Edo-Tokyo Museum and Baseball Game!

It's already Friday. I can't believe the time goes by so fast here. This morning we had to get one piece of our luggage to send off to our host family. My host family lives in the Harajuku area. There seems to be a big shrine and some greenish areas close to my house, which will be really nice (did I already say this? I can't remember). After we were done with that, we headed off to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. We passed a lot of pretty places on the way, so I hope I get some time to check them out later in the year. There was so much at the museum. I ended up taking a lot of pictures (most of them were ridiculous), but I wish I had read more about everything I was seeing. Still, it was a lot of fun! There were so many interesting things there. And there were a lot of diverse types of people (though mainly all Japanese) there too such as a special needs group, like an elderly group, and a lot of kids. And I was able to buy a little train keychain for my younger brother at my host family. I hope he likes it!

After the museum we went back to Waseda to get ramen. I wanted to take a picture (since I didn't take one of the last ramen I ate), but I was so hungry I ended up eating it all before I remembered! After lunch we went back to Waseda and I was able to take a short nap. Then there was so more orientation stuff (mainly about cell phones and host family stuff which included skits were one of the Waseda assistants crossed dressed as a girl, it was hilarious). It was also someone's birthday today, so they prepared a donut mound with candles on it.

For dinner I got a sandwich from the conbini (convenience store) and then we headed of to the Tokyo Dome for a baseball game. Since I've seen Japanese baseball games on television before, I was pretty excited. The dome was huge. We were up pretty high, so we had a good view of the stadium. I asked my Waseda assistant friend that I sat by how many people could fit inside, and apparently 55,000 people can! It wasn't that full, but it was pretty full tonight! It was the Tokyo Giants against the Tokyo Swallows, and we were at the Giants home dome so we cheered for them. In one section there was a small area for the Swallows fans, in one (larger) section there was an area for Giants fans, and the rest of the dome was basically for everyone else (though everyone was cheering for the Giants). The true fans here are amazing. They all know the same chants (and like every player has their own song/cheer) and when their team is up, they never stop cheering. The best part of the night was whenever the Giants were batting, and we joined in with the cheering. It was seriously so much fun! I got pretty tired during the game (and we were there for like three hours) but I had a really good time. And people around us seemed amused that we were joining in on the cheers and were so excited. I hope I'll be able to go to another baseball game soon! Go Tokyo Giants!!! Oh, also the Giants won! It was awesome! Orange streamers came from the ceiling and everyone was so happy. The energy was great!

Tomorrow I have my SILS orientation and will be going to an owl festival in Ikebukuro! Yay!~  But before then laundry and packing!