Baseball in Japan is Unreal – My First Experience 🇯🇵⚾

Baseball in Japan is Unreal – My First Experience 🇯🇵⚾

Good afternoon from Fukuoka, Japan, where your man is going to have his first taste of Japanese baseball in this stadium right here. This is the Pepe Dome and it’s where the Folk Walka Soft Bank Hawks play and they are playing in 2 hours time, guys. But first, that Hilton Hotel is where I’m going to be staying for the next few days. Yes, these baseball games are played over a period of a few days. It’s Friday today. I’ve got a ticket for tonight’s match, which is at 6:00 p.m. It’s 400 p.m. now. And I’ve got a ticket for tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, like 1:00 p.m. or something. And I don’t have a ticket for the Sunday. So, uh, I’m going to see the first two games against Rakutin. They’re playing against, guys. But first things first, going to check into this hotel. And I’m already drenched in sweat. Just walking 50 m, guys. But I can see the retractable roof on that dome is closed. So that’s good. Maybe it’s all nice and cool inside. This apparently was the first stadium in Japan with a retractable roof. And uh yeah, I guess not only for the rain. the uh they keep it closed during the summer for the heat as well. So, let’s go and check into the Hilton where I’ve been given an upgrade. According to the app, I’ve been given an upgrade from the cheapest room, the cheapest $200 a night room to a $700 a night panoramic suite. So, hopefully the app is correct and that’s what I get. Hello, Diamond. Diamond. Yeah, this one. You can check in from here or 33rd floor the executive lounge and you can check in from there. Yeah, I’ll do that. Yeah, so 33rd floor right elevator for the come for the high grade elevators. Okay, thank you. Okay, that’s good. I can skip the queue for sure man has a status. You see all these people with their uniforms, soft bank uniforms. I need to get myself one of them if I’ve got time. First, let’s uh let’s get checked in. Then we’ll see if I’ve got enough time to go hunting for the local team’s jersey to uh check in. Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay, great. Okay, that’s nice. He’s telling me there’s a there sweets and all that. I think that’s the check in. I can refresh myself. [Music] Oh, well, that’s the dome right there. Check it out. The roof completely closed and all the fans already. It’s 2 hours before first but I think people already starting to filter in. Okay, so this is my room on the 25th floor, right at the end of the corridor. And the view from that lounge on the 33rd floor was amazing. So I assume this is what Japanese people do. They turn their shoes to face the door after they take them off. I’m sure the view is going to be amazing. Oh wow, this is like a whole apartment. Oh my word. So, there’s this corner section right here. Oh, wow. And then the bedroom section there, like looking out onto the dome. And a massive desk area there. And a bathroom. I’ve got view in all three directions. And a big bathtub right there with a jet thing on it where you could lie and Oh, wow. The sun is absolutely rosing. Oh, wow. That’s that that’s the beach that I visited on the second Japan vlog that I made. Mamoi Beach. I remember the little huts there. Oh my god, it’s rusting. Where’s the AC? Let’s get the AC on first of all. This should do it here. Ah, yes. Everything just turned on. and the AC. Okay, the coldest 18 degrees with a high fan. That should do it. And yeah, this is amazing. So, like I said, I paid for the cheapest room, which was $200 a night. And then I seen on the app, I think it was yesterday, I checked to see if I had been upgraded automatically, which sometimes happens before you actually check in. And they had already it had already said on the app, panoramic suite. So, I looked up what a panoramic suite looks like, and it looks like this. And I was like, “Oh, yes. I’m looking forward to this day, guys. Look at this. Look at the view we get.” It’s a pity. Uh I guess even if the roof was open, it’s only on that side. You wouldn’t actually be able to see into the stadium, but that would be pretty cool, eh? Cuz there’s some uh baseball stadiums in America that have like hotels actually in the stadium. You can actually get a view of the field from your your window. That is the Pepe Dome right there. And already a lot of activity. So yeah, I’m probably going to want to head down there. Got a nice desk right here. A nice proper office chair. That’s good, isn’t it? I mean, things is a bit worn out and stuff. I wonder how old this hotel is. There’s a bit of wear and tear. That’s just guests being careless with their drinks and stuff like that, though. They’ve kind of caused the wear and the tear. Well, this is nice. Yeah, the bathroom is lovely. Eh, like if you just want to soak guess when the sun goes down, you have a choice between your shower. Okay, there’s no overhead shower. It’s just the attachment. You got the choice between the shower and the bath. Oh, it is like an oven. It is like an absolute oven in the bathroom. That’s the only thing. Maybe once the AC starts blasting it, some of it will get into there. Or maybe there’s like maybe when you turn this on you get some kind of extraction. I don’t even know. Doesn’t even seem to do anything. Oh, it is just that light. Yeah, I don’t. Yeah, they they could do with something to cool down the bathroom cuz that is like an absolute oven. But the rest of the place is uh is nice and cool. Another TV. And then Yeah, you could have the view from both sides. Let’s open this up. Yeah. See, it’s like if the bathroom had those kind of curtains, it was As soon as I pulled back the curtains, I feel the heat. Yeah. You can chill there on your SHZ lounge. You can launch. You can launch here on your shez lounge. And uh yeah, get the sea view from both sides. Isn’t that nice? Yes, the panoramic suite. That is lovely. What about the mini bar situation though? Would we find Oh, yeah. We would find it in here. And it’s Oh, it’s a big one. It’s a big empty fridge. And no, I’m not going to fill it right right now. I’m not going to I’m I’m struggling for time. I think it’s half past It’s half 4 and the first pitch is at 600. I kind of want to go and spend my time. Maybe get something to eat in the stadium like some hot dogs. What would you even get at a baseball game? hot dogs or some American food. Uh, I want to buy the uniform and oh yeah, I need to get my tickets as well. I just have a voucher for for my tickets, like a QR code. I need to go to a specific gate and pick them up. The one for today and the one for tomorrow, guys. But this is nice, isn’t it? You like a good upgrade? You like a good hotel upgrade, don’t you? So, yeah. Let’s head on down there right now. Right outside the hotel, there’s the Hawk store. So, I’ll go in there first and get my uniform like everyone else. They’re all wearing a red one. I thought it was like a white one that they played in, but everybody’s wearing everybody’s wearing the red one. So, I guess that’s what I need to get. And I picked a ticket up from gate five, so it’ll be around there. Oh, wow. You can choose your player. I think I want condo. Yeah, I think I want condom. These are no name ones. How much are they even? I don’t know what that says. They were $12,000. So that’s what’s that? It’s like $84. And that’s large. It looks a bit big. Ah. Do I get to try them on? Surely a Japanese medium is too small for me. That’s a medium. I hear sizes here. Extra large. This is medium. [Music] Yeah, medium’s just a little bit too small. So, I think I need the large help. This is a thick material. Maybe I can find something that’s a bit lighter. Yeah, they have these kind of sports t-shirts here, but that’s not what everyone is wearing. Some kind of some kind of pajamas as well. Okay, I’ll get this then. Condo number three, size L. And you can get signed ones as well. I wonder how much those are. 17,000. I think it’s the same, but there it’s embroidered. It’s just embroidered. You pay an extra 5,000. It’s not like they actually signed it with a pen or something, but you get the embroidered one for an extra like $35. Oh, this store is huge. Just all random. You can get patches as well. If you want to customize your own name or something, you could do that. Yeah. There’s like numbers and everything. Yeah. Some people are wearing It’s like a It’s more like a sports shirt. It’s more like a sports shirt than this. Has a shirt. H like this. Okay. Okay. This thick thick hot hot. Um I want like uh this this I don’t understand. Like I have to get outside. Outside. Outside. Oh, okay. Thank you. Put this one back. Yeah. Apparently they sell those are like maybe it’s like a cheaper imitation one. They sell them outside. This is like the like a replica and it’s thick which is nice. I would like to have this but it’s uh it’s bloody hot. I can’t I can’t wear this uh in this weather. Yeah, I’ll have a look for it out here. I’ll go and get my ticket first. Yeah, almost everybody seems to be wearing the sport shirt version. Like all of those guys, everybody is wearing like the light one. Nobody is crazy enough to be wearing thick thick cotton in this temperature. Okay, seven. I need to find five. Ah, visitor park. That’s for the visitors. Yeah, Rakutin. That’s for the visitors. To Hoku Rakutin. That’s who they’re playing against today. The Hawks versus Rakutin. Ah, here we go. This is them here. Hello. Uh, condo. Condom. You have this one. Yeah. No. No name. No name. No name. Today. Do you have a today’s? Do you have? Uh, not yet. I need to get I have but I need to get I need to get Yeah, I have to do QR code here. Okay. Five. You have you have discount for ticket? Yes. Uh, and exchange ticket here. Okay. Okay. This uniform. Okay. I will get my ticket first. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. So, I think I get a discount. I think that’s the I think that’s what that is, the 10%. So, I’ll get my ticket first and then I’ll get my uniform at a discount. Voucher exchange counter. Oh, wow. There’s a massive queue. Massive. This one. Counter number five. Okay, that’s good. So, I specifically got a ticket from the foreigner allocation. They specifically Okay, they specifically reserved some tickets for foreigners on this site, Cl. So, it was sold out for locals, but they still had some tickets left for foreigners. That’s how I was able to get them. And this is where I picked them up from. I have to say tomorrow. Oh, I have to come tomorrow for that one. Okay, no problem. Okay. So, I have to come back tomorrow for tomorrow’s ticket. That’s kind of annoying. I thought I could pick them both up, but this is uh this has been the matches. 1st of August 2025, the first of three games versus Rakoten. Now, hopefully with this ticket, I can get my shirt at a discount. Let’s see. Oh, 3XLU. [Music] This one. Okay. Yeah, this is 3XL. I don’t know what the system is here. If you cue by what size you are, I can’t imagine that there’s many 3XL’s in Japan. Have a look around you three to see many people who are 3XL. Yeah, everybody’s in the S to L category. I think zero zero in the 3XL. Ah, so there’s two options. I don’t even understand what the what the options are. Oh, that’s for people that have a member. Oh, that’s for members. This one you member. Do you have a ticket? Huh? Do you have a ticket? Ticket? Yeah. Yeah. You can get a uniform. This one. