Trains of thought......

Okay, batter up! Had a great afternoon at Yokohama Stadium watching our (yes, our) Hiroshima Carp battle against the Yokohama DeNa BayStars. There was almost as many Carp fans as Baystar fans.

 

Full house and the fans from both teams sang pretty well the entire game, quite a contrast to North American baseball.

In the end Yokohama won in the bottom of the ninth inning with a walk off home run. Final score 3-2, and two thumbs up!

Awesome to spend the afternoon with Ritsue's sister and nephews.

Yikes, the after the game pedestrian traffic jam. Let's take a short cut through Yokohama's Chinatown..........

Doh!

An after the game stroll on the Yokohama waterfront.

Moored in the harbour is the Hikawa Maru. This passenger cargo vessel sailed between Japan and Seattle from 1930 until 1961, also served as a military hospital during World  War 2. Now a floating museum.

Tripping around Chinatown, the crowds had dispersed a lot by this time.

On the recommendation of Ritsue's brother-in-law we ended up at Banraitei, a Chinese noodle house. It is very unassuming, until you taste the food, very very oishii!

We spent the night at Ritsue's sister's family condo building in Kawasaki in the guest suite. It had a pretty good view of Tokyo.

Next morning looking out towards the working district. Not much action down there, Japan was enjoying their "golden week", where a lot of companies and schools were closed.

Tokyo off in the distance, sorry, not this trip.

Wow, there's the bullet train, I remember how much fun that was.......

Uhhhh, got my game face on? Unfortunately, the bullet train doesn't stop at the train station close to Ritsue's sister's place. So, wait for a train.

Definitely not like the sky-train in Vancouver. People line up politely, how refreshing.

Well, look at the train route options, not too complicated.

Not so random, because Ritsue told me where to look, pic of her sister's family's home in as we whizzed by.

After, I don't know how many trains we took, including the bullet train, I knew we were on the right track, hyuk, when Mt. Fuji was in my sight.

Looking a little overwhelmed (me of course), last train of the day?(apparently we took 4 trains this day, , oy vey!)

As we crawled our way up the mountain......

..... but let's not stop the madness, time for the cable car up to Koyasan, yikes up to 17 per cent grade, not sure of the mechanics of this one.....

..... Finally, I look like I'm coming down from a bad case of the trains, only one more bus to go until we reach our destination.........