Before we get started would you mind if I tried to get something cleared up? This is not a post about baseball. It has nothing to do with baseball. This is a message about independent travel to a faraway place where the cultures and language are far different than mine. This is a message about figuring stuff out. When I step out of a subway car what do I do now? Where do I eat? Where do I sleep? What’s the next best decision to make? Thanks for letting me try to share that message for the best understanding.
Oh, just one more thing. I think you will enjoy reading the epilogue from this trip. It appears where all epilogues should…at the end of my review.
FRIDAY.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, this is not the type of “vacation” that most people experience when they come to a place like Japan. I’m here to see baseball parks. I’m here to see baseball games so that someday I can say that I’ve seen a baseball game played in every one of the 12 Japanese professional baseball league stadiums.
Tonight, I’m hoping to see a game featuring the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. The Fighters will host the Orix Buffaloes. These are nicknames that I was not familiar with. They will be playing this game at Es Con Field Hokkaido in Sapporo, Japan.
I woke up this morning in Sentai, Japan. This evening I hope to be sleeping at the Hotel Grand Terrace Chitose in Sapporo, Japan. That sounds like a pretty impressive place, doesn’t it?
Prior to organizing this trip, I had never heard of these two cities. It turns out that Sapporo, the site of tonight’s game, is 1,112 kilometers north of Tokyo and 756 kilometers north of Sentai where I am this morning. I could have ridden a train from Sentai to Sapporo for nearly 10 hours. Instead, I chose to ride the train from Sentai back to Tokyo and fly from Tokyo to Sapporo. Sound a little confusing reading about it? Try doing it!
I’ll let you in a little secret that I wasn’t too happy about. I bought my round-trip airline ticket on Jetstar Airlines a few weeks ago. I mistakenly booked the airline tickets for the wrong dates. I got my baseball schedules mixed up. However, surprisingly to me, considering Jetstar Airways is so frugal with their benefits for customers, I could change my flight plan at a cost of just $54. This change got me back on schedule.
I spent a lot of time in advance of this trip in my office using Rome2rio. I wanted to make sure my hotels were near the train stations AND the baseball parks. That pursuit created a triangle.
Ideally, when I stepped off the train, I wanted to see the ballpark. Then when the final pitch was thrown at the end of the game, I wanted to exit the stadium and see my hotel. Making that happen is a little bit of a mental brain teaser. For me, that’s what makes these kinds of trips fun.
The Japanese train system is fantastic. I’m going to say, it’s the best I’ve ever seen. I know that Europe is strong in the train business as well. In the U.S., for the most part, trains are not much of a transportation presence.
When we go to Europe, we always rent a car. I’ve only rented a car once in Japan. That was doable, but a little challenging considering the language barrier, the signage on the roads, and the fact that the Japanese drive on the left side of the road.
One of the best things about the Japanese train system is that you can buy your tickets on the spur of the moment. This provides maximum flexibility. Today I popped into the Sentai train station. I wanted to ride the train from there to Tokyo on a bullet train. The cost of that ride? About ¥14,000 Japanese yen or a little bit more than $100. This was my fourth consecutive day of riding a bullet train! I remember when doing this was a very big deal. After you do something every day for four days it’s not a big deal anymore. That’s right. At this stage riding a bullet train is sort of routine!
I’ve had to ride trains for three or four hours every day simply because that’s the way the baseball schedules worked out. There wasn’t much flexibility with that plan. I have not ridden in any automobiles, be that taxis or Uber on this. Right now, I don’t expect to.
When I got to Tokyo station, one of the busiest train stations in the world, I had only a 23-minute connection to the Narita Express. That train would take me to the Narita airport. During those 23 minutes, I had to figure out where my next train was located, how long it would take to walk there, and whether, I would need another train ticket, which I did, to make things happen. To complicate the situation just a little bit, I needed to go to the bathroom. Bathrooms or restrooms are called “toilets” in Japan. That term seems a little crass but that’s just the cultural difference.
I chose the toilet! I missed my train. Not a problem. I simply rebooked on the next available train a few minutes later for no extra cost. When I booked the bullet train, I got a reserved seat. I preferred window seats for the train rides. There is unreserved seating on the bullet trains as well. I suspect that’s cheaper than reserving a seat but I didn’t check that out.
Japan’s Narita airport has three different terminals. Terminal 1 is used for international flights. Terminals 2 and 3 are for domestic flights. Just like in the United States domestic flights are a lot easier to transit with no passport or border control requirements. To get from one terminal to the next you simply follow the color-coded path! That’s simple enough. I just needed to get to the point where I knew the color-coded path existed!
Luckily, in a way, Carol and I were in the same terminal at Narita just a couple of months ago. We were flying to Fukuyama, you guessed it, to see a baseball game. Having had that domestic terminal experience lessened the learning curve for what I needed to do today. Of course, this is a photo of Carol using a locker in Spain…but you get the point.
Today, I was trying to avoid a $109 carry-on baggage fee from Jetstar Airways. Of course, I could afford the bag fee. That wasn’t the point. Did I think there should be a bag fee and was the bag fee a good value? I didn’t think so.
Storage lockers are everywhere in Japan. Train stations have them. Airports and ballparks do too. Carol and I used one of those airport lockers on our last trip. Today for just ¥400 I stored my rolling bag and about half of my trip’s contents in a locker. This left me with just enough to get through one overnight trip. With this strategy, I could easily meet Jet Airway’s carry-on bag requirements of 7 kg or 15.4 pounds.
When I travel, I like to notice the differences between whatever foreign cultural item that might exist and my own. Narita has a very strong food court with about 10 different eateries located outside of airport security. You wouldn’t find that situation in the United States but it’s convenient for the traveler. Today I dined on squid tempura and cold noodles known as zaru soba.
