I started the day though by just going for a walk. The hotel I was staying at for the last week I was in Japan was near Asakusabashi Station which was near where the Kanda River meets the Sumida River. I knew there were walkways on either side of the Sumida so I decided to walk over and check it out. Here's a photo looking north from the south bank of the Kanda where it enters the Sumida - the bridge is the one used by the JR Chuo/Sobu line:.
I crossed the Sumida on the Ryogoku Bridge and got on the riverside pathway on the east bank. What was really cool on that pathway is that there were large posters showing old artwork and photos depicting the area at different times in history. I took a ton of pictures - here's just a few of them:
I came up from the riverbank over by Ryogoku Kokugikan - the famous sumo hall which is also home to the sumo museum. I'm not that interested in sumo myself (other than what interesting cards SumoMenkoMan finds) but I was still looking for the program from a recent sumo tournament and I was hoping I'd be able to find it here. Unfortunately the gift shop wasn't open that day so I had to settle for picking up a sumo magazine and a couple packs of sumo cards for him from a Newdays newstand at the JR station nearby.
I was somewhat disappointed that there didn't seem to be any way to get a good photo of the sumo hall. Here's a couple attempts:
That last photo was taken from the platform of Ryogoku Station as I waited for the train to take me out to the Fighter's park. Kamagaya is located east of Tokyo in Chiba prefecture so I needed to take the train to Funabashi and switch to another train going north to get to Kamagaya Station. The Fighters run a bus from there to the stadium every half hour on game days and I planned it so that I would get there just in time to catch the 1130 bus.
As it turns out I did get there in time to catch the 1130 bus but I didn't realize where the bus was and I missed it. Part of the reason I missed it was that for some reason I had it in my head that the bus would be dressed up with Fighters paraphernalia and it turns out that it was a standard municipal bus - I saw it pull away as I stood there confused. I had some back and forth with Deanna Rubin about it via Facebook messenger and she was helpful as always (although distracted as she was doing her own thing on a Saturday night). I briefly considered trying to take a taxi or walking - it was only about a mile and half to the park - but I eventually realized where I needed to be - it was obvious once I saw this sign:
I caught the 1200 bus and headed to the ballpark. I think the bus fare was 100 yen but I can't remember if I paid cash or used my Suica card. As we rode along I watched the countryside outside the bus. It was funny - I had read some of Deanna's posts about Kamagaya to research going there, including this post describing the first time she went - she walked there on Christmas Day in 2007. I actually recognized some of the scenery I could see from the bus from her post. It was only maybe a 10 minute trip before we reached the park.
The ballpark is officially known as "Fighters Kamagaya Stadium" and opened for business in 1997. Previously the Fighters' farm team played on the other side of Tokyo Bay in Kanagawa prefecture - first at a field on the Tama River in Kawasaki and then from 1992 to 1996 in Sagamihara. They'd made enough of an investment in the facilities that they've continued to keep their farm team here even after moving to Hokkaido after the 2003 season. (I should also mention that since five of the other six teams in the Eastern League are also in Kanto it would greatly increase the travel costs of the league to move the team to Hokkaido.)
I paid 1800 yen for a ticket in the section behind home plate and went on it. This park was light years beyond the only other ni-gun park I'd been in - Seibu #2 four days earlier. Beyond having seats it also had bathrooms and concession stands. I bought lunch (along with some Nippon-Ham products that had Home Run Sausage cards) and went to my seat.
The game itself was fairly uneventful. The Fighters were taking on the Baystars' farm team who took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second. They extended their lead to 4-0 in the third on a solo home run from Shumei Miyamoto and a two run shot from Seiya Hosokawa. The Fighters got on the board in the sixth on a solo home run of their own from Kazuyoshi Ebihara, the team's first ever ikusei player:
That was the end of the scoring in the game though. Edison Barrios (who may have been the only other Westerner at the ballpark that afternoon) came on in the ninth and notched a save in the Baystars' 4-1 victory.
At one point during the game I was looking at the dark clouds in the sky off to the West and starting thinking that they were going to need to turn the lights on soon. Then I realized that the ballpark didn't have any lights!.
There was some sort of kid's fair going on outside the ballpark. There was a miniature Shinkansen train that was taking kids on a ride around the ballpark so every so often we'd see it going around outside the outfield fence:
The game ended around 3:30 and I headed out immediately. I got extremely lucky - I came down the stairs from the park and was able to jump right on the bus which left a minute or too later. We got back to Kamagaya Station and I was able to catch a train back to Funabashi without having to wait very long. I had a little longer of a wait for the JR Chuo line train to head back to Tokyo but it wasn't long before I was on my way. I was heading back to Takadanobaba as I want to try again to find the new location for Quad Sports.
I noticed something when the train pulled into Suidobashi Station, right by the Tokyo Dome where the Giants game against the Marines had just ended. I could hear the music being played over the loudspeakers on the platform from inside the train - it was the Giants' fight song. I had noticed on Friday that the song was being played on the speakers outside the Dome but I hadn't noticed it in the station.
It was raining by the time I got to Takadanobaba a mere 90 minutes after I left the ballpark. I quickly found Quad Sports' new location and spent an hour or so there going through baseball cards. I then hopped on a Yamanote Line train to Okachimachi where I went to my final card shop in Japan - G-Freak. After spending a little while there I headed back to my hotel, grabbing dinner at the Sugiya down the street again before calling it a day.
