Catballs in the Tigers' Home!

After spending a fun and a fascinating day in the templey land with all the dear little deers, we were excited to learn the next day that next we would go in to a new land full of TIGERS!  Whale sharks, deer, and now our big stripey ferocious heroes!  We hopped into the big guy's satchel and rode the train for a long time.  It got busier and busier on the train until it was just about ready to burst open when we finally got to our stop.  We knew we were at the tigers' majestic palace when we saw this guy outside the front door:

 So resplendent!

Such a paradigm of carnivorous perfection!

 So what exactly are we doing here?

So it turns out this is not exactly a real roar-bitey-claws-stripes tiger home, but rather the home of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team.  We learned that this stadium is the home of a big Japan-wide tournament where all the young people try hard to make their dreams come true, and we catballs are, of course, very big fans of trying hard.  There were people here from all over Japan, it seemed, though we guessed we we traveled the farthest of all to be here. 

Japanese baseball games have a lot of interesting customs when compared to American ones.  An air raid siren sounds off to start the game, unlike America's custom of playing Nickelback songs.  The two teams sprint out from their dugouts into lines and bow to each other and to the umpires, which is much different from the exchange of surliness and tobacco spit in US games.  Also, the crowd is generally very very quiet except for a designated cheering section for each team, which sings and chants and claps and bounces non-stop while their players are up to bat, which is far different from the US game's constant affirmations from all attendees of things and people and other nouns that suck.

We are not sure of what all this says, but we are sure that the umpires working this game were not Yuk, Dum, Boo, and Bum. 

This fascinating creature is a beer girl--that is a refrigerated keg of delicious barley juice strapped to her back, and she pours out refreshing draught brew in exchange for yen.  Of all the baseball game customs in Japan, this is the one that America needs both most and least. 

Two adults and three catballs, plz! 

This was a not-bad way to spend an afternoon, we think.  The game was super-fun to watch.  We wanted to cheer for both sides because the kids were trying so hard to do their best on this humongous stage, but ultimately the side that we sat with lost the game.  Even still, it seemed like all of the cheering section, full of family and friends and fellow high-schoolers, was full of pride that their team had made it so far. 

Later at night after the game, we went to the nearby city of Kobe, and found their version of Chinatown, which is the biggest of its kind in Japan.  It's a very festive and delicious-smelling place full of things to look at.  At one end of it was a big square with a gate to greet visitors, and a sort of gazebo with hanging lanterns and fun statues of each of the animals of the Chinese zodiac to find, like a scavenger hunt.

We found our favorite!

This was a very tigery day in Japan!  We feel super-inspired!