September 5^th, 2015

On September 3rd, we left the Tokai Station at around 4:09 P.M. It took Ryoko, Maho and I two hours and more to get to the station near the stadium, located in the Saitama Prefecture. As we went there, we saw more and more people wearing the Japanese soccer team's jerseys. This kind of event doesn't happen too too often, and so I was very lucky to be able to go.

As we got off the train, one could not believe the amount of people. Just getting out of the station took about 15 minutes. We grabbed some gyozas to eat during the match and headed to the stadium. I had never entered such a stadium. Even the recently built stadium near the University of Manitoba is still unknown to me. Thus, I was quite excited. This would also be my first time (at least that I can remember) seeing a live professional soccer match. 

We got to the gate of the stadium and found out that if we entered, we wouldn't be able to leave, and so we had to wait outside. Why? Our fourth companion had not arrived yet. He had been to a job interview and was coming on his own. We ended up waiting about an hour and a half for him, making us miss the whistle, the start of the game and the introduction of the team. We missed about 15 minutes of the first half, thanks to Kazuto. Great... I was not happy. He most likely went drinking with his friends after his interview. Ryoko had worked hard to reserve those tickets, and I found it very rude of him to be soo late. 

But the game ended up being interesting. The Japanese dominated the whole game. And I got to see all three goals. At half time, I went to see my friends. You see, we were all split up. Ryoko had done her best to find seats near each other, but it had still been quite difficult. I grabbed my gyozas, and chatted a bit before returning to my seat. The next half was on. 

Japanese people really like cheering. Just as my father and I witnessed three years ago at a baseball game, there was an enormous amount of people there to cheer. The whole sections behind both nets were strictly for those part of a cheering group. I don't believe they really stopped cheering, beside the half time break. 

Every time the Japanese team scored, the crowd went nuts, and everyone was on their feet. Those cheering for the Cambodian team must have felt quite intimidated. I spotted a small group in a section made for them.

The final score: Japan (3) - Cambodia (0)

I was really thankful for Ryoko who invited me to this game. We made our way back, just the two of us (Kazuto and Maho had other plans afterwards.). We ran our way through the crowd until we reached the station. Had we had not done that, we never would have made it back. The amount of people was just unbelievable... we ended up being soooo packed up in that train. We needed to make it on time for the last train back home, and thanks to our running, we made it back all the way to Tokai. 

A great experience.