Saturday I did the Yosakoi Festival and then Sunday, I did the Saikai softball thing. It was pretty cool. It's a fairly new tradition I believe between the Navy's athletics and the town of Saikai. Really all it is, is softball and BBQ.
The day starts with an opening ceremony. Japanese coaches and the mayor come and say a few things about the tradition as well as an ambassador from our end. Then we shake hands and play some ball! We play a total of about 4 games. The first 3 are slowpitch and everyone starts with a 2-2 count. So the game moves FAST. Even kids join the fun! My team played against a group where I swear there was a 10 year old and 13 year old. They were pretty awesome though!
The fourth game was an actual male fastpitch game. That was amazing.
During all the games, minus the first one, is the BBQ Japanese style. I saw Japanese style because for the BBQ we had yakisoba, rice balls, and meat. Maybe it was pork? I don't know, but it was freaking amazing. They had a tent set up too with tatami mats and tables to sit at (on the ground of course). For drinks there were two coolers, one was mostly non-alcoholic and the other was all types of alcoholic Japanese drinks.
I was searching for the beer...and I found sometihng else...the picture will show up in the video. I'd post it here but my computer won't let me for some reason.
Anyways, it is known as high ball. I immediately tasted whiskey and water. WHOA! Yeah, to much for me. I poured it out in the bathroom and grabbed a soda instead. Haha. I was not trying to have THAT kind of BBQ.
All in all it was great! Lots of fun playing softball and I got a personal handshake and compliment of my performance from the mayor of Saikai himself! Win!
Here's another crappy video from the day. (I'm not fishing for compliments on my video. I seriously spent no time or effort throwing it together but I still wanted everyone to see my day!)
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