Today’s flight covered 517 air miles. The flight time was about an hour and a half. Flying domestically is cheap in Japan. I had pre-ordered the hamburger curry luncheon entrée on my flight. I don’t do that kind of thing very often. I noticed that few passengers do that in Japan on Jet Airways.
When I landed, Rome2rio’s website told me I could walk 20 minutes to a train station, ride the train for about 20 minutes, and walk another 20 minutes to the ballpark. Under “normal” conditions I would have done that.
All week in Japan the temperature has been 95° with virtually no clouds in the sky and heavy-duty humidity. The weather is “sticky”. This type of weather is my least favorite of all.
However, when I landed today in Sapporo, it was raining lightly. The rain was a welcome sight to me for two reasons.
The wet weather reduced the temperatures to the mid-70s. That was fantastic. Secondly, the wet weather would not be a problem for the ball game. Es Con Field Hokkaido has a retractable roof. That roof would be closed tonight during the rain. I assumed that meant they would also be using their air-conditioning system as well.
Since it was raining, I didn’t want to try to go with Rome2rio’s travel directions. Their recommendation included a lot of walking outside. I checked around inside the airport and found some very helpful information. I found a woman at the information desk who directed me to a bus. That bus would go directly from the airport to the ballpark. With the light rain, this was a lifesaver! I headed for the best stop and ended up near the front of the line.
For just ¥600 or about four dollars I rode the bus for nearly an hour to the stadium. Other fans joined me filling the bus to capacity. A couple of my bus rides in Japan were so full, like tonight, that a special “super middle” seat in between the permanent four seats to a row needed to be used. Of course, it almost goes without saying that I was the only guy who looked like me or talked like me on the bus.
I was in for a most pleasant surprise when I arrived at the stadium. I had done a little bit of advanced research on Es Con Field Hokkaido. The place opened at the beginning of the Nippon Professional Baseball season in March 2023. That was just six months ago! What a beautiful place.
I’ve been to a lot of sports stadiums. I think Es Con Field Hokkaido is as beautiful as any stadium I have ever seen. I learned that it was modeled after the new stadium just occupied by the Texas Rangers down in Texas. They do seem to have a lot of similarities.
Tonight, I had a reserved seat ticket in section 205. My seat was located just down the right-field line. I never found that seat tonight. Here’s my thinking about reserved seats.
If I have a reserved seat ticket this is what that means to me. The operators of the event have a seat that is reserved specifically just for me. If I need to sit in that seat, I can but if I want to sit in some other seat inside the stadium, that might be better for me I will sit there. If any seat is unoccupied then I feel I have a right to sit in that seat. Make sense?
Not everyone reading this strategy is going to agree with this approach. I’m OK with that.
I’ve been wanting to get a souvenir baseball shirt from one of the teams during this trip. I bought two shirts (Tokyo Giants and the Soft Bank Hawks) on the last trip. When people in the U.S. see me wearing those shirts I don’t think they know what to make of it!
Japanese people are much smaller than most Americans, including me. The largest shirt size that I saw being sold during my first three games of this trip was an XL. I wear an XXL.
The Es Con Field Hokkaido is so new and modern that its gift shops look like a mini-Nordstrom store. I was more than pleasantly surprised to see a couple of nice Fighters shirts available in XXL sizes. I tried one on over the shirt I was wearing. It fit perfectly. Then just one Visa credit card charge of ¥10,000 later that shirt was in my bag. This would be my best souvenir of the trip (ominous music playing) or would it?
Speaking of bags, I didn’t bring my rolling travel bag with me to this game. I think I will need to do that for a couple of games on the remaining part of my schedule. Tonight, I noticed several people bringing travel luggage, much bigger than my small bag, into the stadium. That supported what Michael Westbay told me from JapanBall. He mentioned small bags like mine could be brought into the stadium. Some people had huge pieces of luggage. I don’t know where they expected to put those while they sat down and watched the game.
The first stadium I visited on this trip was Hanshin Koshien Stadium home of the Hanshin Tigers. The weather was so hot and humid and my seat location locked me into just one section of the stadium. That was so much worse than tonight’s climate-controlled atmosphere. I could roam all over to my heart’s delight. I watched a little bit of the game here and a little bit there supporting my reserved seat philosophy.
The constant chanting, cheering, drum beating, and flag-waving were not nearly as strong tonight. The crowd seemed a little bit more sophisticated and maybe older… read that quiet. The crowd was much more civilized like you might see at Angels Stadium.
I did order a drink from one of the uroku girls. These are the young women who run up and down the aisles selling beer. Tonight, I saw one of the women selling a clear liquid from her backpack. I had no idea what it was but I ordered that drink. It turned out to be pretty similar to a wine cooler. Very refreshing. For the first time in my Japanese baseball viewing history, I saw a young man (above) selling drinks in the crowd. I guess he was a uriko boy!
Tonight, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters took down the Orix Buffalos 3-0. To be honest I didn’t pay close attention to the game. I just walked around exploring the stadium and people-watching. What a beautiful place. The Es Con Field Hokkaido would go down as my favorite stadium of the trip and my favorite of the first ten stadiums I would end up seeing in Japan…through this trip at least.
I loved my experience inside Es Con Field Hokkaido. When the game was finished it was still raining lightly. Rome2rio recommended that I take a 30-minute walk to a train to get to my hotel. I’m going to cut Rome2rio some slack. How could they know it was raining in Sapporo, Japan? I was carrying a lightweight paper-like upscale shopping bag when I left the stadium. I had acquired it at Lawsons’ convenience store in the airport. This bag would not do well in the rain.
