day 5.

...spent most of the morning watching the high school baseball championship game. high school baseball in japan is even bigger than pro baseball. it's crazy. and the 2 teams playing in the championship actually tied yesterday through 15 innings. in japan, if you are tied after 15 innings, you play another game the next day. so, today, it was basically championship game #2. pretty crazy stuff. and to make it even crazier, the pitchers who pitched ALL 15 innings were pitching again today. i was waiting for their arms to literally fall off. it was really fun to watch and a team from tokyo ended up winning it all. it will be far and away the biggest news story for the next couple of days...

later in the afternoon we headed out to shibuya. i think i've decided that shibuya is my favorite part of tokyo. just so many cool streets and alleys and stores and people. after exploring and doing some shopping, we went to dinner in akasaka with my mom's old friend. it was good food as always, sashimi, grilled rice balls, miso marinated black cod...yum. after dinner, we headed to roppongi, a hip-happening part of tokyo (though a bit seedy and weird). we went to some crazy oldies bar where a japanese band sang american oldies. it was actually extremely amusing and fun. they made trent go up on stage and they sang him happy birthday. it was pretty priceless. after that, we went to some bar (this was all planned by chie, my mom's friend, so we just went along and followed her) and after that we went to a karaoke place where i got the pleasure of seeing my parents actually sing karaoke. crazy. i so wish shoko was there with me to see it firsthand...i have some of it on video, so look for it on youtube in the near future...

all in all, it was a very interesting day. i had never really seen tokyo late night, especially in roppongi and it was neat to see a different side. roppongi is quite americanized, lots of foreigners roaming the streets...

one last thing: i really never thought i'd go to a karaoke bar (a la lost in translation) and watch my parents sing. i don't think they even knew what came over them. but, when you're in a foreign land, with good friends and family...you just go for it i guess. one word: awesome.

sleep time. goodnight.