Noodles night with Trev

Tonight after a delicious but very small dinner, Trev and I went to the library to work. After working very hard for a couple of hours... or at least I did. Trev spent must of his "working time" on Twitter or Football results. This last week he has been very happy. Because Norway absolutely demolished France in the U21 European football qualifier 5 to 2.

Big Dinner...

Coming back to my story. Around 9pm, we were both very hungry and fed up of working or tweeting. So we decided to go and buy some very tasty noodles, extremely cheap as well (150yen).
So here we are just chilling in Trev's room eating noodles, delicious Norwegian chocolate and drinking Japanese beer ( because beer  does fill you up).

Trygve chilling

Enjoying life in Japan

こんにちは

Hey,
It has been a long time since my last post. I do apologise to all my fans and addicted readers ;)
I have not been up to anything very exciting these last few days. Have been working extremely hard at school ( as I always do...) and have been  going to a lot of cold morning trainings in Toulouse or Bordeaux...and by cold I mean freezing!
I have also booked my trip to Sapporo for the end of November. Sapporo is a big city on the island of Hokkaido in Northern Japan.           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapporo
Sapporo has an amazing night life so will definately be checking that out and going skiing soon at Teine.

Sapporo Teine

As promised in my first post, here are some photos of my HUGE dormatory.

View of the A building in Global Village. My room is the bottom row on the far left side of the first building.

To the right of this lovely, very narrow corridor,  is my roommates fridge and cooking plan. Located to the left of the hall is the smallest bathroom ever! I have seen a lot of small bathrooms in my student life but this is ridiculous! Next to that is The Famous WC( Interesting story about those later).
Japanese houses have sliding doors- it makes everything a lot easier and saves space. It does take some time to get use to however. The first week I came home after a beer or two... or ten...I don't really remember... I went to open the door thinking that i just needed to push it in and nearly broke my nose.

I love just laying in my bath... Can't even get one leg in there!

My room

So now about the Water Closet that is a part of a Japanese tradition which I just can't do.

The Japanese WC...

So in Japan, they wash their backsides with this funky backside spray that shoots out from the toilet. There are a bunch of little buttons located on the side of the toilet that you can press to dictate the functions of the toilet (seat tempurature, backside cleaner, flush, etc.) A couple weeks ago I decided to try it. At the beginning it was a very pleasant, nice, warm seating experience ;)
 ...but then came the time to wash my backside. I didn't really know how much pressure was needed in order to get a good clean because there is no "This is how it works" manual. I decided to go medium pressure, expecting some nice gentle clean. WRONG!! It was like a bloody jet spray.  Had me jump straight up, water going every where, I could not stop it (the stop button was not working) so I proceeded to  unplug the whole thing. By this time I have gotten a wet, non-clean backside and water all over the floor. Luckily enough there was some toilet paper so I just did it the good ol' western way. Because I am not a fan of getting my backside jet sprayed, I will never try this experience again.

WC happenings aside, I have found a way to keep on the weight: 10pm snacks consisting of noodles, beer, and Norwegian chocolate.

10pm snack

East-Japan Championship

This week my team and I, went to the north part of Akita prefecture to participate in the East-Japan Championship. It's was a 3hours drive so we spend the weekend in a lovely hotel, with a real size bed and non rice bag pillow.

Hotel Room 

         

This tournament, brought together the 4 best university teams in Akita prefecture to compete against each other. The winner would go to the Japan Championship in Tokyo and represent Akita prefecture.
Our first game was against the other university of Akita, I pitched the entire game for a 4 to 3 loss. They jump right at me, by hitting a Inside the Park home run on the first pitch I threw...

After getting settled I threw a good game (9inn, 9h, 1BB, 8K) but unfortunately in 2012, wins have been pretty rare for me. Only 5 wins this season with two being the biggest wins in my career. I also batted 1for5 in this game, but the only time I got to second, got picked off!!! Hard to understand "shortstop is behind you" in Japanese.

In the bottom of the ninth base loaded, 2outs, losing by one... Guess who the next batter is?? Me of course!
I don't think I have ever been a stressed in my entire life. With one swing I could become a hero! In my head I was think be cool, take it easy, you can do these. But I had a voice tell me "go for it kid swing for the home run!!"
I hit a fly ball to right field, I could see the ball falling. A smile started growing on my face... but he dove and caught it. GAME OVER...

So that night, some of the boys and I decided to go to the batting cages to practise our batting.

2€ for 20 balls, different pitcher with different speed!

Our next game was against Hirosaki University, a team we had beaten 2 weeks ago. My batting practise paid of batting 3for3 with a triple ;) Unfortunately we lost 7 to 4 and all hope of going to Tokyo where gone. Hirosaki University went on to win the tournament.

Baseball season is over for me. It's been a good year, with two amazing experiences. Time to putt the glove away until April. 

Got the chance to have a real meal!!

Indoor Baseball field

View from my hotel room

Afternoon at baseball