This year's celebrations were much more in the spirit of Christmas!
No noodles, no sleeping at a train station, just Christmas trees, music and celebrating.
I even won a t-shirt at BINGO!
Spending holidays away from family is never easy. Since last year's Christmas proved to be disappointing we were not sure what to expect of our holiday celebration in Japan this year. Last season my cousin and I missed the last train from Tokyo to Sendai and had to sleep at the Tokyo train station on Christmas day. Plus to our surprise the train station closed down in the middle of the night and we spent the majority of our night at a 24 hour noodle shop, where we Skyped with family and ate noodles for 5 hours. So as you could imagine, it was a little disheartening but definitely a Christmas to remember! This year's celebrations were much more in the spirit of Christmas! No noodles, no sleeping at a train station, just Christmas trees, music and celebrating. On Sunday, right after the home victory against the Saitama Broncos, the team hosted a Christmas party for the boosters and fans. The event took place at a fancy hotel in Akita City and was very nicely organized. All the players were introduced, then mingled with fans, took lots of pictures, signed dozens of signatures and even played BINGO. I even won a t-shirt at BINGO! On Christmas Eve, along with the other Americans, we were invited to a Korean BBQ restaurant in the Kawabata district of Akita. Korean BBQ is very popular in Japan! Basically you order raw meat and vegetables and then grill it on a personal table grill. We love it and wish the US had similar restaurants. We ate so much food and by the end of Christmas Eve we had a major food coma. We are very thankful for the wonderful and memorable Christmas celebrations! ありがとうございます。 メーリークリスマス Meerii Kurisumasu from Japan!
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We are very happy to be back in Japan for another season in the BJ League. Dan recently signed a contract with the Akita Northern Happinets in Akita, Japan. Akita City is located on the northwest part of the island, so this season we are preparing for lots of snow and a much colder winter. The town of Akita is smaller than Sendai but still has a fairly large population of around 300,000. For what it lacks in size it definitely makes up with basketball fans, as the support for the team here is unbelievable!! One explanation might be that the Happinets are the only professional team in Akita but the other, more probable one, is that Akita is known as the "Japanese Kingdom of Basketball." How cool is that?! The team, boosters, and fans have been extremely welcoming both to Dan and me. We are very excited to be back in Japan and can't wait to see Akita Northern Happinets raise the BJ League Championship trophy! Check out the cool Akita Happinets uniforms!
This is going to be Dan's first time wearing a pink uniform. Every season we collect lots of team merchandise to remember our time abroad. This past season was a little different because instead of our typical team t-shirts and scarves we were able to snatch up lots of different goodies... teddy bears, keychains, buttons, and wrist bands just to mention a few. Not only did the Sendai 89ers have great merchandise but they also had some neat advertising around the city. It is long overdue that I write an entry to brag about my amazingly talented wife! She has supported me in my career and followed me around the world, somewhat putting my basketball career ahead of her own photography career. Despite moving around the globe every season, she has managed to build her photo resume into something pretty extraordinary. Aside from all her personal artistic photography, she has been hired this past season in Japan and all this summer in the U.S. to shoot for many different people and companies. Families, baptisms, models, sports supplement companies, newspapers, sign companies, dance festivals, etc...her career as a professional photographer is taking off! Below are a number of her photos that were published nationally while she was hired by the Japan Times Newspaper to cover the entire Japanese league for the 2011-2012 season. I am so proud of what she has accomplished so far in her career. Like me, she made a career out of her passion, which is something to be admired! I know that this is only the beginning of great things to come for Dominika! Meeting up with other Americans abroad is always fun! A while ago I was invited to join a group for wives and girlfriends who have the same basketball lifestyle as we do. The group is a great resource for those going to new teams, new countries, having babies abroad or just having a much needed venting session. (If you are interested in joining and are a wife or a girlfriend of a player please message me!) I was fortunate enough to meet a couple of great friends through the site and in March we all decided to meet up in Tokyo. Its always fun meeting up with those that you have been talking to for months via email but never met in person, a part of you feels like you totally know them but another part is excited to meet new people. The six of us along with six kids met for lunch in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo at a great Indian restaurant. We talked and laughed for hours until the servers gave us a nice hint to go somewhere else. It was truly great to meet up and be a part of such a special group of ladies! Let's hope for one more Tokyo meet up in the future season! Talk about a small world! April and I met in Germany when her husband and Dan played for Ratiopharm Ulm together. We instantly became great friends and met up all the way across the world in Japan. It was an amazing experience! Small world indeed! I messaged Julie about a year ago because I heard she was a photographer in Tokyo and I wanted to know how she adjusted her business practices upon moving to Japan. She was very helpful and is a very talented photographer, check out her website. I never thought we would be able to meet up in person! Talking about nerdy camera gear was a great bonus! The next day a couple of us met up at Yoyogi Park. The park is huge and attracts an interesting crowd on Sundays; hippies, hipsters, teenagers practicing dance moves, fashion subculture fans, and Tokyo Rockabilly Club were all out in full force. The random people actually reminded me of a State Fair crowd where people from all walks of life come out one week a year to celebrate. Definitely fun to people watch! We were in the park on the one year anniversary of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, at 14:46 there was a moment of silence and the Japanese national anthem was played over the loud speakers. Very surreal experience.