I stopped by an information desk inside the stadium. There is one thing that is a strength of mine that others may not know about. I am willing to stop and ask questions. A young woman at the info desk told me I could ride a bus to the train station. I wouldn’t have to walk in the rain. That’s what I did. The bus was packed with fans leaving the game and going to what appeared to be the nearest train station.
One quick note about the woman at the information desk. She was being very helpful. She gave me a map and began to write some directions in Japanese. I had never ever met someone who was WRITING the characters of the Japanese alphabet just for my benefit. That was a trip highlight for me. As you might expect she wrote those characters and words as easily as you and I would write, A, B, C, and D. The Japanese will walk ten kilometers out of their way to help you. See what I did there?
Above I said that Es Con Field Hokkaido might be the best stadium I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to a lot of stadiums. Now, after doing some more research I find the Japan Times says that Es Con Field Hokkaido is the “best stadium in the world”. Great minds think alike. Here’s a link to that story, “Fighters debut best stadium in the world“.
Es Con Field Hokkaido – Kitahiroshima, Hokkaido, Japan – Opened 2023. Capacity 35,000.
On a rainy night, the park’s shuttle bus took me to the train station. I had just a 10-minute connection to get from the train station to my hotel. Upon closer observation, the icon on my phone showed I needed to get on a BUS and not a train! I wasn’t connecting to a train from the train station but to a bus. Of course, the bus would be outside of the train station, right?
Timing and circumstance. In most situations timing and circumstance are everything. Don’t be at the airport when you’re ship comes in! If I missed this bus, the next bus wouldn’t come for another hour. It was already nearly 10 o’clock. I asked one guy on the train for help in finding the bus. He couldn’t help me. He told me he was from around here. I wish I had a hundred dollars for everyone who has ever told me that.
Outside the train station in a light rain, I noticed taxis. Then just beyond the taxis were some buses driving on the local streets. However, the signs on the buses, which were coming by at a rapid rate, all had Japanese characters above their windshields.
Essentially, I just guessed. When the bus stopped, I asked the driver if he was going to where I needed to be. Folks, just to be clear, this “conversation” was not like what you might be thinking. I didn’t just peek inside the bus and ask the driver in English if his bus was going in the direction of my hotel. Nope. It wasn’t like that.
There was a lot of pointing and repeating phrases from both of us that the other didn’t understand. What did I have to lose? I got on the bus. I’m a decisive person. I just hopped on the dang bus. I didn’t know if we were going in the right direction but I knew we were making good time! In very quick order the bus stopped almost in front of my hotel. This was not a stroke of genius but a stroke of luck.
I had stayed in some of the most modern and upscale hotels on this trip for prices that averaged less than $75. Yes, I had put some time into selecting these hotels in advance of the trip. Nevertheless, I was shocked at my good fortune.
Tonight, that streak of luck changed. The Hotel Grand Terrace Chitose was essentially a dump. This hotel was a “bottom 10%er of all time” and I’ve had some bottom 10%ers.
My room was small. It smelled of dankness. This was just a downscale experience. The funny thing about it was that tonight I paid $86 for my room. A room that I paid $46 for a couple of nights ago was so much better. It wasn’t even in the same league.
Tomorrow morning, I will hop back on an airplane to see a game at Yokohama Stadium, which is home to the Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars. See you there?
SATURDAY.
Each day during my trip to Japan has been to get on a subway or train get off a subway or train for a few hours and go to the baseball game. Today’s travel itinerary was changing things up just a bit.
I woke up this morning and took the hotel’s airport shuttle bus to the airport. The plan was to hop on an airplane and fly from Sapporo, Japan back down to Tokyo. The airport in Sapporo is called the “New Chitose Airport”. It’s brand new.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an airport like this. In a way, the terminal reminded me of the Mall of America. Can you believe that Carol and I once went with friends to the MoA for a weekend from SoCal just to check out the biggest mall in America? Crazy.
In today’s airport, there were all kinds of local restaurants, two movie theaters, as well as an outdoor viewing deck. When I compare an airport like this to some of the ones that have not been kept up to date the difference is huge.
When I landed at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, I needed to retrieve my luggage. I left about half of what I brought on this trip in an airport storage locker. Everything in life is about a learning curve. Since Carol and I have done the “locker routine” here a couple of months ago today’s operation went much smoother.
All I had to do was press the “English” button at the locker kiosk. Then a very loud audio sound explained to me how to pay for my storage and remove my bag. I found that surprising and helpful.
From the airport, it was back to using subways and trains to get me over to Yokohama, Japan sight of tonight’s game. Sometimes the trains were not crowded and sometimes they were packed. Yokohama was also going to be the location of my stay in a genuine capsule hotel. I will be staying at the Mayudama Cabin Hotel.
Years ago, I stayed at a capsule hotel in Tokyo. That was the “Green Plaza Shinjuku Capsule Hotel”. That visit was one of the top five cultural and touring attractions I’ve ever had in all my world travels. I think coming from a guy like me that’s saying something. I was impressed with that capsule stay because of its 100% uniqueness.
I have many memories of my first capsule visit. I was in downtown Tokyo. I came marching in the front door and up to the check-in desk. Wrong move. I was immediately told to go back to the front door and take off my shoes! I was shown a storage locker (kind of like you might have used in high school). I was instructed to take ALL my belongings and put them in the locker. I wouldn’t be needing them during my stay. The hotel gave me a light robe and some slippers. That was it.
On that visit, I paid for a foot massage that was part of the capsule hotel’s offering. Then I went up to check out a huge hot pool. That must have been 50 basically naked Japanese men at the pool. No, I had never seen that many naked Japanese men before. Did I really need to confirm that?
