L.W.O.D. '08 had all the makings of epicness that you've come to expect from me, however it ended up being much more... some word that doesn't mean 'epicness.' It wasn't bad at all, I had a really good time, just much more laid back than I was expecting. I think butt? and dude? were pretty wiped out generally after day 2. Find out more!
Day 1 (Sat):
I got off work and headed over to Gotanda to meet up with dude? who had been working his ways on express trains throughout the day from Osaka. I can't remember how long it took, maybe he'll comment about that later, but it was a looooong ride that's for sure, お疲れ様！ We headed back on the train to my place, met Meltin faces, and mornin and got ready to go over to Ramen 526. You can see the Scrumped review here. This turned out to be a really bad idea. It was really tasty (as always) but it was just so unbelievably filling that for the first half of the Conbini challenge pretty much all we could muster as far as commentary was 'uhhhhhh.' It was pretty bad. But the conbini challenge ended up being a winner. After a break in the middle at a Lawson that didn't sell beer! We all made a bathroom trip and felt back on the right path and we eventually made it back to my place for a bunch more drinks and some rocktacular Karaoke action! mornin played cameraman and got some really good pics from the challenge, the two best were for sure this little series:
you had to be there to get the full effect, but me turning my head ruined dude?'s attempt to pull my 'tongue in the ear' photo trick.There are a ton of good pictures from this night, and I might put another post about it, or put them up on flickr some time, wait for it...
here's an amazing shot from karaoke:
Day 2 (SUN):
Got up at a pretty decent hour and prepared to head out over to Jingu Stadium for the first of a 3-day baseball extravaganza! I woke up feeling a little hung over and with a completely trashed voice, but I downed a bunch of water hoping to feel a bit better before we headed out... it didn't work. I started to feel really sick while we sat around and played some NCAA so I made a trip to call the dinosaurs and suddenly felt a ton better! So we headed out and hoped for the best but got the worst.
We got in and got our seats and went around to some of the shops at the stadium waiting for it to start, praying that the rain would subside. It got worse and worse and right about first pitch time, there was an announcement made that the game was being canceled. What a crushing defeat. We had been looking forward to all the games on the schedule, but none more than the first one, at the best stadium on the tour, and the only game featuring the Hanshin Tigers. It was a sad day, and we just headed back, played NCAA and did an auction draft for a fantasy football league... disappointing...Day 3 (MON):
Got up, played some more NCAA then headed down to Yokohama stadium for game 2. More rain and dude? hadn't been feeling so good but we were just hoping that game would be played as scheduled. Luckily it was! We got in our seats but found that although they we good (1st row) it was a pain in the ass because vendors constantly walked directly in front of us so we headed further up in the stands and were asked to move a bit closer because the seats we were in hadn't actually been sold.
The security guy was nice enough about it and just told us to move down a few rows. There were many, many seats to choose from. When the game started there couldn't have been more than 2000 people there and although more people came later in the game, after the rains had calmed down a bit, it couldn't have been the more than 8000 people that the newspaper said it was the next day. I'd guess 4500 or so. Carp came away with a 3-2 victory, and it was a pretty good game to take in.