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It seems everybody’s going. I wonder if they give you them included with your ticket or or what. They just seem to be uh I think they just hand them out. There was me about to pay $84. $84 for one in the in the club shop. One that would have made me feel too hot. But I think Yeah, cuz like none of the people here are wearing uniforms and then everybody everywhere else is wearing a uniform. So I think that’s it. I think they just give them away with the the tickets. Surely not. doesn’t make surely that it’ be too expensive for them to do that. But they’ve got boxes and boxes of them. So yeah, we’ll see. And in here it’s like an entertainment complex. You see there’s a massive slide that goes all the way down it. I’d like to try that out. And apparently they’ve also got a museum for Sadaro. Oh, this is the like a legendary manager and legendary player, but a legendary manager for the Soft Bank Hawks and he’s now the chairman, but he has like a museum with like all his trophies and jerseys and stuff in there. So, yeah, I’d like to check that out. Oh, wow. Look at that. Some kind Yeah, a couple of different rides in that. That looks decent. Okay. Okay. You literally get a free shirt with your ticket. That is uh that is incredible. Wow. That’s pretty decent actually. It’s a nice fit. Yeah, I’m pleased with that. I’ve never I’ve never seen that system before. But I guess that’s how they get everybody to wear the same the same colors and all that, you know. That’s why they get so many uh the stadium’s just going to be full of red. That’s pretty cool. So, apparently my ticket is in gate three. It be around here. And that’s the entertainment complex. I don’t have time right now to go and check that out. What time is it? It is 22 minutes past 5 and first pitch is at 600. Kind of want to get into the stadium and get a hot dog or something, but there are drinks in that right here. But maybe I want to enjoy it in the stadium. I don’t think you can take in I don’t think you can take the food from here into the stadium. Ah, they’re telling you you can’t bring the food or drink into the stadium. There’s signs everywhere about it. I think I think they’re checking your bags and all that as well. Yeah, all bags will be checked. You can’t bring in anything apart from a bottle of water. It says That’s all. Okay. Oh, get my ticket. Okay. Okay. So, um, row 37, seat 104. Oh, wow. Check it out, guys. I think those girls sell like a beer and all that. 37. Oh, yeah. This is me. I’m on this row here. Wow. Check it out, guys. Check out this storm. This is incredible. It’s all like one level. Wow. That’s crazy. So, I was I would see 104, which I think is like one of these ones. Yeah, that’s my seat right there. So, this is the standings right now. Soft Bank are join top with Nihon Ham. in the Pacific League and playing against Rakutin who are 11 games behind. So that’s how it works. There’s six teams in the Pacific League and six teams in the Central League. The Pacific teams they spend like six months playing each other. Then there’s like a there’s like a playoff there’s like a playoff system called the climax series where second second and third play each other and they play against the top team and the winner of follow that they play the winner of the Pacific league and that’s called Japan series that’s like um yeah decide who the best team in Japan are. So the same the same six teams in the Pacific League, they play each other for like 6 months from the last week in March to the first week in October. So we’re kind of towards the end of the season and uh yeah like SoftBank and Nihon Ham are competing for the number one spot and then number two and three will need to play off each against each other to play the number one spot for the climax series of the Pacific League. And I’m going to Yeah, I’m going to help the Hawks Cafe right here. Look, you can get some kind of like tuna bowl. It’s not the typical type type of stadium food you’re used to, is it? Like some kind of raw tuna. Oh, that looks better. Some sausages and chips and Yeah, sausages, chips, and deep fried sushi, it looks like, and fried chicken. Okay, I’m up for uh I’m up for that for sure. I just left my bag on my seat. I think I’ll be safe enough there. I’m not really worried. There’s not too many countries where I would do that at a stadium. Just leave my stuff on my seat while I go getting some munchies. But uh yeah, we’re just surrounded by Japanese people, aren’t we? So, I trust them not to nick my stuff. Okay. Okay. We got some fried goodness and a cockzee to enjoy the game with. I like this stadium food. You can get like the meat on the stick like the Yakuri. You can get like a Gdiva Belgian chocolate um like milkshakes. Wow. You got Gdiva milkshake in the stadium. That’s good. Even pizza. Oh wow. Oh yeah. Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna enjoy this. I’ve been there. Go Hawks. Go Hawks. My friend from Hong Kong to come to see their soft hawks. First time. First time ever. First time watch this baseball game. Okay. First time ever baseball game. Yeah. Okay. That’s for for me. This is my first live baseball game, but I used to watch MLB on TV when I was a kid. For like two or three seasons, I watched MLB and haven’t really kept up with it since then. But yeah, this will be my first live game. Wow. Look at this dome. They’re doing some kind of entertaining entertainment here. Some of the players down there. They’re just warming up, swinging the bat, pitching the ball. Okay, let’s check out. Oh, wow. That looks good. So, we’ve got fried chicken. I think it’s some kind of I thought that was like deep fried sushi, but something else. Some kind of like a vegetable cutler or something. A couple of wee sausages and some fries and some cheerleaders as well. That’s nice. And the players are wearing red. So yeah, that’s it. I’ve seen them before. There’s they’re wearing yellow. They’re wearing white. I guess at different times of the season, they just play in a different color. Like there they are on the screen in yellow and sometimes black. I guess so they can I was going to say so they can sell more shirts, but they they just give them away. So I don’t really I don’t really get it. He’s getting some kind of medal or something. He attached a thousand a thousand games. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Oh, okay. So, it says 1,000 games. You can read that. I just only the Chinese I can read little bit. Oh, okay. Some is the same as Chinese. No, no, no. This this this is a Chinese, but I I guess the meaning. Oh, okay. You can you can guess. Yeah. Okay. I understand. Oh, no. for respect. Stand up. Oh, we have to stand up. Mafia, we have to stand up. Oh, it’s Japanese national anthem. [Music] I [Music] think we’re about to begin right now. So, the way it is, the home team, they bat in the bottom of each innings. So, the away team have to go first. So, it’s like a little bit of an advantage. You know, like in poker, you act lashed. You got the advantage. You already got some information. You know what you need to do. That’s what it’s like in baseball anyway. Like like if you’re in the ninth inning and you’re two behind, you know exactly what you need to do. And you can the manager can strategize based on that. So yeah, Rakutin will come out the back first. And that’s our mascot there. Can’t remember what his name is. Like Harry the Hawk or something like that. But he’s the he’s the he’s the Broxy Bear offer soft bank hot. Oh, Harry Hawk. I don’t know what his name is, but I’ll call him Harry Hawk. Still don’t have anybody sit sitting next to me. But I think the I think it’s sold out. I think it’s a full stadium. Here they come. Yeah, that’s the other advantage of you bet last at home, you bet in the bottom for the for the very first pitch, all your players are walking out and getting their introductions, you know, cuz they’re all coming on the field. Believe his name is Oasisawa. Oh, wow. They got smacked and caught. Yes, we are out. Oh, how lucky the net is there. Yeah, there’s like, in fact, it only protects that bit. It doesn’t protect this bit right here. So, I could easily get one in the head, guys. That could easily happen. There’s like a singing section down there. A whole band with trumpets and all that. Oh, yeah. They they made that net for sure. That would have been two in a row. Okay, I still have one empty seat next to me. That’s good. Otherwise, it’s like a airplane where you’re sharing the armrests and it’s a bit cramped. That’s good. Still lobby in the 105. Oh, wow. That’s Hondao number three. It’s gone. It’s out. It’s out. Yes, he’s [Applause] the guy before him got a walk as well. So, two runs. Two runs up. Yeah, that’s the guy who I was almost going to get him on the shirt. Number three, Condo. That’s the guy I wanted. So, we’re top of the third now. The Eagles, they got a man on first and third. Guess that noise over there, that must be the way support. Those are the ones making all the noise right now. So, yeah, that section in there, the trumpets in that. I thought that was a singing section for the Hawks, but I think that’s that’s all Eagles fans. When there was music coming from the Hawks, it was um down that way. It’s coming from down there. [Music] Oh, they’ve got it. They’ve got one run. Yeah. So, in Japan, the baseball compared to American baseball, there is less like heavy hitting and it’s more like a lot of bunting, a lot of base stealing and stuff like that. That’s what it’s known for. The actual ball is different. The actual ball is like a little bit smaller and a little bit tackier than the ball they use in American baseball. So, small ball in two different ways. All right, I’m up for some soft cream. Soft cream. Ice cream. Uh, ice cream. Look like that’s my one there. Okay. $4 ice cream and a black cone. These are all the food options here. There’s a bunch of stuff. There’s even a moss burger. Get takoyaki joas. All sorts of stuff. The saté there. Even pizza, beef balls. Yeah, they’re a good place to come and get a munch cuz the games are quite long. So, yeah, there’s the Mossburg burger right there. Yeah. I don’t know if it’s their full menu, but it’s most of the good stuff. the fish burger and the actual moss burger, the classic one and all that. You can get them here. They’re they’re a little bit more expensive than the outside, but not that much. I mean, they look like they’re maybe like 40% more expensive or something like that. The menu. And there you can get the the actual replica tops like that one. The white one. I actually think I might want that one. The white one. Yeah. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow we’ll come and uh get that one. Let’s see what I missed. Ah, I didn’t miss anything. It’s still 2-1 to the Hawks. Oh, it is soft. It’s really soft. That is extra soft. Yeah, it doesn’t taste like vanilla. It tastes like pure milk. just tastes like sweet milk. [Music] So, it has to pass the the marking before it goes wide to count. It passes if like it bounces inside and then goes outside. It’s fine. That’s the rules, guys. Not that I’m an expert. It’s like been so many years since I’ve watched baseball, but I know most of the rules. And this is the softest ice cream I’ve ever had. It’s uh it’s all fluffy. [Music] So, they’re shooting I think it’s like t-shirts or whatever, but a gun. They’re from the Hawk store, but we’ve just finished the fourth innings. They’re about to start the fifth. [Music] It’s Condo again. It’s Condo again. So they all sing about whatever player is up to bat. They’re singing about Yamamoto. It’s the number 77. [Applause] Okay. So we got to walk one run. [Music] [Applause] Whoa. It’s coming for me. coming for me. DJ Mocha. Who is DJ Mocha or Moa? Does anybody know who this DJ is? That’s great. We get like a disco. We got a disco at basically halftime. Oh, what an atmosphere. So, we just finished the sixth innings and they’re playing the song for the away team, the opposing team. That’s crazy work. You would never get that in a football game in Scotland. You can’t imagine a team coming to Ibros and them getting to have their songs played through the speakers and on the big screen and all that. But yeah, that’s what they’re doing for them. I guess it’s like a gesture to the away fans. Well, it is still quite um you know, the rivalries are fierce. But the away section is tiny. It’s literally just one one small stand of away fans and the rest are Hawks. The whole stadium is Hawks apart from this very small section of the Eels fans. Anyway, I’m going to I’m going to get a mossburg burger. I’m up for a moss burger, guys. So, climb over. Oh, they’ve sold out of a bunch of stuff. I guess that’s why the queue’s quiet, huh? I want the fish burger. I didn’t see that one has been sold out. Let me see. Yeah, that’s the one I want there. Fish burger. No. I want moss shake vanilla. Yeah. Okay, that’s not bad. That’s like It’s only 470 yen for the burger. So that’s like $330 or something for a burger in a sports stadium. And the shake was about the same. So a burger and shake for like seven bucks. Not even. It was like uh Yeah. Like six bucks. Six bucks total. Ah, you want to see my ticket? Okay. [Music] Okay. Can you hold just for one minute? Yeah. Thank you. So, I can do some climbing. Okay. That’s how we do it. That’s how we do it. Thank you. Let’s try the mosh shake. I’ve been to Mosberger many times but never tried the shape. Oh, it’s super thick. Super super thick. Somebody just burst the all these balloons just appeared. I don’t know where they appeared from. Where did the balloon Did they give out the balloons to everyone? I don’t know. They just appeared just now. Everyone has one. I don’t know if they already had them and they know to bring them in the seventh innings out or what, but the whole stadium have these uh balloons. Oh, these are like the ones you can let go and they fly. They’re like jet balloons. You let them go and they all uh fly up. But this is nice. It’s really thick, so you can drink it slowly. And it’s very creamy as well. Creamy taste. It looks like we’re going to win. We’re 3-1 up. There’s Harry Hop. I checked it is his name. He’s Harry Hawk. That’s his name. Apparently, there’s a whole family. There’s a whole family of Hawks that are the mascots. But the cute cheerleaders come out again. Fantastic. Yeah. Looks like we’re going to win. So, yeah. Coming up for the bottom of the seventh and 3-1 up. It’s looking good. Whoa. Wow, guys. That’s crazy. Feel that. He did like a 3 2 one on the screen and then everybody everybody let them fly at the same time. That’s mad. And apparently if the home team win in Japanese baseball, they let off fireworks. So I think we’re getting fireworks at the end. At the end of this game, I think we’re getting fireworks, guys. Well, Condo up the bat again. That’s my guy. It’s my man Condo right there. Number three. So, I try this fish burger. This moss fish burger. Let’s see how it compares to see how it compares to McDonald’s fillet of fish. Yeah, it looks the same, guys. So, three balls in two strikes. Might be getting a walk. Yeah, it looks the same as a McDonald’s. Look at fish. Oh, there’s a cheese a slice of melted cheese in the bottom. [Music] Okay, we got to walk. [Applause] Man got to walk. It’s a bit dry and all that hot. I think they must have pre-prepared these and it’s been sitting there a while. It’s probably sitting there for like half an hour or something, but it’s all dry. Yeah. Could do with more sauce. I’m just getting to the saucy part. [Music] Yeah. Yeah. This isn’t good, guys. I think Yeah, maybe I would enjoy it more if I got it fresh at the restaurant. Freshly cooked. We’ve got the Hawks pitching for the win here. So, we’re at the top of the ninth. Two men out, two strikes. He literally could end the game with this throw. That’s it. That’s it. Done. Job done. Another victory for the Hawks. Victory. [Applause] I think the balloons are going to go again. 