They were just lounging, some in the pool and others sitting on stools shaving, and showering with flexible shower sprayers. To me, the scene was surreal. I was the only guy who looked like me and talked like me at the pool.
My sleeping accommodations were the typical capsule, sometimes called “coffin” arrangement where one bunk is on top of the next one. From the outside of the capsule, it looked as if I was staring down a very long row of stacked washer/dryer combinations! Again, it was a surreal feeling to a fella who grew up in a small Midwestern Illinois town.
I’m going to guess that very few people have ever stayed in a capsule hotel. I’ll also guess few have wanted to. Maybe very few even realized that a capsule hotel was a “thing”. It is. Some may think they wouldn’t want that opportunity. I choose opportunities like this to see what it’s like to experience another culture much different than my own. I’d be lying if I didn’t want to do these things in the first place just so I could say I did it.
Tonight’s, capsule hotel experience in Yokohama was not nearly as enlightening or enjoyable as my first capsule visit. I guess when they say “you can’t go home” they’re talking about capsule hotel re-visits.
I might point out that when Carol and I were in Tokyo recently I tried to show her the location of my capsule hotel where I stayed a decade ago or so. We found the location. Unfortunately, the entire city block where that capsule hotel had been located was being torn down for renewal. It was gone.
The best news about this evening’s capsule hotel was that it was a one-block walk from the Yokohama Stadium. This venue is a huge circular stadium. From the outside, it looks just a little bit like Yankee Stadium. Just to be clear I was not wearing the same clothes every day on this trip. I was wearing similarly-looking clothes! I had four days worth of clothes. I can assure you I wore clean clothes every day. I washed them!
The weather continues to be essentially unbearable. By game time the temperature was 85 to 90°. In Japan right now the later in the evening it gets the higher the humidity. At 8 p.m. the humidity was 80%. That’s muggy and very much uncomfortable. The bad thing about those weather conditions was they were the same for every day of my visit to Japan.
Each of the games that I have attended has been either sold out or nearly sold out. I would say that 99.99% of the crowd is Japanese. The lines at the concession stands are long and generally slow. There are a lot of different concession offerings. Few, if any match what you might see at an American major league game. That’s understandable.
The baseball tickets that I got from JapanBall were printed almost exclusively in Japanese. There are just enough numbers on the actual paper ticket to give me some indication about my seat location in the park.
Each night when I entered the ballpark, I would confront a worker and have them direct me to my seat. Let me point out something about the entire week’s experience that may or may not be obvious.
When I tell you I walk into a ballpark or hop on a train or do even more mundane tasks in Japan this is NOT like doing this stuff in the U.S.A. When there are essentially no readable signs and there is a very limited capability of getting someone to speak and UNDERSTAND in English, movement is much slower.
Tonight, when I approached an employee and showed my ticket there was no verbal response. She simply smiled, as all Japanese do, and motioned me to her right. Off I went in the direction she pointed looking for a gate number that I thought appeared on my ticket. I kept looking for that gate and before I knew I had made a complete circle around the entire stadium. Here was the woman who had motioned me to go to her right!
Oh my. I wasn’t too happy about that and making that walk in a global warming hell hole hot sauna of a weather situation did not help my mood. What could I do? The woman once again told me to walk right. I kept walking right. I stopped and asked a couple more employees. In every case, their recommendation, to the degree I could understand it, was to keep walking. I know you think this couldn’t be possible.
I made another complete loop around the stadium and found the SAME woman! Dang. I really do hate it when that happens. Luckily, there was a young man who I had previously asked about my seat location. He noticed me as I was beginning my THIRD lap and took pity. I think he thought I might drop dead from heat exhaustion at any minute. He took the initiative to walk me another half lap until we were standing in front of my seat. Thank you! What a hassle.
To be honest, I’m not sure, OK, I’m pretty sure, that trying to see seven baseball games in six days was not a good idea. It would have been a better idea in less debilitating weather conditions. I enjoy seeing baseball. However, I doubt that I have ever seen two consecutive games in two days in my life.
I know this sounds like a broken record. What made this trip somewhat less entertaining? The weather. It’s horrid. I don’t like heat and I don’t like humidity. That’s why I live in San Clemente, California. The weather in Japan is certainly seasonal. I would not recommend anyone come to Japan in July, August, or September. There are much better times of the year to visit.
During one of my laps around the stadium looking for my seat, I came across a dim sum vendor. I love dim sum. I might love dim sum even more when it means I can stop walking for a minute! I chose the 15-pack and when I finally did get to my seat enjoyed every bite.
I’m not much of a beer drinker but I’ve learned to have a beer or two from the uriko beer-selling girls that populate Japanese baseball stadiums. You never have to leave your seat. All you need to do is raise your hand and give the ladies ¥800, which is about five bucks U.S. They will serve you a reasonably cold beer with a little bit too much foam for my taste. Tonight, I supplemented my beer with a small serving of Baskin Robbins caramel ribbon ice cream also delivered by a uriko woman. Yes, they always offer their best smiles to their customers. They’re hustlers…and that’s a compliment!
The game was won by the home team Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars 13-4, over their rival the Tokyo Giants. I walked just one block back to my capsule hotel. I had checked in before the game. At check-in, I left my luggage in one of the hotel’s lockers.
Yokohama Stadium – Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. Opened 1978. Capacity 34,046.
It is a true statement that I am not as physically flexible as I was last year 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It pays to have some flexibility when your bunk in your capsule hotel is on the second level! This photo shows the entrance to FOUR capsules.
Tonight’s capsule hotel was night and day different from my first and only capsule hotel experience. The amenities were far less. When I checked in, the two desk clerks (above) did not speak any English other than to say, “I don’t speak English”. No big problem. We used our phones and Google Translate to communicate. They gave me a lanyard with my room number on it. Then I took the elevator to the third floor. My capsule was one of four in a group.
