Today we leave Okazaki and Michael and Aimee. It has been a great time here, with the highlight for me being the trip to the baseball game last night. It was a strange experience that I would chalk up to feeling more like a college game than a professional game. There were small (fan based?) bands for each team, and each team had mascots running around. There were clearly a lot of established traditions of songs, arm motions, and clapping sequences. The game was in a dome, so it was on astroturf. There were three non-japanese players, two Americans and one hispanic guy. It was clear that the hispanic guy was from the carribean based on the way he swung a bat and how different it was from the other japanese players. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about the game was how reasonably priced things felt. I could get a drink for 2 dollars here, rather than 6 at an american baseball game. Riding the subway to and from the game was also fun.

So far my favorite errors in translation are:

Narmal = Normal
Chumise = Chinese
Smorking = Smoking

The great thing about all of these (or perhaps the way we manipulate the english language) is that if you say the misspellings enough you can totally see where they would make sense. I have also seen signs pointing out that smoking in a nonsmoking area is wrong because it is inconsiderate to other people. That shit wouldn't matter back home.

We're headed to Kyoto today, and there is an ever diminishing chance that I will go play pickup in Osaka. Not really a great loss, but it would be cool to go. After Kyoto (and a nice/swank hotel) we head to Tokyo for one day then back home. I am excited to return to the US. I've done an o.k. job with the food here, but I am looking forward to going to the Vortex for Trivia on Monday.