3 2 1. There we go. Wo! [Music] [Applause] [Music] So, there’s an afterparty. This DJ plays, then there’s a band, and then there’s fireworks. So, you get a lot for your money. You got a three-hour sports game and then like a concert basically. It’s crazy. Well, I missed the fireworks, guys. I wait I waited like 40 minutes for the fireworks. They started. I got my camera. I got ready to press record. And by the time I press record, it was finished. There was literally Literally like five fireworks over like 5 seconds. That was it. Anyway, that’s me for tonight. I’ll be back here. The next game is at 1:00 p.m. So, I’ll get back here about midday or something tomorrow and see what other food there is to munch in this stadium. And yeah, get to watch the game as well. I’m looking now at what I might get for lunch tomorrow. Yeah, maybe that. I think it’s a beef bowl and a cutlet. Probably probably something like that. The Mossberger was terrible. I’ve been to Mossberger many times. I’ve been in Thailand. I’ve been in Japan and I’ve always loved it. But the one I had there, it was all dry and almost cold as well. Very disappointing. I guess they have to have them like ready to just give you cuz nobody wants to wait like 10 minutes or something, do they? Well, the game is on and while there’s big cues and that. So, that’s how they do it. But I’ll know for future reference never to get a Mossberger at the stadium. What a bad idea it was to leave the mini bar hunt until now. This is crazy. I even know where the queue begins or ends or anything. And it’s now Saturday, a quarter past midday. We’re 45 minutes until first pitch on this second game. I’ve seen this. They got some kind of gacha kind of gacha machines for what? I don’t know. of little uh figures, little player figures and jerseys and this kind of thing. Let’s see if there’s anything interesting. Yeah. Don’t know if it’s like keychains or magnets or what. This guy’s loading some up. Ah, this will be what they are here. There’s I want the jerseys. The jerseys are cool. The rest of them are badges. And the figures are cool as well. Okay, let’s see. Yeah, they’re 500 each. I’ll go for the figures first. We want number three again, don’t we? How many is there? I think they’ve got 10. So, I’ve got a 10% chance. Oh, what’s going on? Let’s see how lucky we get. Oh, nothing’s happening. Oh, it automatically comes. I think that does nothing. Who do we get? We got number 24. Number 80. 24. Yeah, right. I’ll get one of these squares. So, I don’t know these are magnets or keychains or what. Let’s see what comes out. The jerseys. The jerseys machines over there. The ones that actually are shaped like jerseys. And this does nothing. Or does it? Oh, this one does something. Let’s see. I got a It’s a cloth. Ah, that’s what it is. How How would I know? It’s like a tissue. How would I even know? Let’s see. There we go. Yamakawa number five. It is Yeah, it’s like a cloth. It’s like a little uh I think it’s like you could put down on your table and use for like uh so you don’t scratch the table like for cups and stuff like that. I think that’s what it is. So you could get a collection and put them all around your table. Like if you had four or five seats, you can get four or five of these. But I want the the jerseys. I think I need to get them from this machine and they’re like 700 or a,000. Okay. You can choose the number and just choose the name as well. Yeah. Like that. And then Yeah. So there’s like Oh, it’s it’s this or it’s the combo. I want the big one with a hook. Okay. So that’s it. You get to customize it. That’s good. It’s not an actual like luck thing. You actually get to choose what you want. That’s pretty cool. You can even put your own name on it. I can get a Dale one as well. Apparently, two things are coming. Something just came and something else is coming. Let me see. Huh? Ah, right. So, it’s like ah they custom print it like this. So, you have to stick it on yourself. I will uh I will do that later. Oh wow, this weather is extreme. I need one of these. I need a I need a Soft Bank Hawks umbrella. They should sell them or a fan or something. An ice cold drink. Maybe that’s what I’ll get once I get in back in. I have no need to go and get my free t-shirt. I just washed this one in the sink last night and hung it up to dry. I got most of the creases out of it. So, I’m just going to wear this one again. Yeah, I could get another one for free. But what’s the point? It’s just going to be exactly the same. There’s no point having a duplicate. But yeah, I got to go and pick my ticket up from gate number five. This is the information today. Okay. Ticket. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, 13 aisle, row 44, seat 50. So, I’m further back. But yeah, I think there’s no bad seats in that stadium. Wherever you sit in that stadium, the dome, I think you’re getting pretty much uh a decent view. Right. I want to have a look in here. I don’t think I’ve got time to go on the slide or whatever. But I want to check this out. Something I’m going to do either after the game or tomorrow when the third game is on and I don’t have a ticket and I can’t get a ticket. Even the scalping websites don’t have any available. They have them for other games and other dates, but tomorrow specifically I’ve I’ve not been able to get myself a ticket for some reason. The Sunday is uh too popular. Ah, that’s better. That is better. Some air conditioning and this list of rules. I was reading about it last night and it explains about the balloons. So, it’s the middle of the seventh that everybody lets off the balloons and apparently they sell them in the stadium. So, you let them off at the middle of the seventh and then after the match only if the team wins, only if the locks win. Having a look in here. There’s a food hall. Mostly I’m just soaking up the air conditioning, but there’s a food hall. If you want to wait in a long line to eat a bowl of ramen. It is a bowl of ramen as well. Yeah. If you want to wait in a long line to eat a bowl of ramen, you can do that here. Yeah. If you want to get yourself some f coffee. Yeah. F coffee. F coffee can off. I hate coffee. So yeah, that’s a that’s quite inappropriate name. Okay, let’s have a look what’s here. There’s some team lab forest. That’s some kind of like light art kind of thing. There’s the Sadaru baseball museum that’s dedicated to Sadharu and some virtual reality thing. some UNO museum which is like poop like kawaii poop museum and yeah the rides and all that are on the eighth floor. Okay, this is the saru all museum. Maybe I have time to do this. Can’t imagine it takes more than half an hour. So there’s the tickets here. Let’s do this. So, I think it’s 1,800 for over 16. Yep. English. Uh, and Forest of Beatles. Okay. Okay. Okay. No time limit. Okay. Thank you. History of Oh, Sadaru. So, yeah. It’s like, oh my god, this is like he’s got so much info. So much info about this guy. So yeah, he was a big player in Japan. He’s I think he’s like Chinese, but Japanese born. And yeah, he became the manager. He played for the Giants, but then he became the manager of the Hawks, the Soft Bank Hawks. And now he’s still with the team as like a I think he’s really old now. He’s like 85 years old, but he’s now like their chairman. It’s the team is owned by the Soft Bank CEO, but Sadharo is like he acts as the chairman. What’s this meant to be? Supposed to be his the home or something. Absolutely nothing going on going on there. Some dojo where he practiced his flamingo leg kick. So, I’ve seen that. I’ve seen how he he batted. It was like a one-legged like a one-legged kind of stance where he lift his front leg and then Yeah, you’d have to I don’t know, maybe they have a video of it. Yeah, maybe here. Yeah, you see there he lifts his leg. It’s all onelegged action. You see that? That’s his 756th home run. And he got 868 in his career. 868 home runs. Yeah. You see how he lifts his leg like that and then snaps. Another home run. Home run for the Giants. And this is a Japanese honor award. Apparently he was the first one to receive it. It’s called the people’s honor. I guess they gave them out like in the UK they give out nighthoods. So second in the world for home runs is Barry Bonds. He’s hit 100 more than him. Comparison to historical players through statistical data. Yeah, baseball loves statistics, guys. Like I said to you yesterday, if you’re if you’re into stats, baseball is your game because you can you can geek out on stats all you want. These are just stats about Sadaru. Like they’ve measured his thighs and everything. They want to give you stats on everything and every year that he played. So he played in the 60s and 70s mostly. Yeah. That’s where the uh the home runs went mostly went here. Wow. Stats galore. And a whole section dedicated to Sataru’s family. Father Shiiko. Oh, mother Tommy. Oh, brother T Sujo. Oh, some sumo wrestler there. Is that part of his family as well? Oh, it’s friends. This is his friend section. Yeah, he’s friends with Yokazuna right there. Home run theater 860. I think they just have them on a loop. You can just watch uh that must go on for uh hours. You can just uh sit and watch his home runs. Some of his trophies, milestone home runs. This was given to him in 1971 for 450 runs. This for 400 runs in 1969. Wow, that’s cool. Look at this one right here. It’s his hands. He must have put his hands into some bronze or something. featuring a carving of his autograph and handprints commemorating his 700th home run in 1976. Wow, that is cool. That is really cool. Memorial bats. They’re saying this one’s autographed by Babe Roof. Wow. Yeah, it’s a Babe Roof autograph bat right there. And that one bat that O used for his 755th home run in 1977. Well, diamond glove trophies galore. Yeah, you’re doing well if you get so many trophies that you need to have a place like this to store them all. And this one is to commemorate hitting 30 home runs for 10 seasons or more in a row. I think this is part of the people’s honor. Awards, look at that. Incredible stuffed cresant serpent eagle. an extra prize awarded for the people’s honor award. He got this. Wow. Imagine having that in your house. Yeah. The flamingo. That’s Yeah. I guess to represent his stance as uh just says it was gifted to him. Yeah. See the resemblance there and there flamingo stance. And this is all information about him being the manager of the Hawks inauguration as the manager 1984. And that’s the stadium there when it’s open. When the roof is open, it’s like that. I wonder when they do that. Yeah, that’s it there. The roof open. I wonder when they open it. Maybe in like the spring, maybe the first few months of the season or something. Wow. That’s celebrating his first victory with the Hawks, the national champions in 1999. That’s when they weren’t the Soft Bank Hawks. They were the Fawaka something beginning with Dehawks before they were bought over by the Soft Bank CEO. Well, I’ve thrown a pin there. It’s cool. That’s his Japan uniform. There he is. I guess he was managing Japan in ah 2006. It was the WBC, the Battleist, the WBC manager, the World Baseball Classic. So, Japan must have won that in 2006 against it was an eight team series they played. Would that be Cuba? Yeah, they played they played Cuba in the final. Sadaru O was tossed in the air at Petco Park in San Diego, USA. Was in the USA. Oh, there’s something going on here. I think this I think this is nothing to do with the museum. It’s like uh what the heck is that? Some kind of insect farm or something. That is one weird looking thing. What the Yeah, I don’t think I want to do that. These things are creepy. Yeah. Yeah. Some beetles and stuff like that one that flew into my balcony. If you’ve seen the video I made in Nagasaki, a huge thing like this flew onto my balcony and I didn’t even know what it was because we don’t have anything like this in Scotland. So many people were commenting, “Ah, have you never seen a beetle before?” Yeah. Well, I’ve never seen a radioactive beetle like this. That’s the thing. Oh, yeah. You can you can play around with them in there. Oh, there’s it’s only 10 minutes until first pitch. It’s only 10 minutes. And oh, more gachas. Are these baseball ones or just I think they’re just random. Just random gachas. Not baseball or anything. So random that there was a room full of Beatles in there. 