After missing two seasons, I was finally able to see my first Japanese baseball game! In Japan, they take their baseball seriously. Baseball is a serious sport. Sapporo’s baseball team is called the Nippon Ham Fighters. Notice the clever company advertising subtly inserted into the team name? As a bonus, everyone receives a free stick of ham from their sponsors upon entry! I’ll be honest, baseball isn’t all that really interesting to watch. There’s the occasional grand-slam and moments of excitement, but mostly it’s waiting around for those exciting moments to happen (unless you really like the pitching). Give me a good hockey game any day. What I was looking forward to about watching a match wasn’t the baseball… but the crowd! Japanese fans are all kinds of awesome and completely justify the sole reason for going to a game. First off, each team has their own section where everyone is decked out in their team’s color weaving the ubiquitous plastic noise-makers. Heaven forbid you wear a white jersey in the yellow section, but this being Japan you would probably be politely relocated to your ‘proper’ section, free of charge, of course (compared to other countries and sports where you’d get beat down for this). Secondly, there are music sections! Each team has their own dedicated ‘band’ of taiko drums and brass instruments that blare out unique rhythms and chants for each player. I especially like Keisuke’s (or was it Ishii’s?) chant where, with a cue from the band, the audience all stand up and jump on the spot. Accompanying the rumble throughout the stands is the trippy feeling you get watching the thousands of people bobbing up and down. It’s like doing The Wave but getting seasick at the same time. Aside from the game itself was the constant barrage of entertainment - from the cheerleaders, the mascot B.B., the plethora of colorful, dancing (and random) mascots promoting something or other, or the audience itself. The Fighters lost, unfortunately, but there was plenty to watch and it was an exciting game nonetheless. For my first baseball game in Japan, I give it two 'hams up.

Part 4
Continuing our road trip of Eastern Hokkaido, I took her to all the natural locations of Eastern Hokkaido I’d explored in the Summer but had yet to see in the Winter. The first, beautiful view of frozen Lake Kussharo was enough to stave off the wind that battered us from all directions. Following the shore around Lake Kussharo brought us to Sunayu with its Nessie-like mascot, Kusshie. In the summer, Sunayu is a famous destination to have foot baths in the sand, as you can read here. In the Winter, the warm sands prevent the ice from melting and hordes of swans come to be fed bread crumbs by easily-amused tourists! In this hotbed of geothermal activity, just further up the road was the onsen town of Kawayu and sulphuric gas mountain, Iozan. I’d planned on making a visit up to serine Lake Masshu but, unbeknownst to me, the mountain road is closed and unplowed during the Winter months. We carried on to Abashiri (where I was the week before for Queens of the Drift Ice) to have a late lunch at a tiny train station café that served home-made hamburger and katsudon. We’d planned on going drift ice cruising and snowmobiling but the warm weather still kept the drift ice away and we’d arrived too late to go snowmobiling. After a round-trip tour of Eastern Hokkaido and a few hundred kilometers later, we made our way back home to nap off a leisurely day of sightseeing.

Part 3
A few weeks later, Eliza came out of of the city again to spend the weekend exploring more of rural Eastern Hokkaido. The first place we went after picking her up from Asahikawa was Sounkyo gorge, an onsen town nestled deep in the mountains, to catch the tail end of the Sounkyo Ice Waterfall Festival. In the middle of winter, on a frozen lake an ice castle magically springs to life (actually, after months of preparation and “growing” the castle with water hoses) complete with turrets, winding passageways, precariously sharp icicles, ice slides, ice stairs (I think unintentionally icey), and a 15m tall ice tower. Walking inside of a living ice sculpture is like building a Lego castle when you were a kid and wanting to shrink down and walk through it. Awash in multi-colored lights and joyous laughter from all the tourists, it was like a freezing version of budget Disneyland. If you get the chance, the Sounkyo Ice Festival is a definite must-see. Check out Crystal's great blog for her experience of the festival.