Football
26/03/05 07:15 in: Japan
Lazy morning and went for a swim before breakfast. There was a sort of Japanese car boot sale in the park where you could buy designer childrens clothes very cheaply. It was a great example of japanese organisation as each person had their blue tarpaulin laid out in a square marked on the ground with white string. Those people selling had gone to a great deal of trouble to make their goods look attractive, laying them out nicely, hanging them on rails and presenting them in clear plastic wrapping.
Off to do some more shopping in department stores and sandwiches in a very English type cafe with japanese girls waiting at table dressed in black dresses with white lace collars. We found ourselves eating ham and egg sarnies complete with mayonnaise and tomato ketchup and watching japanese women consume green tea ice cream sodas and green tea flavoured cake. After lunch we caught the tube south of the city centre to Nagai to the Nagai Stadium to see the local team, Cerezo Osaka play Shimizu S-Pulse in the Nabisco Cup. Shimizu won 2-0 and were the better team by far. Although a huge stadium only 6,000 people turned out which did not make for the sort of atmosphere found at a British footy match and all very civilised apart from the two very noisy groups at each end. Osaka made plenty of noise but Shimizu were the winners again since their fans had the best drummers and the best songs. The fans were incredibly co-ordinated and there were people whose main job seemed to be to lead the singing. Cerezo's fans became very tedious as they sang the same song repeatedly for the whole of the second half. It was a colourful match to look at as the strips were pink and blue and silver grey and orange respectively.
Returned to Namba after the match to check some details at the tourist office and get some money from the bank. We were pleasantly surprised when on our third attempt we finally managed to extract some cash from the international ATM. Got supplies of fresh salad and cakes from the department store for evning meal. The food hall was heaving as everyone was fighting for knockdown food for their weekend food. It felt like being in the middle of a Saturday market so great was the noise from everyone. It was starting to feel very claustrophobic so we headed back to the hotel once we managed to find our way into one of the 25 entrances to Namba station.
Off to do some more shopping in department stores and sandwiches in a very English type cafe with japanese girls waiting at table dressed in black dresses with white lace collars. We found ourselves eating ham and egg sarnies complete with mayonnaise and tomato ketchup and watching japanese women consume green tea ice cream sodas and green tea flavoured cake. After lunch we caught the tube south of the city centre to Nagai to the Nagai Stadium to see the local team, Cerezo Osaka play Shimizu S-Pulse in the Nabisco Cup. Shimizu won 2-0 and were the better team by far. Although a huge stadium only 6,000 people turned out which did not make for the sort of atmosphere found at a British footy match and all very civilised apart from the two very noisy groups at each end. Osaka made plenty of noise but Shimizu were the winners again since their fans had the best drummers and the best songs. The fans were incredibly co-ordinated and there were people whose main job seemed to be to lead the singing. Cerezo's fans became very tedious as they sang the same song repeatedly for the whole of the second half. It was a colourful match to look at as the strips were pink and blue and silver grey and orange respectively.
Returned to Namba after the match to check some details at the tourist office and get some money from the bank. We were pleasantly surprised when on our third attempt we finally managed to extract some cash from the international ATM. Got supplies of fresh salad and cakes from the department store for evning meal. The food hall was heaving as everyone was fighting for knockdown food for their weekend food. It felt like being in the middle of a Saturday market so great was the noise from everyone. It was starting to feel very claustrophobic so we headed back to the hotel once we managed to find our way into one of the 25 entrances to Namba station.