Everything about the situation was clean and modern. There were several private bathrooms and showers in the public area. Remember I had just come from being outside in a hot and muggy environment for four hours. I needed a shower. However, I didn’t have a Japanese robe, or any robe for that matter. I took my shower. When I finished, I noticed I had left my towel on top of my bunk (above). While still fully wet my only solution was to put on the clothes I would be wearing for tomorrow. That instantly made those clothes damp.
I didn’t know when my next opportunity might be to wash some of my dirty clothes. Remember I only brought four complete changes of clothing and that included the clothes I was wearing. I figured tonight might be a good time to use my soap flakes to wash a couple of days of humidity-soaked, dirt and grime away. I did that and rung the newly washed clothes out to dry.
Then things went south. Nothing was going to dry quickly in these humid conditions. My capsule was about 7’ long, maybe 4’ wide, and four or five feet tall. I hung up my washed clothes on a couple of hangers that had been provided inside my capsule. Not being an expert at washing clothes the drying process put all the wetness at the bottom of the clothes. That moisture was soon seeping onto my mattress. Not good.
Now I was lying in my bunk with a wet shirt from my shower and a wetter mattress from the clothes that were hanging on the wall and draining into the bed! There was a lot of humidity in the air. This might have been my most uncomfortable situation of the entire trip. Now I had eight hours to stew in my own juices so to speak. If this paints a very uncomfortable word picture then you understand my situation.
Having a top bunk is just a little bit less convenient when nature calls at 3 a.m. as you might imagine. I’m sorry to say that my capsule hotel days might be over. The first experience was one of my best ever in all categories. Tonight’s experience was in the bottom 10% of all the things that I have ever done. One needs to be careful what they wish for. They might get it!
SUNDAY.
I am back on the “let’s grab a Danish at the train station and start riding trains and subways” for the next few hours routine. Speaking of Danish…
Did you know the Japanese don’t eat or drink while walking in public? In a train station or on the street you will virtually never see any Japanese with a bottle of water or a snack in their hands. Why? I guess it’s just their culture. Because of this behavior something else that is kind of strange to me happens. It is very difficult, often impossible to find a trash can. I guess if the populace doesn’t eat or drink in public, they have no rubbish!
Today was going to be special. For the past five days from Tuesday through Saturday, I had seen a game at a different Japanese baseball stadium every day. Today was Sunday. My agenda called for me to see TWO baseball games in two different stadiums.
The first game started at 1 o’clock and the second game at 6 p.m. I opened my baseball park chasing day with a trip to Belluna Dome.
This Belluna Dome is a…wait for it…a domed stadium. I was looking forward to a domed stadium simply for the air conditioning. However, that would not be the case with the Belluna Dome. Yes, the place had a roof, but the side walls were open letting in the oppressive heat and humidity in.
Having a roof is better than not having a roof, but it wasn’t as good as being inside a domed AIR-CONDITIONED stadium. I tried all kinds of concessions today, including the main entrée, which was a hamburger with gravy and pasta. Of course, I had a couple of beers from the uriko beer-selling girls. Finally, I had a lemonade and donut combination. Carol says there are not a lot of fruits and vegetables on the trackchasing trail. Her theory applies to the baseball park chasing trail as well.
Queen performed at the Belluna Dome for their Hot Space Tour in 1982. New Japan Pro-Wrestling held the finals of the 2014 G1 Climax on August 10, 2014, at the arena. Lady Gaga performed two sold-out shows at the stadium for her Chromatica Ball tour on September 3 & 4, 2022.
Today? The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks squeaked out a win over the home team Saitama Seibu Lions, 3-2. I loved the architecture of the Belluna Dome. It was just fun to people watch.
Belluna Dome – Tokorozawa City, Saitama, Japan. Opened 1979. Capacity 31,552.
I left today’s game in the eighth inning so as not to be late for the 6 p.m. start over in Shinjuku, a section of Tokyo. There I would be seeing a game between the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and the Hanshin Tigers. They were playing at Meiji Jingo Stadium.
Meiji Jingo Stadium is an older venue. MJ has quite a bit in common with Hanshin Koshien Stadium down near Osaka. Koshien was the first place I stopped on this trip. At both locations my ticket’s seat location allowed me to inhabit only a certain section of the entire stadium. You can’t move around the stadium to explore things…and potentially upgrade your seating position as I am prone to do.
On the walk to the Meiji Jingu Stadium, I walked past the Japan National Stadium. This was the stadium used for the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2020 Olympics held in Tokyo. The stadium is huge and seats nearly 70,000. It’s used mainly for football.
I had requested seats higher up and behind home plate. That was my seating area tonight. Conveniently for me, or maybe inconveniently, I was seated in the midst of the Koshien Tiger’s cheering section. When their team was batting, they were super loud, not annoyingly loud, but loud and passionate. Whenever their players hit a fly ball to the outfield the initial reaction was the ball would be a home run. Ultimately, when the routine fly ball landed in the outfielder’s glove the crowd let out a collective groan. Folks, that’s how a passionate fan reacts.
I dined on hotdogs which were essentially a hotdog on a stick with no bread or breading. My drink, believe this or not was a “highball”. I hadn’t heard that term in a good long while. At the hot dog stand my drink choices were either going to be a highball or a lemon sour.
I did encounter a few “unique” experiences. That’s why I do these trips! I saw two baseball games today. When I tried to enter Meiji Jingu Stadium I mistakenly gave the ticket taker my ticket from this afternoon’s game at Belluna Stadium. The tickets have almost no writing in English. Soon we had that sorted and I was in!