Below is a photo of Hanna (Ana's daughter) enjoying her lunch while listening to the national anthem. Every country has their own traditions when it comes to food at sporting events and since we spent the majority of our lives in the States we were used to the western way of dinning. Hot dogs, pizza, nachos, and beer were all items we would pig out on! In Japan it was a little different, the first time I attended Dan's game I thought I was going to gag when a fan unwrapped raw fish eggs with rice next to me. So different! At least they still sold cold beer. Normally you could find noodles, bento boxes with fish or chicken, rice balls, chicken skewers and lots of different types of tea. At the end of our stay in Japan, I loved munching on a tuna rice ball and some unsweetened green tea during Dan's games!
We have been meaning to blog about the last trip in Japan for quite some time but with our crazy summer schedule we lagged behind. Round one of the playoffs brought us up north to the City of Akita. Our good friends, the Takahashis were gracious enough to let us stay with them at their family owned restaurant, the "Viking." My teammate Ken grew up in Akita, and invited us to a couple private dinners at their authentic Japanese eatery. Before dinner one night, there was a mini festival going on outside. We got to experience a fun Japanese twist to a street festival. Pictured below are some of the activities we gave a try, including goldfish and baby turtle fishing, some bizarre foods to try, and random kid toys to purchase. My teammates kids loved it, and I enjoyed winning a baby turtle for Joe Takahashi! Below is a picture of the Takahashi family and I in the entrance of the restaurant where they have a shrine of their first born son, Ken's professional basketball career. It reminds me of my parent's house as they love to show their support for my career as well as my siblings. Dominika was taking the picture, but they were very good to her, letting her stay with them for the weekend. We made life long friends with the Takahashi family, and loved to get an inside look at their family life.
Check out a video of Dan competing in the 3 Point Contest during the BJ League All-Star Weekend in Saitama, Japan. Dan starts shooting at the six minute mark. Our friend kept telling us about a chicken resturant in Ishinomaki that served the best chicken in the world. We were intrigued and jumped at a chance to go one Monday evening. Ishinomaki is located about an hour north of Sendai and was one of the worst hit by the tsunami. (If you would like to see some photos of the damage check out our blog entry on tsunami clean up in Ishinomaki.) The restaurant was beautiful! It had a few tables and a main grill in the middle along with a wooden bar area surrounding it. The wooden bar was actually salvaged from the previous restaurant and restored. We were excited to try "the best chicken in the world" and soon discovered our friend wasnt exaggerating. The chef prepared each piece of chicken with precision and served it on skewers. We were told the restaurant specializes in yakitori (translation, grilled chicken.) the food just melted in our mouths and we couldn't be happier to try all of the local specialties! The Japanese eat all parts of the animal which sometimes to us and many westerners can be a little too much to handle. But I'm happy to say that in our time abroad we ventured past our comfort zones and will gladly try anything once. Chicken heart, liver, skin, stomach, cartilage, as well as regular chicken wings were all part of our meal! All of the food was delicious and we particularly liked the heart, valves and all! The time slowly passed by as we all enjoyed the delicious chicken, grilled veggies and cold beer. Conversation was lively and laughter was abundant! We felt so thankful to be part of such a heart warming experience and be welcomed by such great hosts. We were eating the best chicken in the world at a restaurant that a year ago was completely flooded by the tsunami, such a surreal, unbelievable yet rewarding feeling. Rewarding in the sense that one really felt that Japan is rebuilding, the process will surely take a while but it was special to see people laughing, eating and rebuilding their lives with one restaurant at a time. A truly special evening!
