Trip Overview Part 8 - Day 10 - Nagoya & Ichinomiya

After six days away it was time to head back to Tokyo so on the morning of Monday, June 3rd I caught an east bound Shinkansen.  I wasn't making the entire return trip in one shot as I was going to spend the night back in Nagoya.

I had to stop and change trains on the way in Kobe.  There's a beautiful park called Nunobiki that the Shin-Kobe station backs onto.  It apparently has several waterfalls that are just a short walk from the station but I had plans for the afternoon in Nagoya so I didn't take the hour or two I would have needed to explore the park.  Still it was nice to be able to see it from the station platform:

I made to Nagoya in the early afternoon, having traveled the roughly 460 miles from Fukuoka in just under four hours, including the 18 minute stop in Kobe.  The Shinkansen is amazing.

I dropped my bag off at my hotel and picked up a late lunch at a restaurant in the underground mall just west of Nagoya station before heading off to Match Up - the one card store in Nagoya that I had not had a chance to get to the previous week.  After leaving there I briefly considered a return trip to Nagoya BITS but decided instead to check into my hotel and rest up for the evening's activity - a Japan Women's Baseball League (JWBL) game between Aichi Dione vs Saitama Astraia in Ichinomiya.

Ichinomiya is a city about 10 miles to the north west of Nagoya.  It was a quick train ride to Owari-Ichinomiya Station on the JR Tokaido line but Hirashima Park Baseball Field wasn't terribly close to the station so I had to walk about mile to get there.  It was a pleasant evening for a walk.  Something about the flatness of the terrain and the feel of the air reminded me of being in Central California, either Sacramento or Stockton.

I checked out the souvenir stand outside the ballpark hoping to find some of the JWBL baseball cards from AIAIO but they didn't have any.  I did end up picking up a league yearbook before paying my 1500 yen for a seat in the grandstand.

Ayami Sato, generally regarded as the best female pitcher (if not baseball player) in the world, plays for Aichi Dione and as luck would have it she was pitching this evening.  I wish I could say I planned this but it was just dumb luck - I hadn't even thought about the fact she was on Aichi until I got to the park.  Here's a shot of her pitching - obviously the screen interfered with getting any really good photos:

Sato was not at her best this evening though as Saitama got to her for three runs in the bottom of the first on three hits and an error.  Aichi got a run back in the top of the second but Saitama looked like they were going to break the game open in the bottom of the inning when they loaded the bases with no outs.  But Sato bore down and got out of it without giving up any more runs, striking out Astraia cleanup hitter Shiho Imai to end the threat.  Sato was pretty much lights out the rest of the game, holding Saitama to just two more hits while striking out three over the remaining four innings she pitched (JWBL games only go seven innings).  Meanwhile Aichi got a second run in the fourth inning and mounted a threat in the sixth on back to back walks but Saitama starter Rina Taniyama (who with Sato was on last summer's Samurai Japan team for the Woman's Baseball World Cup) got out of it without losing the lead.  Taniyama ended up with the complete game victory, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks in seven innings.  The final score was 3-2 Saitama.

Here's a couple other photos from the game.  First the pre-game lineup:

First pitch of the game from Taniyama:

The teams lined up after the game and bowed to the crowd:

Here's the highlight video for the game:


 After the game I wandered back to the train station and caught the train back to Nagoya and my hotel.  It would be the last night of my trip not spent in Tokyo.