Because I was carrying my luggage with me to the game today I had to find a storage locker. The price to store my bag was only 300 Japanese Yen or about two bucks U.S. Of course I didn’t have change for the locker. While I went around trying to find the coins I needed I stuck my bag in the unlocked locker. It worked out!
I guess I am enamoured by the Japanese uriko girls. They roam through the stadium selling mainly beer. These are the hardest-working people I have ever seen. They hustle! At one stadium earlier in the trip, I saw these folks RUNNING to be re-supplied with a half-keg of beer. Then they RAN back to the stands to sell more beer. Today I saw a uriko girl getting her beer supply replenished. Faster than a Formula 1 pit stop she leaned back against a table while one guy put a new half-keg in her backpack and ANOTHER guy stuffed her holster with a new supply of plastic cups. This was amazing. Don’t miss the video. I just hope these young women are making more than a fair wage and the Japanese mafia isn’t getting all the financial rewards.
In 2019, the Meiji Jingu Gaien, the Japan Sports Council, Mitsui Fudosan and Itochu Corp. groups agreed to redevelop both the Meiji Jingu Stadium and the Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium. Under the plans, Meiji Jingu Stadium will be demolished and rebuilt on the site of the rugby ground. The replacement rugby stadium will be built on the current site of the Meiji Jingu Stadium Number 2 field. Officials have announced that the new stadium will have a roof over the field and stands. If this comes about after I have seen games at all 12 Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball parks I will have to return to Shinjuku to be able to say I’ve seen a game in all “current” Japanese professional ballparks! I won’t mind that trip at all.
Today the visiting Hanshin Tigers took down the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, 7-1 after scoring six runs in the first two innings. Rain was headed our way. To show you how on top of things JapanBall was…Michael sent everyone an email earlier in the day advising when and where the rain was most likely to hit. Fortunately, the rain came after tonight’s game was finished. If you’re going to Japan and wanna see baseball JapanBall is who you need to ask for help with tickets.
Meiji Jingu Stadium – Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Open 1926. Capacity 37,933.
I must tell you I was getting a little “baseballed” out at this stage of my trip. When I approached Michael Westbay of JapanBall about seeing seven games in six days at seven different stadiums he told me this was an aggressive plan. It was. I love aggressive plans. Someday when I look back on this and see that I only need two more ballpark visits to be able to say I’ve seen a game in EVERY major league Japan baseball stadium I will be happy about this approach. Now I had mixed feelings.
I will tell you that I navigated some extremely foreign Japanese train and transit systems well on this trip. Tonight, I had some problems. I was trying to get out to the Tokyo Narita airport for my final hotel stay of the trip. I was using Google Maps and things just weren’t working. The train stops and exits that GM mentioned didn’t match reality.
After a while, and after being in two baseball stadiums in these wretched weather conditions, I gave up on the trains and took a cab. Refreshing! I think the fare was about $30 or so. That was worth it in spades tonight.
I checked into the JAL City Hotel adjacent to the Haneda Airport. Carol and I used this hotel a couple of months ago during our visit to Japan.
When I went to check in the hotel clerk directed me to a kiosk. He explained that’s how I would be checking in. Honestly, I wasn’t in the mood for doing that. It had been a long day in terrible weather. I simply told the guy I wasn’t going to use his kiosk. I further explained he was going to check me in personally. I think he might have taken a little offense. Sorry. I was the customer and I didn’t feel like typing in every bit of personal information to satisfy the hotel’s requirements. I figured I was paying them. Let them do the work!
When I got to my room, I spent most of the time getting everything organized for the long trip, more than 10 hours of flying, home. When I was finished, I knew where everything was. Of course, I didn’t really know where EVERYTHING was as explained below.
As I did my organizing, I used my YouTube TV subscription, along with a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that told YouTube that I was in “Dallas”. Then I listened to the UCLA home football opener at the Rose Bowl against Coastal Carolina. This was a good game. At first, it might seem like Coastal Carolina was a cream puff of a team. Not exactly so. CC has won the third most football games in D1 in the past three years of any team. They didn’t win tonight. UCLA prevailed 24-13.
MONDAY.
I started this trip 15 days ago. I spent the first week in Australia touring the Northern Territories. I trackchased there for the first time ever. Then I moved on down to Japan where I ended up seeing seven baseball games in seven different stadiums in six days.
I can tell you this. Carol would have HATED this trip. In Japan, it was essentially wake up, ride a train, walk, climb lots of stairs, see a ball game, ride a train, walk, climb lots of stairs, go to the hotel, and repeat the process the next day.
That kind of itinerary was made only worse by the absolutely horrendous weather. The temperature touched about 95 every day. By game time it was closer to 85. Each night when the first pitch was being thrown the humidity reached nearly 80%. The dewpoint was in the high 70s. This made for extremely hot and humid weather. Not for me.
On the expense side, I found Japan to be very reasonable. On most nights, I stayed in nice upscale hotels at prices of less than $100 a night. The food was not expensive. Riding the subway was cheap. Riding the trains was reasonable for the distance covered. For the most part, I didn’t even look at the prices after a while. I knew they were low. I didn’t want to take my mental energy to translate the cost into U.S. dollars.
Would I do a trip like this again? No, I don’t think so. I can’t imagine any future scenarios where I NEED to take a trip like this and for that I am happy.
The people I worked with for the baseball tickets were outstanding. I’d recommend JapanBall to anybody who is interested in getting tickets to Nippon Professional Baseball. The next time I go back to Japan to see those final two stadiums I will use their services again.
My results so far!
This is my history with Nippon Professional Baseball and the stadiums I have visited. It’s been a good run. I only need to visit two more stadiums to be able to say I’ve seen a game in all 12 Japanese NPB stadiums as well as all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums.
