With a great deal of discipline and determination, I dragged myself out of bed at 6am, three hours after climbing in, to head for the Waseda-Keio baseball game at Shinanomachi. The game was due to start at 1pm, but we were supposed to go early to snag good seats. Unlike what I'd thought, we couldn't go into the stadium right away, so we stood outside with the numerous earthworms for two to three hours.
Soo-yun, who shares the same birthday as me!
After being bored of and tired from standing, we finally trooped into the stadium.
yoonjeong, dan
looks so nicely woody and airy
It was my first time being at a baseball stadium, and the sheer size of it took my breath away. And of course, I had to take pictures:
hues of blue and green
Asia and Rachael
Waseda bear batting for the school to celebrate its 125th anniversary?
yoonjeong! :)
I'd thought that I'd be able to sleep from 7.30am to 1pm at the stadium, but seeing as how we were kept in line outside for about three hours, that obviously wasn't the case. Even after we finally gained entrance, the cheerleaders and cheermasters kept asking us to get to our feet to practise cheers and all that. There was, unfortunately, no time for any shut-eye.
the choir went up to sing the school song
the waseda flag held up high. you just can't see much else =x
Half the time (or more than that), throughout the match, I had no idea what was going on, both on the field and at the stands. Firstly, because I don't know the rules of baseball, and secondly, because I don't know the different school songs and cheers. Nevertheless, it was really interesting. I was impressed by the cheerleaders. It seems that in Japan, instead of merely performing, the cheerleaders really lead the school population in cheering and all. I don't know how they could be so energetic the four hours or so we were there, bouncing around, kicking... They had so many different actions within one cheer, and we had so many cheers, so it was amazing that they remembered all their moves.
Big Bears leading/rara-ing the crowd
(it's taking forever to upload one video. will upload the video of the big bears performance tomorrow or something, when my eyes aren't about to pop out.)
And here, having a school song at the university level is really cool. I'd thought that it was sung rather casually (the only time I saw a video of them singing, that's what it was like), but at the stadium it was totally different. There were quite some middle-aged people present, so I assume they're alumni, and everyone - alumni and current students alike - took the singing of the school song extremely seriously. There was this sense of school patriotism? I suppose that when so many people undergo ronin and take the university entrance examinations a few times to enroll, being part of the school means a great deal to them. It felt good to be a student of Waseda at that time, like we were part of a bigger entity, and there was common ground between us all. The main bad thing was that it was tiring to keep swinging our arms around throughout the whole school song.
school song sung at another event
Hmm. Will upload more pictures when I get them, if they look nice. I should not assume again that two bars of battery are enough to last me the whole day, when it's some event I've never ever seen before, and where cheerleaders are present. It's troublesome having to rely on others for pictures/videos that I want. Raar.