89 Park. So this is like an activity zone. You can uh I know what this says. She’s not very happy. Ah, you can practice like pitching and stuff. What’s this? Pull-ups and chin-ups, side steps. Yeah, this looks like too much uh physical activity for me. Uh so it can test your hand eye coordination. I guess it’s like they light up and you have to do doo like some kind of Japanese arcade game. [Music] And this is how high you can jump. Some skipping game. Ah, it’s pitching. That’s pretty cool. So, you pitch at this uh screen and it gives you a score. That’s pretty cool. And some batting some batting game there. Ah, you can you can line it up and smack it. I think it’s for the kiddos cuz that’s a that’s like a foam bat. Yeah, I think most of this stuff is for the kiddos. Oh, wow. Who threw that? Oh, you press a button and that’s how fast that throws it. It shows 154. I think this uh it’s going to come out here. Yeah, it’s going to get fired out. Wow, that was so fast. Oh my god. So, that’s 154 km an hour pitch again. Oh my god. Yeah. So if baseball looks easy when you’re watching as a spectator or on TV, imagine you’re standing trying to bat that, you’ve got a split second to see where the ball’s going and swing for it and hit it with a bat that’s like that thick. So this is like Yeah, this is more proper bats. Uh, so yeah, the balls get teed up and then Yeah, that’s pretty cool. It’s like some kind of game like those golf It’s like those golf simulators. It’s probably the same kind of technology as the golf simulators. That’s pretty cool. And that’s uh Oh, that shows your speed. So, that guy got 132 km. That’s not bad at all. Yeah, that’s uh that’s not too bad. 132 catch and throw. So, this one is for catching. Yeah. [Music] Ah. So, it gets rolled. Ah. And then you have to you have to throw it to the player. That’s pretty cool. You have to pick it up and throw it. That’s pretty decent. Yeah, that’s cool. Right, it’s like 2 minutes until I don’t know what this is. Something else. It’s 2 minutes until first pitch. So, I’m going to miss the start of the game. But that’s okay because I enjoyed just soaking up all that AC in there. Yeah, I think I’m I think I’m up for one of those uh Gdiva Gdiva milkshakes that I seen last time. So, I’m going in through gate three this time in the 13th aisle. Well, I’m in this one, which is premium seat entrance. So, this ticket was about $10 more than the one I got yesterday. I think the one I had yesterday was like 70 bucks, and this one was like 80 bucks. I just got whatever was available. So, maybe I got a better seat. Maybe more arm room or something like that. Where’s the gooda? That’s what I’m after. Oh, there it is. There I see the sign. Good. It’s good. The diver dark chocolate. Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh, little little crunchy bits of chocolate in there as well. M. Oh, wow. It’s so It’s so rich. And apparently the game hasn’t started yet. That’s why everybody’s still out here. So, I just looked at my ticket and it says 2:00 p.m. So, the ticket that I bought said 1:00 p.m., but the ticket I’ve got in my pocket says 2:00 p.m. So, even when uh even when I like Googled information about this match, it said 1:00 p.m. So, I don’t know what’s going on, if it got delayed or what, but it says on the ticket. It says on the ticket 2 p.m. So, um yeah, I’m going to I’m just going to have a wander around. We’re going to do the full loop and see what’s interesting. Wow. They have these uh like you got a bowl of food on top of your drink there. That’s it there. It’s called drink on food wall. So, you get your drink and then you got a bowl that fits on the top of it. So, you can just stick it in your armrest. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, they’ve got the I guess this would be the expanded roster right here. I think the main roster they can have like 25 or 28 or something players and overseas. I think at any time they’re on their main roster they can only have four four overseas players. So they would mostly be Americans, maybe some Cubans and all that. But yeah, they’re allowed maximum four in the roster that they register for the game. They’re allowed the maximum four foreigners. The rest have to be Japanese. They even have KFC. I can’t imagine that’s the full KFC menu. It’s a tiny little uh stall, but you can get some KFC chicken, the chicken and the chicken nuggets from there. Oh wow, there’s so many good food options. It’s not like going to a football game in the UK where you can get um a minced pie, a pie in boil or whatever. No, you can get you can get pretty much anything your heart desires here. Gdiva chocolate milkshakes, bowls of I’ve even seen like sushi and stuff like that. Yeah, it looks like Korean fried chicken there. You can get your um Oh, yeah, that looks good. Pizza. Also, there’s even Subway sandwich inside here. I’ve never seen a Subway Sandwich. The whole time I’ve been in Japan, I haven’t seen one single Subway, but I’ve seen one here in the Hawk Stadium. El Boracho. It’s like Mexican rice balls. It looks like and tacos and all that. That looks good, actually. So many tempting options here. Yeah, you can get like a a little Mexican box with tacos and nachos and dip. Oh yeah, look how many people are getting a strand. Look at how many people are getting our strand right now. So yeah, I guess if they’re coming for a day after the baseball, they just they plan on eating their lunch here, you know, get here early, get some lunch, watch the game, enjoy the postgame concert, then maybe get another munch. Yeah, like that. A5 Wagu. You can get A5 Wagu bento box. All our A5 Wagu A5 Wagyu bento box at the uh at the stadium. Wow. And here you can get the balloons for inflating in the seventh innings. So they are 350 for a pack of two or you can get a pump in two for 800. It’s pretty cool. I think I’ll get myself a pack of these. And here’s a bunch of bento boxes. These look good. I like bento boxes cuz you get a variety. You can get like five or six different things in a box. This one here has like nine different things. It’s like $22 or something. It’s a big one. Uh to [Music] Coca-Cola Zero Coca-Cola. Okay. So, every time I buy something here with my credit card, it ends up being a little it means it ends up being like 5% cheaper or something than the price. I’ve noticed that. Like when I got the Gdiva chocolate drink, it was like maybe like 50 yen cheaper than it was on the the thing. So it was the same thing there. Yeah. This is I was going to say this is really heavy, so there must be a lot of food, but there’s a bottle of Coke Zero in there as well. Okay. Okay, so row 44, seat 50. So yeah, it’s a high one. The last time I was in 37. And where are we? Oh, we’re right behind right behind home plate. That’s pretty cool. It’s going to be a good view. Yeah, even from the top here, it’s going to be a good view. So, I’m in seat 50, which is going to be at the end, and row 44. So, I’m in this row. I’m going to be sitting beside these guys. In fact, that’s my seat right there. Looks like I have a neighbor who’s not here right now. Hello. Hello. How are you? I’m fine. Where are you from? I am from Korea. Korea. Okay, good. Where are you from? I’m Squapland. Nice. I got a friend from Korea. Korea friend. Okay. First time baseball or no? Uh Korean many baseball. Oh, in Korea there’s many. It’s popular. Oh, okay. Popular sport in Korea as well. That’s cool. Yeah. So, I just got myself this bento with nine nine different things. And this is what I’ve got right here. Oh, wow. That’s a lot of variety. So, we got broccoli with the beef there. We’ve got some unagi. That’s cool. I like unagi. We’ve got sausage with some kind of I don’t even know. We’ve got so much so much right here. I’ll go for the beef first. Wow. Look at this. M. Oh, yeah. [Music] So, this roll, this must be like a foreigner robe. I noticed that yesterday I was sitting next to the Hong Kong guy. Today I’m sitting next to the Korea guy and I noticed that yeah the people in my row they didn’t look Japanese. So I guess they reserve maybe like four or five rows for the foreigners. If you buy a ticket from the foreigner allocation, you’re going to be with other foreigners. So if you want to enjoy the atmosphere with like the actual I think the cheering the cheering section for the Hawks is like over there. If you want to be in that section and amongst all the fans, you got to either figure out how to buy it in Japan the ticket or get on off one of the scalping websites. When I tried to buy the Japanese ticket, they have the machines at Family Mart where you can buy tickets for things and it was sold out on every day and that was like two weeks ago. I tried to buy the ticket. So, yeah, the tickets sell out way in advance. It’s uh it’s sold out and then even tomorrow there’s no foreigner tickets available unfortunately. But this is a this is a good seat right beside one plate right here right behind it. Oh yes the una wish there was more of that. I love that. I love that stuff. I think that’s that menntai. The It’s like some kind of fish fish eggs. Some kind of like fish eggs. It’s popular in Folk Walka. I see it around. Looks like some kind of meatball. Like a chicken meatball. Oh wow. It’s like my own little buffet right here. So much variety. That was the first pitch. That was terrible. That was terrible. I was nowhere near it. It was nowhere near the place. This symbol. I think there’s a hawks hawk symbol. It’s like the gang sign for the hawks. The old Harry. Harry Hoffter. Harry Hawk. That’s down right there. Like that. Your finger down. [Music] Nice peace. They’re saying it’s like They’re saying it’s like a peace symbol. Nice peace. Wow. Big old chunk of fish as well. That’s tremendous. It’s so soft. So good. [Music] Here we go. 2 p.m. First And it’s the way section singing over there. The eagle section. Oh, wow. That’s getting caught straight away. Yes. Straight away. Okay. Straight away to second base. First batsman for the Hawks. Chance. I’m doing this. I almost missed that. I thought I would do this. So, looks like I just place that into here like that. Oh, nice. Oh, no. It’s got you got safely back to second. And I got this safely into here. Check it out, guys. And here he is. Number three condo. I’ve got the little uh it just snaps in like that. I’ve got my little Condo soft bank Hawks keychain. I’ll attach it to my bag like a Japanese person like how they do with the Ratcha toys. They attach them to their bags like that. Nice. Looks like he got a walk, did he? Or what? I missed it. I think he got walk. Yes, we got a run. First run. Come on. Come on. Safe. Safe. Safe. Brilliant. One n up. Bottom of the second. Come on. Another one. Another one. Yes. That’s the part of the stadium I want to be in. That whole section is like a cheering section. They’re singing. They’re waving flags and stuff. here. It’s a bit more chilled. It’s a bit more subdued. So, if I can get a ticket for tomorrow off one of the scalping websites, if one opens up, that’s where I’ll try and get in over there. I don’t think you can get in there just normally as a foreigner buying a ticket online. We’ve got a left-handed batter here. He’s a foreigner. This black guy, Jeter Duns, used to play for the Boston Red Sox. So, like I said, they can have up to four foreign players. He’s the first one I’ve seen on the soft banks. The Eagles, they’ve got a bunch of them. Oh, [Applause] there we go. [Applause] Right. I’m out on the snack hunt, guys. Out. Oh, wait. That looks good. I’m looking for something sweet. Most of it savory food, but I see this. There’s some kind of dumpling there. And it looks like chocolate banana right there. That looks good. Okay, it’s frozen, ice cold, lovely, jubbly. And they’ve got screens so you can see if you’re missing anything. Condo’s up the bat again. But it’s still 3-1. Oh, yeah. I’ve been eating the frozen bananas from 7-Eleven. So, it’s the same taste. Yeah. Nice and healthy. Just an actual frozen banana with just a thin layer of chocolate around it. [Music] [Music] The Eagles with bases loaded. They’re going for it. They’re going for it. And they’re out. They’re done. Oh, [Applause] home run from Peter DS. [Applause] [Applause] [Music] Yeah, it’s disco time before the sixth innings and it’s time for me sum. Time for me to grab another snack. It’s just good though. It’s uh it’s so entertaining. There’s even between innings and everything, there’s so much going on. Music, cheerleaders, all sorts. Now, I remember seeing a Korean fried chicken stall, but I don’t remember where it is. It could easily be half the way around. It could be on the other side for all I know. But yeah, that’s what I’m up for. A little portion enough. Just a little portion. Not that hungry. Just a little portion of Korean fried chicken would be nice with a sweet sauce. M. Oh, I think I’ve almost done a full loop and haven’t found it. That’s aisle 32. I started at 13 and that’s aisle one. So, yeah, I’ve done a 3/4 loop and haven’t found it. Oh man. Yeah, I did the full loop. I did the full loop and didn’t find it. I don’t know what happened. There was definitely a Korean fried chicken. I’m not doing another look. There was definitely a Korean fried chicken somewhere. I guess while I was weaving in and out of people, I missed it. I guess I’ll Yeah, I’m not doing another look. I guess I’ll just choose something else. Like maybe one of these. I think that’s just like fried chicken in a little pouch there. Yeah, chicken. H this one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I definitely got money off there with a coke zero. That should have been 650, but they charged me 617. So, I got 33. Oh, yeah. I got like 5%. And I got like a 5% discount somehow. Maybe for paying my credit card. I don’t know. And it looks like while I was gone, the Eagles got a run. So we’re at 42 right now. And it’s the bottom of the six. When it’s the middle of the seventh, then we do the balloons. I need to remember that. I’ve got balloons. [Music] It’s not chicken. It’s fish. It’s a It’s buttered fish. Like a tartar sauce. It kind of look like it would be chicken, but yeah, it’s like a piece of piece of hadock or something like that. [Music] Wow. