I wish I had a picture of us as we left our house in Iwakuni on Friday afternoon.  (8/14/15)  Wearing backpacks and our suitcases strapped to the back of our bikes we rode the few blocks to the train station where we parked our bikes and hopped the train to Hiroshima to watch our first Carps game. It was Japanese baseball at its finest – Hiroshima Carps against the Yokohama Baystars.

We arrived in Hiroshima at 1630, walked a mile+ to our hotel, the Oriental House Hotel, dropped off our bags, then walked back to the station to meet a bunch of Chris’ work buddies at 1730. From here we walked to Zoom Zoom Stadium which was packed with Carp fans.

It was so full we had to sit in the small section with the Yokohama fans, but it was still fun.  We even sat right behind their “pep band.”

Everyone says you have to experience a Japanese baseball game at least once. The basic game is the same as the U.S. but the fans and atmosphere are different. Here are a few highlights.

Chris said the atmosphere reminded him of his high school football games. Lots of group chants and cheers.

After every few innings there was a break for smoothing the dirt.

When your team was up to bat your side cheered. When the other teams was, you were quiet and the other fans cheered. Even though we were Carp fans, since we’re sitting among the other teams fans, it would have been impolite to cheer for our team so we stayed respectfully quiet or cheered for the other team.

When the ball was hit into the stands there was no scuffle to try to catch it. Whoever’s lap it fell into got the ball. As we looked across the stadium we couldn’t even see where it landed. So very polite.

Here’s a sample of Japanese baseball food. Fried potatoes, chicken wings, ramen and of course Japanese beer.

The highlight of the baseball experience comes at the top of the 7th inning. Nearly all the Carps fans had blown up long red balloons and at the end of a particular song they all let them go. A pretty benign hoopla.

At this point the Carps were ahead 8 to 4 and since it couldn’t get any better than this we headed out for some Hiroshima bar hopping. Here’s Japan’s idea of nachos.

Saturday morning we were up at 0430, showered and walked back to the train station to catch the 0600 Shinkansen (high speed train) to Osaka, about an hour ride. In Osaka we changed trains and took another Shinkansen to the Osaka Kansai airport, a 45 minute ride.  This airport is on a man-made island just off the coast of Osaka. You can take the train right to it.

Once at the airport it took at least an hour to go through all the check points. Although our flight to Bali left at 1100 we were to be at our gate at 0920 so we barely had 20 minutes to grab something to eat which was four 2″ square sandwiches on white bread, crusts removed.

We flew on Garuda Indonesia airlines and had a pleasant six and a half hour direct flight into Denpasar, Bali. Our lunch options were Japanese food or Indonesian food. We chose the latter just to get in the mood.  Oh, and just in case you were wondering. . .  instructions are right there on the screen in front of you.