Tokyo Giants

October 2nd--We woke up today to more rain. We obviously got lucky yesterday to have blue skies and sun. We had planned to spend the day exploring Tokyo, but decided to stay around this hotel this morning instead. However, we still plan on going into Tokyo because we have tickets to the Tokyo Giants game. The Tokyo Giants are THE baseball team here in Japan. And if you don't know, baseball is HUGE in Japan. So, being baseball fans, we were excited to see a game here in Japan. We were also lucky that the Giants play in the Tokyo Dome, so no worries about the weather. We arrived at the Tokyo Dome a couple of hours before the game started. This gave us plenty of time to walk around the Tokyo Dome City which is the area outside of the dome with an amusement park and many shops. We went into the dome and promptly met the mascot for the Giants. We went to find our seats before walking around the inside of the dome. It was interesting to not see the normal ball game food that we are used to. The food stands were filled with Japanese food (of course). The only Americanized food was hot dog which the kids had for dinner. It was also a little weired to sit in the stands and smell fish! We watched the normal pre-game activities, but of course, weren't sure exactly what was happening because everything was in Japanese. Once the game started, it was just like any other game, except for the Japanese announcers. We enjoyed watching the game and cheering on the Giants. Unfortunately, the Giants lost, but they did have a 9th inning rally, which created some excitement for the kids. After the game, we left the dome and caught the subway back to the hotel. It was a fun evening in Tokyo.