It was raining heavily in Tokyo on Monday, June 10th. My flight was scheduled to leave from Haneda at 1740 that afternoon so I had time in the morning and early afternoon to do a little sightseeing. My main goal for the day was to spend whatever cash I had left on me and to try to use up the balance on my Suica card.
I had pretty much packed everything up the night before so I was able to get moving fairly quickly that morning. I checked out of my hotel but was able to have them store my suitcase there so I didn't have to find (and pay for) a storage locker at a train station. I headed out with only a vague plan for where I was going.
I decided that despite the rain I wanted to head down to the area around the Imperial Palace. I had kind of a silly destination in mind:
This is Budokan, the arena made famous in the 1970's by the album "Cheap Trick at Budokan". Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton also released live albums recorded here (along with many others but these are the artists that I listen to the most).
I spent the next hour or so walking around the Imperial Gardens. And by that I don't mean through the Gardens, I mean around - the Gardens are closed on Mondays. Still it was kind of interesting to see the moat and palace walls:
It was still raining pretty hard and I decided to head over to Tokyo Station to grab something to eat and do some shopping. I got a T-shirt from the Ultraman store for my oldest daughter and polo shirts for my youngest daughter and my wife at the Studio Ghibli store.
While wandering through the depths of Tokyo Station, I came across this capsule machine that seemed a bit out of place:
I'm really not sure why there's a capsule machine full of Carp items there.
It was past noon and I decided I needed to start getting ready for the airport. I headed back to my hotel to pick up my bags. I was quite happy to discover that I could take a train from the Asakusabashi subway station near my hotel non-stop to Haneda Airport. I'd like to say that I had picked the hotel for that reason but it was just dumb luck. I was successful in my goal off burning off the balance on my Suica card - I think I had less than 100 yen left on it when I got off the train at the airport.
I ran into an unexpected issue at checkin - my bag was overweight! It seems that the 1800 baseball cards I had acquired during the trip were heavier than I had anticipated. To avoid paying the $100 fee I moved one of the 500 card boxes from my suitcase to my backpack.
I spent the last of my cash on snacks at the airport while waiting for my flight so both goals for the day were met. The flight from Tokyo to Toronto was uneventful - I watched the last few episodes of the second season of "Star Trek Discovery"* and took a nap.
*I've been a Star Trek fan since I was 7 but I've resisted watching "Star Trek Discovery" because I've not been willing to pay for the CBS All Access streaming service which is the only way to watch it in the US. Outside of the US however it is available on Netflix which I do have a subscription for. I watched all of Season One when I spent two weeks in the UK in September of 2018 and watched all of Season Two in Japan on this trip.
We went through customs in Toronto despite the fact it wasn't in the US and I was a little concerned about the process. American citizens get an $800 personal allowance on bringing merchandise into the country from overseas. My rough guess on the stuff I was bringing in was about $1100! That wasn't all baseball cards but obviously the bulk of it was. From what I had seen online I figured the duty I was going to have to pay was only around $30 so it wasn't a big deal but I was just concerned about the hassle. It turns out I didn't really need to worry about anything - I got sent to a separate line which took a little longer but I didn't need to pay anything extra.
My fears about having a hassle in Toronto did come true however - my flight to Baltimore got delayed for about 45 minutes. This wouldn't have been such a big deal except that Air Canada wasn't telling us anything either in the airport or online. In fact their website was saying that my flight had left on time from the gate despite the fact that there had never been a plane at the gate! The airport's WiFi wasn't very stable either and I was having difficulty getting in contact with my daughter who was going to pick me up in Baltimore - I wanted to let her know that I was still in Toronto despite what Air Canada's web site said. Eventually the plane showed up and we all got on it for another uneventful flight. My daughter found me at the airport around the time my suitcase showed up at baggage claim and I was home about an hour later, just after midnight East Coast time and the end of my 37 hour Monday. It had taken me roughly 23 hours from picking up my luggage at my hotel to walking in the door of my home.
I've always felt that the jet lag coming back from the Far East is worse than the jet lag going over and this trip was no exception although the nap I had been able to take between Tokyo and Toronto helped. I had planned on going back to work on Wednesday but after spending much of Tuesday afternoon asleep on my couch I decided to take Wednesday off as well. Our dog was happy to have someone sack out on the couch with him:
It's funny - if you'd asked me in the first few weeks after I got home when I was going to go back to Japan, I'd have said that I probably wouldn't be going back. After all I had done most of what I wanted to do there. But in the months since then I've started thinking about things I hadn't gotten to do that I wanted to. For example, I'd still like to see a Dragons' ni-gun game at Nagoya Stadium and I didn't make it up to Sapporo. I watched an Orix Buffaloes game from the ballpark in Kobe on PL TV a while back and I'd like to see one there in person. So I suspect I'll be making another trip over in a few years. Hopefully I'll be in better shape and be able to do it without using a cane.
This obviously is the last of the "Monsters Of NPB" Tour posts. I can't believe it's taken me almost four months to get them all done. The only posts now I have left to do that are trip related are the card shop posts. I still have 16(!) of those to do - if I'm lucky I'll get them done before Christmas...
