Ocean Day

Today is Monday, July 21 and an official holiday in Japan called "Ocean Day" to celebrate the ocean. It begins the month long summer break for the schools.  We had an eventful week as the boys finished school and went to Japanese camp for the day. The "camp" consists of a special day long festival celebrating the summer holidays in traditional Japanese garb, such as kimonos and yukatas, and singing traditional songs and dances and fun carnival games then finishing up the evening with a campfire and amazing fireworks then an overnight stay at the school, the boys didn't stay the overnight since we live at the bottom of the hill of the school, so we brought them back the next morning for the big watermelon smash (like a pinata, except with a watermelon.)  

They had an amazing time. Since they finished with this class, probably starting with a new class in the fall, the kids made them a beautiful poster for both Max and Zack with drawings from everyone in the class. 

Yesterday we went to our first japanese baseball game. This was wild, the fans are really into it. We went with some other caucasians, some administration and English teachers classes at Meysen (the kids school). So we had a big white group, we'll call it the gaijin section.  The Sendai "Kleenex" (Yes, Kleenex are the sponsors of the stadium) Stadium is the smallest in Japan, probably seating around 5,000, but it is really nice and fairly new. There's really not a bad seat there. There is a wild west theme with a train that Zack and I rode on, cowgirl cheerleaders,  japanese "cowboys and cowgirls", and old time country tunes playing, a very funny scene. The stadium was packed at this sold-out game. As I said the fans are REALLY into it.  The Sendai team is the Rakuten (pron. rock-u-tan ) Eagles. There are two non-japanese players on the team, Rick Short and Jose Fernandez. When The Eagles were up at bat the crowd cheered this song, changing the name of the player at bat- it's very rhythmic and cool. There are "mini cheerleaders" the little girls from local schools who do a little number with the real cheerleaders. The beer and concession girls walked the aisles wearing the cutest little outfits sporting a keg strapped to their back (very handy) and knee socks with built in knee pads for to bend with ease for serving. The food is pretty similar except you can get some sushi rolls and udon as well, and the beer selection is Asahi and Sapporo. 

The really cool thing is that all of the fans at the seventh inning blow up and throw these red balloons to wish the team luck, and if the team wins at the end of the game they throw white balloons for Victory!  It was a really good game, the Eagles won, lots of white balloons, they boys were thrilled.