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Applause] [Music] Wow. So that’s like a medical team there. Whenever they see that somebody might have got hurt potentially, they go and check that. That one really could have hurt somebody. So, they’re finding where where it hit and if the person is okay. I think they’re okay. We’ve got a Venezuelan guy now pitching for the Hawks. Darwin Hernandez also used to play for the Boston Red Sox. So, now he’s up at the mount. People are starting to inflate the balloons, getting them ready for the middle of the seventh. We’re at the top of the seventh right now. So, I’m pulling up my second one. I gave I gave one to my friend. Yeah, I got to I got to blow this up fast. That’s my one now. Yeah. Woo. Wow. Yes. [Applause] [Applause] Accumulation. [Music] Oh, we’re almost done here. Top of the ninth. Two men out. Two strikes, two balls. Job is almost done. Almost. Another W. Another easy W for the Hawks. The balloons are ready. That’s it. You’re out. GG. [Applause] Victory for the Hawks. Victory. Okay guys, this time I’m not going to stick around. It’s about an hour of festivities, music, and all that. This time I’m just going to bounce. [Applause] I’m going to keep refreshing the websites to see if I can get a ticket for tomorrow’s game. But if not, if I can’t come back tomorrow, Sunday, I’ll come back on the Monday when there’s no game cuz you can do like a tour of the stadium and get access to the field and all that. So, I think that’s what I’ll do. Going to go out this way. Okay. Another way out. Yeah, that’s better. The last time I got stuck in a massive crowd. Took me like to get halfway around the stadium took me like 15 minutes. And then I jumped into the Family Mart to grab my mini bar before going back to my hotel. And even that was packed. And even that took like 15 minutes just to get to the till. So now I want to do that slide, the big slide that slides all the way down this E Zo EO Foca Boss Entertainment Complex. But if I’m going to do the slide, I don’t know if I can do it with this backpack. H uh I think I should just dump this in my hotel first and then go there with no luggage and do the slide. Surely it’s still open. And surely it’s not going to be that busy. Everybody sticks around. Like last night almost everybody I would say like 95% of people stuck around for the concert and all that. I don’t understand. It’s all they were singing in Japanese and all that. It wasn’t that entertaining for me. So I’m happy just to skip that. Unless you come out, you get like a monster drink. Huh? Yeah. H never mind. What’s going on here? I think I’m getting some noodles. We’re just getting a bowl of noodles. I’m up for that. More than the monster. More than the monster drink. What is it? Oh, it’s a Hawk. Hawks noodles. Yeah. With what? I don’t know. Maybe there there’s something on there. Some kind of Yeah, something. We’ll try these later. But, uh, look at that. You can get an apartment with a balcony overlooking the stadium. That’s cool, eh? You could actually live here. If you were a Hawks fan, that would be amazing, wouldn’t it? It’d just be like staying in the Hilton. Where is the Hilton? That’s what I’m trying to find. Where is it? I’m sure it was like right next to the uh Oh, here it is. It’ be like staying in the Hilton like what I am. It’s so easy just to come and go from the stadium. Look at that. You can get a kind of flowery version of the shirt. And over here is Mark is And that’s a mall. It’s like a big your typical kind of Japanese mall with like Unio, man. Oh, did you? Hi. Nice to see you. I see your page. Where are you from? Oh, from Japan. Okay. Good. Good game today. Good game. Good game. Nice to see you. Good luck, man. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. This um I think it’s just like your typical Hello. It’s just your typical um like Japanese mall. I think there McDonald’s cinema and all that. And that was built I think that’s fairly new. They used to have a thing called Hawk Town apparently a mall called Hawktown. And it became dead like nobody it was old and decrepit and nobody really went there especially when there was no game on. So uh that closed down ages ago and they have that Mark is mall now. I haven’t been inside yet. I’ll do that at some point, but for now going to dump my noodles in my bag in my room. But that’s nice. You got free so much free stuff. You wouldn’t get this in the UK at a football game. They would give you like free food, a free can of drink, and a free shirt especially. That was the most surprising thing for me is that they just give everybody a shirt. That’s crazy. Like never seen that where anywhere anywhere in the world. They would try and make money out of you for that, you know, but they want everybody. You see how many people are wearing the red top, it works, you know. It gets everybody wearing the wearing the uniform. And even this inside the hotel, but it’s like a mall. There’s even like ga machines and stuff like that in here. Yeah. Everywhere you go in Japan, these claw machines as well. I never play the claw machines cuz I think they’re rigged, but I like the gadget machines cuz at least you you might not get what you want. At least you’re guaranteed to get something. I’m trying to see if there’s anything I might like. Yeah, maybe there is something in there. H Yeah, I’ll check that out later. But yeah, there’s a fortune a fortune teller station if you want to. Yeah, if you’re into that, if you’re into that. And when I checked into my hotel, they gave me this. I haven’t opened it yet, but it’s a a bomb coochin. I know what that is. It’s a type of Japanese cake. This round thing. When I checked into the Hilton, Mr. Frederick Lucron, it sounds like a a French guy who’s looking after the VIPs like your man, right? Let’s have a look and see what’s inside. Ah, it’s two. Okay, so it’s two of them in the packets. They look like chocolate ones. That’s not what I was expecting. I’ve had this bum kitchen before and it’s been matcha h milk and something. Let me try the milk one. It’s absolutely roasting in here. I Oh no. Well, I can’t eat that now, can I? I mean, that’s not clean. What a waste of a bum cuchin. What a bloody waste of a Look how soft. Oh, and sweet that is. But, you know, it’d probably be okay, but I don’t even want to risk getting any kind of stomach illness. So, I’ll leave this I’ll leave this one and I’ll open it more carefully. But yeah, I left this time. I’m going to slice it open like that. I left the AC running at 18 degrees the whole time I was out because I knew that the bathroom is like an oven. And I had the curtains shut here and I’ve just opened them and yeah, it just it is like an oven. Just the sun just I don’t know. Just Yeah, it’s literally like an oven. But let’s try this one. I don’t even know what flavor it is. M. Oh, it’s like a berry. Oh, yeah. [Music] It’s all soft and moist and it’s like it’s got like a like a strawberry kind of Yeah. strawberry through it. Strawberry flavor. Let’s head back out, guys. But not here. Not to this beach. Oh my god. There’s actually people on the beach. I can’t believe it. It’s like that. I see that in Dubai sometimes where it’s like 40 odd degrees and there’s people on the beach and you think you must be mad. It’s never anybody who lives there. It’s always like some tourist that’s deprived of sun who will just take it. Even if it’s too hot, they’ll just take it. But that part of the beach there’s actually zero people. And you can see the stadium. There’s almost nobody has come out. Everybody’s everybody stays behind after the game. In the UK, everybody’s running. Like even like a few minutes before the matches end, people are running to get like the public transport and stuff like that. And as soon as the game ends, everybody’s like 90 90 almost 100% of people are exiting the stadium right after the final whistle. Unless it’s like a cup where they’re getting a trophy or something like that. But um yeah, I’m going to head not to this mark is at some point I’ll head I’ll head there and check it out, but I’m going to head to back to the entertainment complex. And the plan is to do the slide. I mean, that looks like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? It’s one straight like 45° angle down and then you got a bend at the end. That looks proper. Woohoo. Woohoo. Wa. So, that was fun. starts off with a clear transparent straight part there and then as soon as you get to the curve bit, it keeps looping around. You can’t really see it from there, but it keeps looping around and it’s in the dark with lights like Space Mountain. Very cool. Right, let’s go check out Mark is and this name Mark is. I tried to work out what that means because it sounds really weird in English, right? Mark is. And I thought maybe that’s like a conversion from Japanese words or something. But apparently the name in Japanese is Marco Isu. Marco Isu. And it’s just English. It’s just English words. So that means something in Japanese. And I was trying to figure it out. And apparently mark is like marks the spot, you know. So it’s like place mark. It’s like the mark. It’s the place. And is is like is it is the place this is the mark. This is the place to come and do your shopping. Mark is. So it’s kind of like uh it’s English, but it sounds gibberish to people who are native in English. And it probably sounds it probably makes sense to Japanese who have like limited knowledge at English. It probably sounds like cool like mark is this is the mark and uh kind of reminds me I’ve been seeing a lot of signs around and it says a bunch of words in Japanese and then it says the English word get like it’s normally in shops and stuff and some promotional sign. It says something something something get in and capital letters get ge t. And it reminds me of the old Japanese video games I used to play when I was a kid back in those days. They used to do very poor conversions from Japanese language to English. So there were like tons of mistakes, tons of funny mistakes in the um the games like all your best are belong to us. Like that’s a f that’s a famous one a famous Japanese English uh translation. But in those games they used to use the word get a lot as well. I remember either I’d play the game in Japanese and it’d have that word or I’d play like the poor English conversion, but it would be something like you would pick up a power up or a oneup or something and it would say oneup get or power up get and it’s like yeah you you got a power up power up get you acquired a power up like extra life get. So it’s uh it kind of reminded me of that the market is this is this is the this is the mark and it’s uh Mitsubishi estate that’s the owner of this they’ve got another one somewhere else can’t remember where it is but there’s one more market is so this is going to be like a brand a brand of malls in Japan and I think it’s just the usual kind of a fair. The usual shops you would find everywhere. But surely they have a food court, guys. I haven’t eaten too much today, have I? So surely they have um a food court where I can get a we snack or something, a wee bit of a munch. There’s a gacha shop here that have a bunch of folk hawks things. I think that’s like a towel. Oh no, they’re Wii bags. That’s what they are. You can get a Wii bag with players names on them or some kind of game or the badges. Oh, that sucks because how like you’re you’re specifically if you support one team, you’re going to want one specific one and you’re not going to want the other ones. So, that’s a real gamble. That one and the rest a bunch of cutesy. Bunch of cutesy stuff. Yeah. What’s this? Way too cute for me. What’s this little record shop? Some Wii Records. Oh, they’ve got PlayStation. OG PlayStation controllers, PSP, PS Vita, PlayStation 5 controllers. More PlayStation OG PlayStation controllers. That one’s 500. That one’s 300. I think these might be bigger. No, it says touch and it plays music. That’s pretty cool. Okay, I’m going to I’m going to get one of them. That’s That’s really neat. Let’s see what I get. I want the OG one. I want the PS1. Let’s see what we get. It is Well, it’s black. So, it’s a two, three, or four. Let’s see. I think it’s a PlayStation 3. Yeah, I think this one is a PlayStation 3. It has the little button in the middle there. Oh, wow. That’s proper cool. Oh, well, the the buttons kind of Yeah, they they kind of press a little bit. So, it’s supposed to Ah, there’s like a little tab. If you pull this out, it’ll start the battery. Yeah, I’ve had one like that before. Let’s try it. Oh, it’s like a startup. It’s like the startup sound. Yeah. So, it’s like you press the controller to start up your console. You hear that sound? Yeah. It’s pretty cool. I think I want the I think I want another one. Get some change. I’ll get another two of them and have a we collection. Hopefully I don’t get any duplicates. And there’s five available. Five available. So I’m going to get three. We’ll see if I can avoid getting any dupes. One. Another black one. And come on. Give me the OG. Give me the OG. It is another black one. I got three black ones. So, I don’t know if I’m going to get two, three, or four or I’m going to get a duplicate. We’ll see. Oh, this is the PS4. This is a PS4 one cuz it has the this bit on the top. So, that’s good. No duplicates so far. We got three and four. So, hopefully the other one is a hopefully the other one is the PS2. