Mariners

It was such a long day! In the morning we had a class as usual where we did some listening, and we went canueing in the afternoon at Lake Washington and then I went to watch a baseball game at night.

At the lunch time we went to HUB, the cafeteria, and bought some food there. There are a lot of shops, but all of them were closed except the pizza shop maybe because it is a holiday season now. The pizza was so big. The diameter of one pizza is about 50 cm long, and it was about one sixth. It is surely too big. Everything is so big in here. Food, drinks, clothes... even the smallest sizes are. I want to say "Could you give me a half of it and a 50% discount?"

I bought and ate Makizushi in the cafeteria because I missed rice so much. I want to eat rice at least once a day, but recently I do not eat rice so often. Makizushi was about 30 cm long, and inside were tuna and carrots savoured with soy sauce. Actually it was blown rice so it was not sticky at all and was totally different from what we have in Japan. It was still OK for me, though.

It was too hot a day for canoeing. Lake Washington was walking distance from the University. The university owns a water activity center near there where we can go canoeing, sailing, and kayaking. Every 3 people got on a canoe. At first I thought the canoe might flip and we might fall into water, but it was pretty stable. If you try not to lean on one side and to keep the balance, it never turns over. All we have to do was paddling. It was difficult to turn right or left, and to control its speed. So our canoe hit others, and was hit by others. It was so hot during the day with no clouds in the sky. When I looked myself in the mirror at night, my face was slightly red.

My friend picked me up in front of my house and we went down to Sefeco Field, Mariner's home stadium. There were a lot of people around the gate, but they were not fully occupying the seats. Our seats were located on the 3rd floor, and we were able to see directly down the home base. What was unlucky was that I cannot bring water, or anything to drink, into the stadium so I had to throw away what I just bought. I do not why but I think it is for food stalls. If you have something to drink or eat, you do not want to buy anything at the stalls, where foods are rather expensive. I bought a Caesar salad with small pieces of bread on the top. The size was amazing; it was in a bowl 20 cm in diameter. It seemed like they used a whole lettuce to make one plate of Caesar salad. It was good, though.

It was too bad that Ichiro did not play at that night. My friend told me that he hurt himself a few days ago and is now checking his condition. I saw Jojima, the other Japanese player in that team, hit and catch balls. I did not know that he was playing in Softbank in Fukuoka before he came here. What was interesting is the screen displayed a lot of funny videos and games during the break time.

On the way home, there was a big crossing and it was closed at that time. It was very crowded around there with people who came out of the stadium. I saw a very very long train pass the crossing. I am sure that it was the longest train I have ever seen. It went rather slowly and took a long time to finish, about 15 minutes. When the crossing finally opened, shouts of joy arose and people crapped hands.

I like that moment in that we shared the same feeling with so many people.