Basketball and New Friends

My husband hates when I blog about him, but the fact is that we have met some great new friends since he became involved with the Yakumo Town official basketball team and I must share! 

There are photos his first game with them at Shiriuchi Sports Center in Hokkaido. 

 Their team name is NERV and the team they played against were the Rich Leapers. The back of their opponents' jerseys read, "Rainbow Arrows." The English language is used as decoration in Japan, the same way westerners get tattoos in Japanese. It looks exotic and is an artistic way to express your ideas. Apparently English can be "punny" too, since another team that played that day was called Hallowin. It was surprising that my 6 foot (180 cm) husband played center, and his teammates were not confident in his ball-handling skills, despite the fact that he played point guard in the U.S.

On November 25th, NERV played in a single-elimination tournament in Mori Town. To make a long story short, they won their first two games earning them a spot in the championship game. Despite a well-matched game, NERV was quite tired, and played against a team that had played one less game, and wasn't able to pull off the win. Teams were awarded prizes of rice-filled squid and cakes. 

After the game, the team met at a yakiniku (fried meat) restaurant serving all Yakumo meat. We got the nomihoudai and tabehoudai: two hours of all you can eat and all you can drink. We had an excellent time, teaching each other English and Japanese and laughing at each other's jokes.

And on Friday, we invited everyone over to our apartment to watch NBA on TV. We purchased enough drinks and snacks for everyone, but were surprised when some very generous friends brought delicious homemade tamagoyaki, a huge sashimi tray, and some artisan cheesecake. We watched the Spurs vs. Heat game in which Greg Popavich sat his three stars, Duncan, Parker, and Ginobli, and in the end the team was fined $250,000, despite nearly emerging victorious!

I have been so busy with teaching at schools during the day and adult classes at night that I haven't found the time to join a weekly club in Japan, so I am really glad that my husband has found such an amazing group of people to enjoy basketball with. 

Next, he will take a trip with them to Sapporo to see the Panasonic Trians ofthe JBL (Japan Basketball League), and our friends said that this winter we will enjoy nabe (hot pot) together!