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I can can barely hear that. Let’s see. No, it’s exactly the same. It’s a PS4. It’s another PS4 one. Yeah. So, I got a duplicate. That sucks. Yeah. I’ll keep the tab in it. I’ll uh I’ll maybe give it to my brother or something later. The next time I see him, whenever that that’ll be I see him like once every 2 years or something. Oh, look what’s up here. It’s a rabbit cafe. Oh, wow. Cute. Yeah, it’s like animal cafe, but it says animal, but it’s all rabbits. Oh, they have owls as well. I think they’re closing. Yeah, I think last entry is 7:00, so it’s well after 7:00 and it’s 1,200 to get in. So, about eight bucks. And they got different types of birds and all that. Yeah, I can hear the birds squeaking. Ah, that’s nice. I would have liked to uh if had to go that ah there’s a Namco up the stairs. So that’s a arcade. So there’s probably even more gachas. There’s probably even more gachas than but the Namco centers is mostly claw machines and there’s usually like um some like Tekken A or Street Fighter or some kind of machines like that. Some kind of Japanese racing games. And they have scran as well. They have all this. They have the takoyaki. Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve had some good ramen. Maybe I’m up for that. Cochan ramen. That looks good, doesn’t it? Nice and creamy. Nice and creamy ramen. Oh, yes. They got a sushi as well. And steak. I could go for either of that. Sushi. Steak. or ramen. In fact, maybe this mall’s closing. A lot of these a lot of these malls close really early, like 8:00 p.m. and stuff. It’s quart to 8. Maybe. Uh yeah, but sometimes the restaurants open a bit later. Like the the mall close at 8:00, but the restaurants close at 9 or 10 or something. Let’s see if your man can get a scran. Yeah, this is the this is a Namco Center here and a load of gachas and I think this is actually a shop selling Nintendo Switch Pokemon Legends. Oh, it’s some kind of electronic shop where they’ve got Mario Kart World there on a big screen where you can just you can just stand and play it. PlayStation the Nintendo Switch 2 is still out of stock right now. But if you want to have a go off it, you can have a go off it right there in this shop. Yeah, new game information. That’s everything that’s coming out. The Pokemon Legends on the 16th of October and a new Sonic Racing as well in September, 25th of September. Sonic Racing, Crossworlds, Little Nightmares 3, Everybody’s Everybody’s Golf. Yeah. Oh, there’s another a new Ghost game coming out. Ghost of Yotel on the 2nd of October. Yeah, I want one. Japanese language system only. So, in the shops, all the if they have them if they have them in stock, they’re Japanese only. They only work with Japanese language games. They only you can only set the console to Japan. They only work with Nintendo accounts that are registered in Japan is because they’re so cheap and they don’t want great imports. So, if you’re in Japan and you want like a multi- language version, you can pay a bit more. It’s still cheaper than getting the console from another country a little bit, but um if you want the like English or multi- language version Switch 2 in Japan, you have to buy it from Nintendo online. It’s the only way to get it. They don’t sell it in the shops and that’s out of stock as well. They’ve got some kind of lottery system to get a chance to buy it. So yeah, I mean I can’t do that. I’ve got nowhere to get delivered. I keep moving hotels and stuff. So, I’m just going to I’m just going to wait till my trip in Japan is finished and then some other country. I’ll pick myself up um Nintendo Switch, too. By then, there’s a probably probably a bunch of new games released anyway, and I can get a stack a whole stack of games, good games rather than just Donkey Kong, Bonanza, and Mario Kart World. Well, this place is absolutely packed. There’s cues for every for every actual restaurant. There’s cues. And then in the food court section, it’s like I think every table is full. So, yeah, this will be how it is after uh or you can see everybody’s wearing the Hawks uniform. So, this this is how it’ll be after a Hawks game. People no doubt will come here. to have a scr after the game. If they didn’t eat enough, if they didn’t eat enough in the stadium, there’s so many food options in the stadium. But yeah, I guess some people want proper restaurant experience. There’s kind of like there’s kind of like bar area there. It’s kind of cramped, but I don’t think I’m getting a table. Don’t think I’m getting my own table. guys. Or maybe I don’t know. Maybe that one or that one. Okay. Yeah, there are tables. Yeah, I guess I’ll just order myself uh H. Yeah, I guess I’ll just order myself a bowl of ramen. This one here says it’s awardwinning number one Kyushu ramen restaurant. I’m just going to need the assistance of Google Translate to figure out which one of these I want. I think this one, the most expensive one. This one says pork bone ramen with boiled egg. And this one says special pork bone ramen. I think it’s just an extra two slices of pork. And I think it is the tonkatu ramen cuz it’s Yeah. pork broth. That’s what it is. That’s what the tonkatu ramen is the one that’s famous in Foka and particularly Hakata. Hi. Uh menu uh special special. Yes. Uh to mis okay. Uh special ramen. Yes. Okay, they look so good. Wow, it looks uh Yeah, I’ve got a a buzzer. So, I can find myself a table like this there. There signs saying 60 minutes max. Can find myself a table and then leave my bag cuz uh I’ve been back to my hotel and got my bag. So, I mean, I could just sit I could just sit there and leave my bag there so nobody will take it. Oh, it’s buzzing already. Hang on. Let me put my bag down there so that I can reserve my table. Buzzing already, guys. Okay. Already. So fast. So fast. Okay. Okay. Wow. Beautiful. Look at this. Wow. That looks so good. Okay, myself a we spoon and chopsticks. Lovely. Lovely. Do I need anything else? Like this? Even know what this is? Like some ginger or something? Okay, you’re getting the tray POV right here, guys. You’re getting the ramen tray POV right here. Okay. Okay. Let’s give the Let’s give the broth a taste first. Wow. It’s so strong. It’s really, really, really, really intense. Yeah. Like fatty pork. Intense broth. And the noodles. Oh, they’re we they’re we thin noodles, guys. They’re firm, but they’re also chewy, if that makes any sense. They’re so um they’re so thin and they taste very I don’t know, they taste very tough, but then as soon as you start chewing them, they taste chewy and like eggy like that. Yeah. Like hard and soft at the same time. And the chhatzu. Oh. Oh, wow. So yummy and so tender as well. It just breaks breaks up in your mouth. Oh wow. Yeah. And the egg. Let’s try and split it cleanly down the middle if I can. Oh, check that out. These are always the flavor of these is also usually intense as well. And the yolk. Wow. M. Oh, that’s lovely. Yeah, it’s like a a really creamy, smoky egg, a really delicious, oily, porky broth, tender meat, hard but also chewy noodles. Lovely jubbly, guys. It’s a lovely bowl of ramen right here. What’s the name of the shop? I can’t tell you. It’s in Japanese. I’ll I’ll Google translate it and let you know. It’s Naji Matti. Naji Matti in English. The name of the shop. Okay. Going to demolish this. Lovely jubbly. Another bowl of strand. Demolished by our man. I’ll give them their tray back so that I don’t know if you’re supposed to bring back your tray or what, but so that somebody else can have the table. I bring back. Okay. Okay. Here. Oh, it comes here. Okay, that’s how you do it. You bring it back to here. Thank you. So wish you this. Well guys, I will continue this vlog either tomorrow if I can acquire a ticket for the third box eagles game, which isn’t looking too likely actually. or I’ll continue it on Monday in 2 days time when I plan on doing a stadium tour where you can go on the field, you can sit in the players bench, you can go into the changing rooms. I don’t know if the tour is it’ll probably be in Japanese, but I can kind of figure out I can kind of figure out what’s going on, can’t I? So, yeah, I will see you then. And I’m back at the Pepe Dome, which as you can see is very quiet. I think you can tell, but I haven’t come back for day three. No, I missed day three. It was 81 to the Hawks. Condo hit another home run. So, I missed a good game. But yeah, right now I’m going to do the stadium tour if I can find where the meeting point for it is. I think it’s in this uh the building with a slide. Yeah, it says here dome tour reception is here. So, I booked this online. I don’t think I had to do this every once an hour until 400 p.m. So, I’m here for the 400 p.m. one. Yeah, there’s a whole a whole thing here. Okay, so we’re starting off in the basement. In fact, this is the players tunnel. This is how they enter the stadium to get to their locker rooms. It’s wall to- wall covered in information about the team, its history, the previous championship wins, the legendary players, all that. And this is the press office. It looks like this is where I pick up my award for the most valuable vlogger. Yes. Player salon. So that’s where the players get a scr there. Yeah. So I think we’re going to the locker room right now. Apparently this is an American style baseball changing room. Locker room. the bullpen right here. Wow. This is where the pitchers warm up. So during the game when the main pitchers on, the relief pitchers will all be in here throwing some balls, keeping their arms all warmed up, ready to come on when they’re needed. And bat swing room. H Ah, so they go right from here into the benches right there. Yeah. Okay. This is where this is where the players sit during the game. Ah okay. So what is uh where we were before? That’s the office. That was the visitors. That’s for the visitors. Ah okay. But we cannot go to this one. Yes. Ah cuz they keep their belongings. Yes. Ah okay. I understand. I get it now. Yeah. So the one that we seen the sterile that’s for visitors. Their one looks VIP. Oh, I get to jump up here. Yeah. So, I remember I was sitting up there somewhere and that was the home team bench. So, this is the Yeah, this is the visitor bench. Yeah, that’s where they were. The Eagles. So, she explained that astroturf. This is incredible. It feels like real glass, but uh yeah, it’s just rubber chips and some kind of plastic material, but it feels like you’re, you know, it just feels like a kind of semi moist field or whatever. So, I think these are the expensive seats. These are the seats that were like 50,000 or something. The Coca-Cola seats there. Oh, yeah. Look at that. They got like um proper uh Yeah, it’s like a gaming chair. It’s like a gaming chair right there. Oh, yeah. This is the This is the visitor section right here. It looks like some school band or something. I think they’re kids. H They might be adults. I don’t know. Japanese aren’t the tallest, but I think uh I think they’re going to start practicing. But for now, it’s eerily quiet. Like being in a stadium like this and it being so quiet is is eerie. It’s so unusual. It says here, “No smoking in here. Smoke in the salon.” Like, yeah. What athletes smoke? The