffs like Costco. I remember one time I got in a fight at the Costco in Richmond over a parking space, and this was of course at my mom's urging that I don't lose the space. Fun times...

Looks like I wasted 1200 Yen supporting the wrong guy... 

So as you can see from the pics below, I went to a baseball game in Fukuoka today. It was my first time to the Fukuoka Dome. So good times all around. First I couldn't believe that my 5000 Yen ticket was only good enough for nosebleed seats. I thought surely my seats would be much closer to the action. It's too bad my friend Yoshiko ended up ditching out on the game, cuz I ended up going by myself. I know, I know, it's about time I got myself a girlfriend. Anyway, an observation about the game. A few rows below me sat a whole bunch of rowdy, foreigner ALT types. I say good on them for being in the spirit of the game. But the wheels fell right off shortly after they started engaging in the wave. I realised then and there why I despise the wave, and I scoff at the fans who try to start it. In this case it was a handful of gaijin among thousands of Japanese people which made it all the more funny. This girl went down to the front of our section to lead the wave. She kept shouting "ichi, ni, san" and then started the wave. But I guess her Japanese stopped cuz after that she merely pointed at the other sections as if that was going to make the wave catch on. She plugged away for about 4 or 5 times then mercifully returned to her seat. I thought perhaps that was the end of their shenanigans, but no, not even a couple innings later, they were at it again. This time their whole crew devoted 2 innings of the baseball game trying to do the wave. This one guy shouted random, undecipherable things in Japanese at the other sections. Thankfully the wave started and died in my section. I don't fault them for trying, but here's the deal about the wave. People who engage in the wave at sporting functions either haven't been paying attention to what's going on at field level or have gotten bored or drunk. So please don't do the wave at sporting events. I hope the Japanese fans in my section realised that I wasn't a part of that other group of gaijins.

picture 6: final boxscore. As expected, the MLB all-stars crushed the NPB all-stars. 

picture 5: the baseball super-fan 

picture 4: Big Papi David Ortiz himself, taking a swing for the fences 

picture 3: good Canadian kid, well at least good kid from a Canadian team. It's Brad Wilkerson of the Expos playing a mean first base. 

picture 2: Moises Alou patrolling right field 

Major League All-stars vs Japanese all-stars picture 1: view from my seats 

My friend Hide came to visit from Tokyo. Besides going for a basashi (raw horse meat) lunch, seeing Kumamoto castle along with celebrities, and going for a hot bath in Aso, we went to a kaiten sushi restaurant. For some reason the sushi chefs wanted to take a picture with us. Good times, 23 plates and two satisfied sushi chefs later... 

Celebrities at Kumamoto castle. What the heck were these two doing in Kumamoto on a random Sunday? 

Peanut butter and jam? Not quite. Tom and Jerry? Not quite. But yesterday's double dip of amusement was a good combination. After getting off work at 5:30, I went home for 15 minutes before Okamura san, my Toyono hostt father, picked me up. The plan? Go see Collateral because it was cheapy movie day as is always the case on the 1st of every month. We made it to the theatre in plenty of time. Of course I paid. Whenever I go out with the Okamura's, we always have a battle over who pays. I usually lose, but yesterday I flexed my muscle and won. So, movie review. Collateral was pretty good, it certainly held it's own in the action genre that Okamura san and I like. The plot has a few holes in it, but they don't detract from the flow of the movie. And it's interesting to see Tom Cruise as a villain, although we feel a little sypathetic to him. Anyway check it out, good bang for your buck. After the show, we went to the local Sakae sushi. I think their sushi is really good, but Okamura san thinks that it's a bit big. Anyway, delicious is delicious. So we sat, ate suhi, and I picked his brain about things that were still bothering me about Japanese culture. And for some reason, I also defeated Okamura san to pay for dinner. Final score Kyle 2, Okamura san 0.