b?'s magical mystery stadium tour! #4

#4: Skymark Stadium スカイマークスタジアム
Location: Kobe City, Hyogo Pref.
場所：神戸市、兵庫県
Team: Orix Buffaloes
チーム：オリックスバファローズ
Capacity/定員: 35,000
Opened: 1988

I'll start this off with a simple statement. Skymark is only #4 because it has a short history and it really doesn't have a "home" team as the Buffaloes play most of there games in the Osaka Dome nowadays. It's really too bad, this is one of the real jewels here in Japan. I'd say that it is the most American-like stadium of them all in Japan. Skymark is a in an unfortunate location, it's pretty far from downtown but surrounded by trees in a pretty scenic area/sports complex. The old name was "Kobe Green Stadium," which was fitting because the seats are all green, and the surrounding area is, well, green. The entire stadium is well designed with a wonderful concourse behind the outfield seats that offer a really good selection of foods, I highly recommend the giant cheese-dog! Orix fans have some of the best chants in the game and they do a Soccer-esque towel chant sometimes that is pretty original and hard to follow, luckily they give you an instructional guide (which more teams should) for the un-initiated. The views are perfect, baseball sight lines. The only obstructed views are from the concourse, something they could fix, but they would lose some advertising space. I've being trying to think of something negative to say about the place and it's hard. It's far. And I guess the seats don't have any backs, but other than that it is near perfect. I just wish that the Buffaloes would play more games there, like all of them. This year they are only scheduled to play there 13 times this year... sad. I'm glad that I had the chance to visit and if only it had a little more history and tradition (remember the Orix Buffaloes are a merging of the "Orix Blue Wave" and the "Kintetsu Buffaloes" in 2004).
location: -0
history: -2
fanmasphere: +3
concessions: +5
smoking: +2
bathrooms: -1
sight lines: +5
field surface: +5
outside: +3
surroundings: +2
seats: +3
atmosphere: +2
security: +4

total: +31

GW #1: Golden Week '08 = baseball, beer, and (crying) babies!

Wow! I'm back. Got back into Tokyo at about 11:30 last night and got home around midnight after an intense 5 days that can be put into 3 words: baseball, beer and (crying) babies. So, I'm gonna do at least 3 more posts today, separated into the 3 cities visited, with lots of pictures. The trip was awesome! It was my first big trip in a long time. First time I've ever been to Hiroshima and Kobe and both were great. It was also a rough trip for me, starting with a toothache, and continuing with a wicked sunburn and all on little sleep, but it was very worth it! I had a great time! One thing that I don't like about vacationing is that other people do it too. There were so many people everywhere we went (especially because it was Golden Week) and those people often have babies... babies that cry! Ahhhhhh!
Here's a quick list of places I remember hearing babies ballin':
Shinkansen from Osaka to Hiroshima, and from Kobe to Tokyo.
Miyajima Island.
Anago restaurant in Miyajima.
Okonomiyaki place in Hiroshima.
The Peace Museum in Hiroshima.
Kobe Beef Restaurant in Kobe.
There ya go, there were probably more, but that's all I can remember for now.

This girl wasn't crying, but she was playing with her spit on the train platform in Miyajima... gross!
This boy didn't cry (at least that I know of) but he was rockin' the sweetest Buffaloes gear in the stadium!
This boy didn't cry once! And he knew ever word to every Carp cheer in the book!

I'll be back with more!