athletes, the baseball players smoke. I wonder I wonder if there’s any baseball players that smoke. There’s probably be one spot where you could get away with it. I don’t know, like if you’re a slugger or whatever, like you’re not one of the fast guys. You’re just you’re just really good at hitting the ball with a bat. I don’t know, kind of brift type athlete, you know. You probably enjoyed a good a good smoke. And the tour guide set up the camera so that you can uh if you stand there, you can see yourself on the They call Hawk’s Vision, the big screen. Okay, I got it. Okay. Okay, it’s okay. Thank you. Thank you. I got to do the Hawks peace sign. I think that’s what it’s called. The Hawk sign or I thought it was the Hawk sign, but the commentator in the game, he says, uh, it’s peace. Somebody did it and he was like, “Nice of peace. Nice a piece for the soft bangu hawku. I kind of want to round the bases. I kind of want to start from home plate and round the bases. That’d be a fun experience. I don’t think I’m allowed to do that. They’ve uh she told us we need to keep within this area, but I’m tempted just to go for it. You know, if I was one of these Vitali type vloggers, I would just go I would just go for it. Yeah. Just for the experience, deal with the consequences later. Yeah. Apparently, there’s another type of tour you can do where you can actually go up to the roof. You learn about how the roof works and all that, and you can actually like wear a harness and get right up right up to the top level of where the roof opens. But that wasn’t available. This was the only tour that was available. But there was information about that that type of tour on their website. Just doesn’t seem to be available for booking. But look at all the boxes. If you’re any of these companies like Sony, all these all these almost every major Japanese company probably has their own box for entertaining their clients. Japan Airlines has a whole row. They have one, two, three, four, five boxes in a row. Yeah. I need to get to know somebody that’s like a I don’t know, like a high up in City Bank or Samsung. They also have like five. Yeah, I need some executive friends who will get me into one of these boxes. That’ be the height of comfort. at those Coca-Cola seats. I think that’s what they’re called, the Coca-Cola seats. They’re on both sides. They That’s a good view as well. Like you’re either That would be the best one. You’re right beside first base and you’re close to home plate as well, but this one you’re close to third. Yeah. Coca-Cola gaming chairs. Like I said, they’re expensive. I think they’re like 50,000 yen, so like $350 for one of them. But yeah, that section there, that was where they were doing all the cheering. That looked like the most lively section. That looks like the It look like the section that I wanted to be in. I think they’re the cheapest seats as well. They’re only like 4,000 or something like that. They’re like 28 bucks. 28 bucks for a seat over there. But I think that’s where the real fans are. The ones who are like blowing the trumpets and cheering and singing the songs and all that. And then you know the ones up here just eating their prawn sandwiches. The prawn sandwich brigade. Coca-Cola seats. Let’s see how comfy they are. Okay. Ah, so these seats, they all come with a helmet and a glove, I guess, because the net’s not that big. So, yeah, probably for their own liability. They provide you with a helmet and gloves, so they can’t say they didn’t protect you. But you got a Coca-Cola helmet with your Coca-Cola seat. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, this is nice. They’ve got these. You can sit and have a munch like that. Yeah. So, the cheaper seats are much safer, but they’re much more cramped. Oh, wow. These are even these are even smaller seats than the ones I had. So I had the I don’t even know where I was. I had some premium seat and I thought that was just like an airplane like a Ryan Air flight chair in the armrest like that. But those armrests are even uh smaller. You’d be really cramped in there. Yeah. And these are plastic. These are like hard plastic seats. Yeah. And those are those are nicer than the ones that I had. These ones. Nice tour. Yeah, I think it was a nice tour for the price. Oh, we got a Hawks Colonel Sanders right here. Yeah, I think it was a nice tour for the price. You don’t get to see a lot. Just really the interesting things are the bullpen and then the bench and then being on the field and all that. But it was only 12 bucks. So I think for the money it was worth it. But yeah, you don’t get to see any of the home teams uh areas cuz I guess they leave their stuff there. But today they’re traveling to Chiba. They’re playing again tomorrow. They get one day off. They play three games and then they get one day off and then they play three games and then they get one day off. They’ll be back here after traveling there to play Nihon Ham who in the last three games they dropped their first game. So the SoftBank Hawks are now top of their league by one game. That’s good. And what else is good is staying right next to the stadium here in the Hilton. Yeah, that’s definitely the place that you want to come and stay if you’re coming for Hawks games. If you’re coming for multiple of them. The capsule shop is still open. Should I go and get myself another we capsule? Yeah. So, I’ve already got one of these the figures. Those are re towel things. There’s me tote bags. There’s keychains, jerseys. Wow, that’s a big selection that you can get. They’re only 200 for these jerseys. Let’s have a look here. Ah, I’d like one of them. The little caps. The little uh caps. Where are those? Ah, I don’t see them. Here they are. Here. They’re only 200. Wow. You They’ve got the full ro the full extended roster in here, but this is only 200 for recap. And they look pretty decent quality as well. I don’t think this actually does anything. I think it’s like electronic. Soon as you put the money in, it’s ready to spit it out. Oh, well, they’re tiny. Number 13. I got Yeah. On one side, you’ve got SoftBank Hawks logo. And then on the other side, the player number 13. I mean, that’s not too bad for 200. It’s fairly cheap for a gacha machine. And I remember in this family mart they sold baseball cards. So there’s a stack of them here. Different ones. Yeah. Like the Tops 2025 season baseball cards. I’m going to get a few packs. It’ll be a nice souvenir. And there’s one by Epoch as well. A different series. I did see there was ones that were just specifically softbang hawks, but it looks like they’re sold out. So, I got four packs. These are 550 yen each, so about $350 a pack, and one pack contains 10 cards. Now, there’s 12 teams in Japan, six in each league. So, pretty much I should get out of these packs, I should get three or four Hawks players. on average. We’ll see how lucky or not we get. And then there’s like autographed versions and stuff. It says on the the back that you can go to the Tops website and find out about the odds. Now, I have no idea how to I know there’s ways to open packs of cards so you don’t damage them, so you don’t damage the corners and stuff like that. I’m not a card collector, so I don’t really know. But look how we’ve got straight away. This is like a a shiny a shiny version. Or they all shiny. No, they’re all they’re all kind of like that. I thought it was uh maybe I got something uh yeah special. But I didn’t. So I got Ichi from the Marines. The Chiba Li Chiba Marines or the Chiba Lotti Marines. That’s who SoftBank are going to play tomorrow. So they got the day off today and then they’re playing the Marines and then they’ll be back to play big match. Big three games against Nehon Ham, the rivals in the league for the top of the league. But do we get any Hawks players in this? We got a Lions player. Oh, here we got a soft bank the Hawks player. We’ve got Levan Moelloo number 70. Oh, and it gives you their stats on the back as well. Jose Osuna. So, this one is kind of says 35th anniversary on it. I don’t know if that’s something special or what, but uh yeah, any more Hawks players? No, I should have thought, you see, there was packs that only had I don’t think they were tops, but it was some other collection where it was only Hawks players, so it probably would have had their extended roster or probably like past legendary players or something. But those were all sold out. Maybe I can find them in another convenience store nearby. I’ve been yesterday evening. I was at the there’s like a Lawson about 10 minutes walk away and they had a bunch of merchandise and stuff. So, I’m sure I’ll be able to get them there. It’s further away from the stadium, but still close enough that they would have this stuff. And look who we’ve got. We’ve got Udai Shooui right here. Number 84. Brilliant. Okay, so we’ve got two Hawks players. Let’s uh let’s have a collection. Where are they? There we go. And they’re both like shiny gold. I don’t know if that’s just all the soft point players will have this black and gold like this. And then it depends on the team. Like the Eagles will have Yeah, that’s their color. The kind of maroon maroon red like that. Yeah, that’s who we got. And this one is numbered Kawano and it’s numbered 62 out of 99. So there’s only 99 of these. I don’t know what’s special about it. It’s just it’s green. Green and shiny where the rest of them are like the outline is white. So yeah, I got this. If that’s something special or not out of 99. And then surely this is the wrong way to do I feel like I’m going to ding the corners. Opening it this way. Let’s see if we get any Hawks players here. We got one. We got Kurihara number 99. Kurihara to the collection of Hawk cards. Oh, we’ve got some legendary Tyler Austin. This is a oneofa-kind collectible. This is the actual yellow printing plate used to manufacture card number six. Tyler Austin. This is a one-ofa-kind collectible. Wow. I thought it was all faded in that cuz it was like a like an old like from the 1930s or something like that. Uh yeah, a yellow printing plate. H one of one of one. So is that good? Did I get lucky? I don’t know. Like I don’t know what the odds are on these. Like yeah, I guess if there’s only 350 cards, there’s only going to be and they’re all one of one. There’s only going to be one of one plates, printing plates for each card. So, I think I did well there. Yeah. But, um, yeah, no, no soft bank player in the whole pack. That’s disappointing. Out of 10 cards, I didn’t get one soft bank player. Yeah, I feel that probably the easiest way would be to cut it with scissors if you wanted to make sure that you didn’t damage the corners at all. But the cards do seem quite high quality. They don’t seem like they would damage very easily, but I’m still doing my best. Okay, let’s see any Hawks. Yes, we do. We have Nakamura. Akira Nakamura number 36. Okay, so I did well then. I got I thought I would get three or four hogs players and I got four hogs players plus two kind of special cards as well. And I’m just looking at all my cards from the back to see if any ones are different. So that one’s yellow. Is this something special as well? Yeah. Jose Osuna. Yeah, I think that is something special. Some uh 35th anniversary shiny card. Shiny version of his card. I think it’s just the same card, but it’s it’s like this. how this one’s green, this one’s blue. So, yeah, I got two special cards, four hawks players, and this I don’t know if that’s worth anything or what, but it’s like an actual metal plate. This is the actual printing plate. Cool. And all the cards have the player stats, I guess, from the previous season, their batting averages and all that. Like I said, it’s a awesome sport if you’re into statistics. You can geek out on stats all day long as a baseball fan. But wow. Yeah, imagine you lived here. Imagine you lived in this part of Foka near the stadium. You could be watching baseball games all the time because they’re like it’s three games in a row, then one day off and another three games. Um yeah, in one week you could be watching like three or four games at average. You know, every week there’s going to be home games running during the season at least during that six or seven months. So yeah, if I lived here, like if I lived in one of these apartments, I could really get into it. Could really get into this sport, guys. But I’m going to when I leave Japan, I’m going to try and keep up with baseball. I’m going to watch the highlights at least. It’s uh yeah, I’m uh I’m really enjoy I’ve really enjoyed the last few days just getting into this sport and seeing how uh popular it is here. It’s amazing how popular every game gets sold out. like literally a big stadium like that, they’re able to sell it out and the fans are fanatical about about the sport. They love it, guys. And yeah, I hope you loved this vlog. If you did, you got to give it at least a like if you loved it. You got to at least give it a like, a thumbs up. Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already. And yeah, I will see you guys on the next adventure somewhere else in Japan.