March 20, 2010 – Tokyo Yakult Swallows over Chunichi Dragons 3-1 (8thinning) at Nagoya Dome (pre-season game)
May 14, 2023 – Hiroshima Toyo Carp over Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants 7-2 at Tokyo Dome
May 20, 2023 – Saitama Seibu Lions over Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 1-0 at Fukuoka PayPay Dome
August 29, 2023 – Yokohama DeNA BayStars over Hanshin Tigers 3-2 at Hanshin Koshien Stadium
August 30, 2023 – Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters over Chiba Lotte Marines 3-2 at Zozo Marine Field
August 31, 2023 – Saitama Seibu Lions over Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 5-4 at Rakuten Mobile Park
September 1, 2023 – Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters over Orix Buffalos 3-0 at ES CON Field Hokkaido
September 2, 2023 – Yokohama DeNA BayStars over Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants 13-4 at Yokohama Stadium
September 3, 2023 – Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks over Saitama Seibu Lions 3-2 at Belluna Dome
September 3, 2023 – Hanshin Tigers over Tokyo Yakult Swallows 7-1 at Meiji Jingu Stadium
I still need to see games at Mazda Stadium in Hiroshima (Hiroshima Toyo Carp) and at Kyocera Dome Osaka in Osaka (Orix Buffalos). I’m debating whether seeing a pre-season game in 2010 at the Nagoya Dome counts towards seeing a game at every Nippon Professional Baseball stadium. Right now, I’m thinking that does count. What do you think?
Japanese people are nice. Their society has a lot going for it. It’s just that they don’t speak a lot of English. That makes things just a little bit more difficult but still doable.
Somewhat surprisingly the train stations themselves are not air-conditioned. The stores that are inside the train stations do have AC. For the most part, the subway trains have air conditioning as well. Everything runs on time.
Since I’ve been to Japan, six or seven times previously I have had the opportunity to see the sights with Carol. We have visited many other major attractions and different parts of the country as well. Since I’ve been able to do that, I don’t feel that badly that this trip was basically trains and baseball for the Japanese portion.
Today, Monday, I caught a 5 p.m. flight on Japan Airlines from Tokyo’s Haneda airport to Los Angeles. Flying time was 10 hours. However, I was “gaining” 16 hours in time zone changes. That meant I landed at 11 a.m. on Monday morning at LAX. I always find that amazing. I landed in Los Angeles before I LEFT Tokyo!
By the way, I flew almost 23,000 miles on this trip. During all that air time, I never used the airline’s audio/video programming a single time. I listened exclusively to the Netflix series, Suits, on my iPad or did work on my laptop. I’m in season #7 with Suits right now. I don’t want to even imagine my flying life when this series is finished. I might just go back to season #1 and start watching the 15 episodes per season all over again!
Clearing customs at LAX is the best. I walked up to a kiosk, stared at the screen and in less than ten seconds I was cleared to enter the United States. I almost never broke stride. If you travel much internationally you simply must have Global Entry capability.
When I got to my parking garage, I noticed my Tesla Model X electric vehicle had lost about 15 miles of range. That’s perfectly normal. During the four years I have owned the car I have come to expect the range to be reduced by about one mile per day for each day I don’t use the car.
I got home from Japan on Monday. On Thursday I leave for a four-day trip to Canada. I get back from Canada on Monday and leave on Saturday for North Dakota. I get back from ND on Monday. Then Carol and I take off for two weeks to France on Thursday. My lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I know this. I’m a volunteer. No one makes me travel. I do this because I want to and because I get enjoyment from it.
Other people may enjoy collecting coins, growing flowers, or spending time at the YMCA. Everybody’s got their “thing”, right? This is my thing. There aren’t all that many people who enjoy doing my thing and that’s OK.
Until we meet again, cheers and sayonara.
Randy Lewis.
EPILOGUE
There were just a couple of more items when the trip was finished that I wanted to mention.
LOST AND FOUND
I made this 15-day adventure with a very small travel bag that fits easily in a box with the dimensions of 18” x 14” x 8”. I carried a small satchel, it’s not a man purse, that measured 9” x 7” x 3”. With that small amount of “stuff” what the heck could you lose, you might ask.
First, about midtrip I lost my ReadeREST. What is a ReadeREST? It’s a magnetic eyeglass holder. This is one of my most important personal items that I use every day not just when I’m traveling. ReadeREST is a simple metal magnet. Google it. It is affixed to the front of my shirt. I hang my glasses from it when I’m not using the glasses. This is an incredible product, that I discovered watching Shark Tank. Losing them made the trip much less convenient.
Also, later in the trip, I lost my white cotton handkerchief. I only brought one. I always keep that handkerchief in the left pocket of my six-pocketed cargo shorts. However, that’s also where I keep my cell phone. When I pull out my cell phone, often the handkerchief falls quietly to the ground. Bummer. I’ve lost of lot of handkerchiefs this way. Maybe I need a new system. I have a dry-eye condition. I use that handkerchief multiple times every day.
My third loss was the biggest and most devastating. Somewhere in the last two days of the trip, I lost a rather huge baseball jersey that I had purchased at Es Con Field Hokkaido. This was a Hamfighters jersey. I paid ¥10,000 for it. The Hamfighters are special to me. One of my favorite players is the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani. Shohei played for the Hamfighters in Sapporo, Japan before he moved to America.
As soon as I got home I went on eBay and ordered another similar and maybe better Hamfighers jersey…at half the price. The shirt is scheduled to be delivered the day after we leave for France. That means it will sit at our front door for two weeks. I’ll probably be telling you in my France trip report how somebody stole THAT shirt.