After the meal we were presented with a gift from the host. Shouldn't it be the other way around we thought? Not only did we get fed but also snagged a gift along the way! But we were told it's given to guests as a good luck symbol for the restaurant on its opening. They were two beautiful glass sake glasses with a Japanese symbol of "Chicken-Dragon" on it, the name of the restaurant. We will cherish those glasses forever! The whole evening felt truly special for so many reasons and it's definitely going to be a memory we will never forget. Thank you to our hosts and the chicken dragon himself for giving us the opportunity to try the world's best chicken! Arigatou gozaimasu! ありがとうございます "So when was the last time you saw your mom naked?" asked a Japanese friend. "Ummm what? (hesitation and puzzlement) I don't know at whatever age it's no longer appropriate to shower with a child." She looked puzzled. My mind started wondering, should I rephrase my question or just go with it. Was something lost in translation? We are in Japan after all, maybe it's different here. "What about you?" I asked hesitantly. "Oh we take baths all the time, she washes my back, I wash hers. It's really nice." Now I was puzzled and so began my first Japanese hot spring experience. My mom came to visit us in late March/early April (lots of photos coming soon!) and one of our friends, we liked to privately call them our Japanese parents, invited us to a Japanese hot spring in the mountains near Sendai. Reading up on what to expect at a Japanese hot spring made me a bit nervous, naked bathing in natural hot springs... Oh boy! Do we get a towel or do we just let everything fly? By the way, guys have it so much easier, just one body part to worry about covering!
We arrived at the Yuzukushino-Yado Ichinobo on an overcast Monday morning. The resort was beautiful, very grand yet serene. We paid our dues and then quickly left our shoes in a little storage locker where we were also given a towel. Hallelujah! No naked walking around for us, I thought. Our hosts also gave us a small long towel that one could drape over intimate parts. In our slippers we walked through the big resort to a changing room where we put on traditional hot springs robes. Then it was off to the hot springs. My mom and I followed our host to the first bathing area. We took off our robes and here we were standing naked (so much for that towel!) in a room with other ladies waiting to shower before entering the bath. Awkward doesn't even begin to describe it! The traditional Japanese shower is much different than in the west. Its very low and you actually sit on a stool while showering. Strange at first but very convenient and comfortable the second time around. We showered and then draped our long towels over our bodies before entering the bath. My awkward feeling began to ease, and bathing with others made it strangely comfortable. Hey we were all in this together! The ladies all smiled and their sincere smiles made my mom and I feel welcome. There were three different baths, ranging from hot, very hot, to burning hot! The hottest one topping off at around 115 degrees Fahrenheit. We took our time sweating perfusely and checking out the different baths. We alternated between the baths and a cooling station, cool water never felt so wonderful! From the first indoor bath we checked out two more bathing facilities. The second one was semi outdoors with a nice nature view of a forest. The facility was all made out of stone and wood. Very traditional Japanese design - simple and beautiful! The last bath was probably our favorite, all outdoors surrounded by rocks. The natural mountain hot spring actually flowed straight into the bath. We were all thankful it was a little chilly outside because otherwise we wouldn't be able to stand the 100 degree water. At the hot springs I finally learned what it means just to "be" with someone. In the West we are so occupied with talking that sometimes we forget to take a deep breathe and just "be." To the Japanese, silence is golden, and many just enjoy ones company by sitting in silence. Like many westerners I was uncomfortable with silence until I came to Japan, the lack to understanding the language and only being able to express myself with limited English taught me the importance of spending quality time with people without verbal communication. So the three of us were just boiling in the bath, relaxing, taking in the scenery and feeling comfortable in our own naked skins. Not only were our minds at ease but so were our bodies. The hot spring water relaxed our muscles and let us put our guard down. After the baths we met our male companions(the husbands) at the hotel restaurant for lunch. Cold soba noodles (buckwheat noodles dipped in wasabi and soy sauce ) never tasted so delicious! I have to admit, my first Japanese hot bath experience was amazing! Not sure if the personal connection is the same for males, who just cover the old fella with a hand towel and hang out in the hot waters. But for a female, the experience was very personal and moving. Never in my life did I think I would take a bath with my mom when I was 27 years old nor with a plethora of Japanese women, but the experience proved to be very rewarding and I can't wait to do it again! |