I returned to Fukuoka to enjoy my first Japanese baseball experience, watching the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks at the PayPay Dome.

I checked into the Hilton hotel that is right beside the stadium, and again the Diamond status came in clutch as I was upgraded from the cheapest $200 a night room, to the $700 a night panoramic suite.

Considering the previous hotel I had in Fukuoka was the size of a shoebox, having a proper sized hotel room to move around in was very welcome.

I didn’t have much time to settle in, as the Softbank Hawks vs Rakuten Eagles game was to begin soon. I headed to the stadium and looked to buy a Hawks uniform to wear to the game.

I found a very high quality uniform in the Hawks Store for 12,000 JPY ($80 USD) but the material was a bit too thick for the roasting hot summertime weather in Japan.

It looked like everyone else was wearing more of a sports shirt type of uniform but I couldn’t see it for sale in the store. It turned out that they were being given away free with the match ticket. Wow!

I’ve never been to a sports game where they will give you the team shirt for free, just for turning up. But it really works, as all the fans were wearing this special Summer Boost uniform, and the stadium was just filled with red.

There were so many good food options available in the stadium, and I tried quite a few of them, yum yum!

The baseball game was entertaining to watch, and there was a home run from Kensuke Kondoh right at the start. In any intervals there was always something happening on the field like cheerleaders, disco, mascots, etc.

And after the game ended there was a concert for another 45 minutes. You really get a lot for your money when you buy a ticket to a baseball game in Japan.

When the teams play each other, it’s usually over 3 games, 3 days in a row. I had tickets for the first two games of Hawks vs Eagles, but the 3rd day was sold out.

I got my tickets from a special foreigner allocation, that’s bought from Klook. SoftBank Hawks sell the foreigner tickets through Klook, because their own website seems not able to take foreign credit card as a payment method.

Buying a ticket this was is very easy, but it means you’re sat in seats beside other foreigners, so there’s not the same atmosphere that there would be if you were sitting among the local fans.

The home run world record holder, Sadaharu Oh, has a museum dedicated to him at the BOSS E · ZO FUKUOKA building next to the PayPay Dome, so I checked that out before the 2nd game started. It was a good chance to learn about an absolute legend of Japanese baseball.

I also got to see behind the scenes at the stadium, as I did the Dome Tour the day after the 3 games had been completed. It’s only $12 USD and you get to enter the visiting team’s locker room, bull pen, bench and get on the field a little bit.

I really enjoyed my first experience of Japanese baseball and I’ll definitely continue to follow the sport and the SoftBank Hawks in the future.

0:00 Hilton Sea Hawk
8:14 Softbank Hawks Jersey Hunt
18:52 Entering the PayPay Dome
25:12 Japan National Anthem
28:15 Kondoh Home Run
29:53 Daimyo Soft Crean
33:07 Half Time Disco
39:28 Post Match Entertainment
42:15 Hawks Capsule Shop
49:15 Sadaharu Oh Baseball Museum
58:22 89 Park Baseball Activities
1:02:54 Godiva Dark Chocolate Milkshake
1:07:54 Premium Bento Box
1:14:00 Game 2 Begins
1:16:53 Chocolate Banana Snack
1:18:15 Jeter Downs Home Run
1:23:17 Jet Balloons
1:30:30 Baumkuchen Japanese Cake
1:33:41 E-ZO Slide
1:37:24 PlayStation Gatcha Machines
1:47:40 Number 1 Kyushu Ramen
1:54:59 PayPay Dome Stadium Tour
2:07:41 Japanese Baseball Cards

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