Hey everyone,
November 3rd was the renowned Sou-kei sen (早慶戦) baseball match. The Sou-kei sen is the inter-collegiate rivalry between Waseda and Keio. The "sou" part refers to Waseda (it is based on one of the readings for the first kanji in Waseda), while the kei more obviously refers to Keio. "sen" (戦) carries the meaning war, fight and battle.
Waseda and Keio are Tokyo universities and both are considered to be the top private universities in Japan. The rivalry mostly manifests itself in the form of sports competitions such as baseball and rugby. This particular baseball match was a pretty big one!
From what I have gathered Keio tends to have a slightly more upscale image than Waseda. It's a much larger university and it's students usually seem to be presumed to be rich. Many of the members of the Japanese government are actually alumni of Keio. Waseda on the other hand seems to be slightly less of the elite. Actually, my favorite author Murakami Haruki was an alumni of Waseda, this makes me very happy!
We went to the baseball match along with WIC. They planned to practice some Waseda cheers so we had to get up at the crack of dawn to meet them at the station super early! The baseball match started around 11am but they wanted us to meet there at 7!
We were so early that we had to wait in a line before we could go in!
While we were waiting we played some card games.
We had all bought our waseda hoodies before hand in preparation for the game so we were all dressed up in Waseda red showing our support! It was pretty exciting!
Baseball is actually a pretty big sport in Japan. In fact, it is probably the country's favorite sport! I myself, have never been much of a sports fan but I knew even before leaving for Japan that this would definitely be something not to miss. And I was definitely excited to see it!
When we were finally able to go in we were all handed an energy drink at the entrance! Probably so you could cheer at the top of your game!
We were sat right in front of the cheerleading stage. Before the game started we practiced cheering for HOURS with WIC. It was fun but perhaps it was a little too early!
They were selling little Waseda packs which included a Waseda towel, fan, tissues and a booklet for the game. The towel and fan were used for cheering and pretty much everyone on the Waseda side of the station seemed to have bought them.
There was so much cheerleading and ceremony at the game. In fact it seemed to me that the cheering was actually bigger than the game! But perhaps that was just because I was sitting in front of the stage! There were various costume changes for the cheerleaders (or perhaps there were just two female cheerleading teams?). Also at one point the waseda cheerleaders went to the Keio side and the Keio cheerleaders came to our side. Not that I know much about watching sports but I can't imagine that going down so well in other countries!
The cheerleading has the usual female cheerleading like you might see in America but there is also usually a boy dressed in a black uniform at the front doing some particularly enthusiastic arm movements and leg bending (all while shouting at the top of his lungs of course!).
Aside from the cheerleading there was also a brass band playing throughout and a performance from one of Waseda's male accapella circles.
It was pretty fun. However weirdly enough it seemed that more attention was placed on the cheerleading than on the game. Perhaps I felt this way because I was sitting right in front of the cheerleaders, I couldn't actually see what was going on with the game too well. But I suppose all that really mattered was that Waseda won (of course)!
By the time the game had finished it was pretty late! We had been there since morning and when we left it was already dark.
On the way back we saw this curious baked goods vending machine! How curious!
After I got back I was able to meet with Kento as he had finished his performance from the second day of the Waseda sai. Later on in the evening we visited the shrine near my dorm. It was really pretty at night with all the lanterns glowing!
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