Visit to Tokyo, College Baseball, Typhoon

Hello!

As I write this, I am coming back from a trip to Tokyo. Here in Japan, we have two long weekends in a row - there is a holiday on this Monday and then another one on the following Friday.

I took the chance this weekend to go to Tokyo to watch college baseball. In the past, I had head about a university baseball league that plays on the weekends at Jingu Stadium in Tokyo. Jingu is normally the home to pro baseball's Yakult Swallows.

I rode the shinkansen from Kobe after school on Friday to Tokyo and then went to the baseball games on Saturday.

The league is called the "Big6" because of the six universities that play in the league - Waseda University, Keio University, Meiji University, Hosei University, the University of Tokyo and Rikkyo University. From what I learned, leagues like this occur around Japan and there is a championship held sometime in November.

It also sounds like the college championship is held in conjunction with a fall high school championship in November - the high school teams play morning games at Jingu Stadium while colleges play in the afternoon.

The teams I watched followed similar customs as Japanese high school teams. There were greetings before and after the game between the teams, players coached the bases and the defensive team returned the baseball to the pitchers rubber during each defensive change.

There were also cheering sections down the first and third base lines. Each team brought cheerleaders and a band to play music. Unlike high school, though, it seemed like the bands played the entire game, not just went their team was at bat.

I took videos of the teams' pregame infield and outfield routine, which you can watch here. I also took some videos of the crowd atmosphere, which you can see here.

I was planning to go to two days of games, spending one day at Jingu and possibly the other day at ZOZO Marine Stadium in Chiba (I heard there were other university games happening there as well) but an incoming typhoon led to rain and cancellation of all games on Sunday.

The typhoon is a historically powerful one, and made landfall in southern Japan over the weekend. Based on the news, it is possibly the strongest to strike Japan.

Given the cancellation of games on Sunday and travel uncertainty on Monday, I headed back to Kobe one day ahead of schedule. Kobe is in western Japan and is due to be hit with more severe weather on Monday into Tuesday. I was not sure if I was going to be able to get home from Tokyo via train on Monday because of the weather, so I caught a train on Sunday night.

Reserving shinkansen (bullet trains) in Japan between Kobe and Tokyo is fairly easy - there is a train phone application that you can use to find trains. Lately, I have not needed to reserve trains until a few days in advance. On the return journey to Kobe, I made a reservation just over an hour before the train was due to depart.

If you are taking the train on holidays or busy travel weekends, it can sometimes be tough to find space on trains.

I have not yet tried to take domestic flights within Japan. The train is a much less stressful and more flexible way to go. I am able to arrive at Tokyo Station about a half hour before the train and that is more than enough time to get to your train and take the three hour ride to Kobe.

Cost-wise, given the US Dollar's recent gains against the yen, a one way trip between Tokyo and Kobe costs just over $100.

Speaking of the weakening yen, the Japanese government seems to be taking advantage of this, announcing even further loosening of travel restrictions. I do know know if the government has announced an exact date yet, but it sounds that as of October, Japan will allow individual travelers back into the country without the need for travel agency bookings.

This is essentially returning Japan travel to pre-pandemic practices. The only stipulation seems to be that you must be triple vaccinated.

Japan first opened to tourism a few months ago - requiring that travelers be part of a group tour with itineraries arranged by a travel agency. Then, individual travelers were permitted, but they must book set itineraries through travel agencies. Now, with the latest changes, travel agency booking will not be required - travelers will be free to travel Japan without a set itinerary.

Travel aside, at school this week, students are starting to work towards the annual music festival. Teachers also spent time after classes learning how to teach certain gymnastics moves.

Because Japanese elementary schools do not have specific gym teachers, all the teachers have to be familiar with how to do and teach the athletic moves. Upcoming gym classes were going to include several gymnastics-type routines, so the teachers had a half hour session on the routines. They even spent about 15 minutes rotating through and practicing all of them.

For some of the grades, especially among the older ones, there might be one teacher who takes on a particular subject. For instance, one fifth grade teacher might teach all of the gym classes, while another teaches English and another teaches math. This gives the teachers some "break" periods during the school day while their class is having gym class or another specific subject.

Usually, in 3rd and 4th grade, all of the classroom teachers teach English individually. For 5th and 6th grade, though, there is one teacher that I work with in that grade. Doing it the "5th and 6th grade way" makes it easier for me - I do not have to adjust for additional teachers.

For 3rd grade, for instance, we have had some issues because there is a new "main" English teacher in that grade. What will usually happen for 3rd and 4th grade is that there are 3 classrooms and 3 teachers for each grade. Among them, they will designate one teacher to be the "main" English teacher - so that teacher will determine the English lesson plan for all of the grades classes for that week.

After the main teacher determines the lesson plan, all of the other teachers in the grade follow the same plan. For 3rd grade, we have had an issue in which the main teacher follows a different plan than what is written down, which can cause some difficulty between me and the other teachers.

I have to sometimes tell those teachers that the other teacher made changes and we are not doing what is written down on the lesson plan. This makes it difficult to keep them involved in the lesson and have it go smoothly.

I spoke to the teachers about this issue last week, so we will hopefully solve it for future classes.

Other than that, the office manager for the school has been closing the staff room doors lately. All the doors in the school are sliding-style doors. They do not open inward or outward but instead slide side to side.

The students are not supposed to come into the staff room - there is actually a note on the door that gives them a script to follow if they need someone or something from inside the staff room.

The script usually starts with them knocking on the door, once the door is open they will say something like "excuse me, sorry to create a disturbance" and then state who they are, what grade and class they are from and what they need.

The office manager has been trying to get the students to be better about sticking to the script. So she has been closing the door. This forces the kids to knock and go through the script.

If the door is open, the students will sometimes just hang on the door and yell into the room, which they are not supposed to do.

Pictures from another bike ride and Tokyo are included below. I almost forgot to mention that during the bike ride, which was about 40 miles, I had a tire blowout right at the halfway point. Thankfully there was a bike shop about a 15 minute walk away that was able to fix the bike.

Next week, I am planning to go to the Tottori region for a few days. Hopefully will have some information from that in the next update!

Until next time,