I can be absent-minded. I’m usually thinking about seven things at a time. Obviously, I don’t know where I lost any of these things or where they are today. That’s the definition of lost, isn’t it? I make a very strong effort when I leave each hotel room to make sure I’m not leaving anything behind. I guess I’m not very good at that.
During my 15-day adventure to first Australia and then Japan I am proud to say I walked more than 69 miles in my Hey Dude brand shoes. I only brought one pair of shoes with me. I hate to think how many flights of stairs I walked both up and down in the train stations, often carrying my luggage, not rolling my bag. For me, walking is my exercise of choice. It seems as if I can walk forever although I prefer to do my walking in comfortable weather.
DIE WITH ZERO
I’ve been retired for more than 20 years. I attribute much of my success today with finance to a guy named William Bernstein. When I read his book, “The Four Pillars of Investing – Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio” I was hooked on his strategy.
Bernstein’s theories are not rocket science. He simply supports investing in a broadly diversified stock and bond portfolio of mainly low-cost index funds. Stay the course. Don’t market time. Don’t pay for financial planners who charge a percentage to manage your money. Following Bernstein, I have enjoyed superior financial rates of return. Here’s a link to my website which gives you a broader overview of my plan.
Randy’s lifetime financial strategy for success
Just recently I encountered a second financial strategy, which more importantly is also a life strategy. This strategy is titled “Die with Zero” and authored by Bill Perkins. Mr. Perkins’s ideas equal everything I learned from Mr. Bernstein.
The title “Die with Zero” is a little misleading. The strategy does not recommend or suggest that anyone should try to spend their last penny with the undertaker at the cemetery.
Die with Zero does espouse the idea that most people die with way too much money in their accounts. Mr. Perkins will tell you this and I support his thinking 100%. Once you’ve met your survival needs as providing for you and your family’s housing, food, and safety then the money that is left over should be enjoyed. That extra money should be spent creating “memory dividends”. Way too many people have way too much money in their investment accounts that they will never spend in their lifetime. These folks don’t have enough memory dividends. In my judgment, one can NEVER have enough memory dividends.
Mr. Perkins tells the story of the grasshopper and the ant of which you may be familiar. The ant works and slaves all summer, preparing hard for the winter. The grasshopper lays around and relaxes. The grasshopper does not make any preparations for his or her future. Then when “winter” does come, the grasshopper starves to death. The ant lives in preparation for surviving another winter.
Here’s the question from that fable. When does the ant get to have some fun? A big part, and the best part, of our lives is going to be the memories we create. We can’t be the grasshopper…but we shouldn’t be the ant either.
Not everyone has the time, money, and good health to put all the Die with Zero strategies in place. At this point in time, I am more than fortunate to have the time, money, and good health to enjoy the fruits of my “ant labor”.
Let me give you one more final analogy. Let’s say the average price of a McDonald’s hamburger is five bucks. Let’s also say that over the years you’ve enjoyed several McDonald’s hamburgers at that cost. Would you be willing to pay $200 for a McDonald’s hamburger? I would suggest that if eating a McDonald’s hamburger gives you personal fulfillment there are going to be times when it will be worth it, well worth it, to spend $200 on one of Mickey D’s burgers. Remember…I am NOT talking about McDonald’s hamburgers here!
On this trip, I went to one automobile race and saw seven baseball games. I think the admission price to the auto race might have been about $15 U.S. Maybe the average ticket price for each of the baseball games I attended was $50 U.S. If I lived right next door to each one of those venues the cost of the ticket would be my entire expense.
However, on this 15-day trip, I flew nearly 23,000 miles. I stayed in hotels and in Australia I rented a car. I spent a lot more to do this than if I had lived across the street from each one of those baseball parks and auto racing tracks.
Was it worth it? To me it was. I was creating what I call “memory dividends”. These memories came from everything I saw and did during the trip not just from seeing a baseball game. I will have these memory dividends and lots of PHOTO dividends as well to remind me of this trip for the rest of my life. Let’s say I didn’t take this trip. All the money that I spent on this adventure would still be sitting in my investment account and likely would never ever be used by me.
Then let’s say that next week I take the final checkered flag in life. Would it be better to have gone on this adventure that I’ve just been telling you about with all the memories it created? Or, would it be better to have that amount of money still in my bank account? I think we all know the answer to that question.
Advocating for Die with Zero’s financial and personal life strategy simply means that I must have the guts to pull the trigger on whatever it takes to create “memory dividends”. The sooner I create the memory dividend the longer I can enjoy it. Imagine the memories I created when I was twenty. I have enjoyed those memory dividends for more than 50 years! I might not be able to physically pull off this trip in 10 years. Even if I could would it be as enjoyed then as it was now?
You may have been paying five dollars for a McDonald’s hamburger. However, there are times when spending $200 for that very same burger makes all the good sense in the world.
I lived a corporate life for 30 years and made good money. I was able to invest much of those earnings to create a stress-free retirement. I have enjoyed that Margaritaville lifestyle (t-shirt, cargo shorts, and deck shoes) for nearly 22 years. Thank you, Mr. Bernstein.
Unbeknownst to me I have been living the “Die with Zero” personal fulfillment and create memory dividends lifestyle for a very long time. I quit a great-paying job at age 52 to pursue the Die with Zero life philosophy. I haven’t been perfect with this concept but I think maybe better than most. When I read the book by Mr. Higgins, it just reinforced to me that practicing “Die with Zero” ideas is the way to live your life. Prepare for winter but have a LOT of fun along the way. Thank you, Mr. Higgins.
Thanks for reading along. I hope to see you on my next exciting adventure.
Randy Lewis
Broadly diversified and creating memory dividends.