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April 12, 2008 Tokyo (JAPAN) Start of Big6 Baseball, (Another) Lab Drinking Party, and Shibuya's Best Ramen
Unsurprisingly, Waseda University won the game comfortably 9-0 - and that was without using their star pitcher, Yuko Saito (a player who will some day pitch in the big leagues). I sat in the Waseda section of the stands as the school is far more "athletically-oriented," and so received the closest possible thing to an American college atmosphere: there were cheerleaders, a full band, and plenty of rowdy students joining me in cracking open beer before noon. After the match, I raced back to Tokyo Tech's Ookayama campus to take part in a nomikai (Japanese drinking party) with my laboratory members. Joining us was Kishimoto-san, a former graduate student in the lab who is now working with JR Central (Japan's largest rail network). We loaded up on food and alcohol from the high street in Ookayama - sushi, peanuts, grilled chicken, vegetables, hotdogs, and so on - before heading back to the 5th floor of Ishikawadai Building 3. I am really fortunate with this laboratory because the building is brand new, and is outfitted with all the living amenities one could hope for - refrigerator, coffee maker, rice maker, ping-pong rooms, showers, a free laundry machine, an electronic piano, and so forth. The drinking party was, as is always the case, a great deal of fun. The price of all the food/alcohol is divided evenly among the people who attend, which has always worked in my advantage because I eat and drink more than most Japanese people. One of the more interesting conversations during the five hour party involved Kishimoto san's work with JR Central. Despite being the former head of the graduate students in the laboratory, his talents are now largely going to waste while working for one of Japan's most traditional companies. Every morning at 5am, he is ushered outside with the rest of the new employees and made to do jumping jacks while singing a JR song. Further, he is forced to memorize every train station on the JR line, which may even reach into the thousands. Finally, the worst part of it all is that it will take him 15-20 years before he reaches the upper-management level, no matter how talented he is. The strict structuring of companies like JR, Toyota, and Panasonic are a strong turn-off for ambitious people because the rules are so strongly set in place, but perhaps I am juts looking at it from too Western-a-perspective.
Afterward, we walked around Shibuya, which is always a wild place on a Saturday night. (For anyone who has ever seen Lost in Translation or Tokyo Drift, this is the part of Tokyo where "that intersection" is located). Here is some video of the hachiko crossing in Shibuya (from a different occasion).
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At
11 o'clock this morning, I met friends from both
Tokyo University and Waseda University to
watch the start of Big 6 Baseball in Tokyo. This
is the university baseball league in which the top six
teams from Tokyo compete (Waseda, Keio, Meiji, Sophia,
Rikkyu, and Todai), and the opening match was between
Tokyo University (ranked sixth) and Waseda University
(ranked first). Also joining me for the game were Yu-chan,
a Tokyo University student who is an editor of the
university newspaper, and Saki, a politics-economics
student from Waseda University who is also on the
lacrosse team.
At 9:00pm I said goodbye to everyone at
the nomikai as I raced off for Shibuya's famous
hachiko exit to meet Yu-ta and his friend (both
students from Meiji University). Yu-ta took me to one of
the most famous ramen restaurants in Shibuy where there
was a 20 minute wait and a line stretching down the
street. The food was worth the wait (this time!), but I
had to eat my food quickly because of all the people
waiting outside. Next time, I will come when it is less
crowded.