Inter-High School Volleyball Championship Games - Aug 8

Today, Coach Yoko brought us to Tokyo Metropolitan Center to watch 60+ high school volleyball teams go head to head for the Inter-high school championship.   Very organized and very impressive.  It was very exciting to watch them warm up and play.

The championship games were held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Center

Inside is huge!  Fits four courts

Notice the short hair cuts?  They look like boys; but this is all girls championship games.  Some high schools require the players to have short hair and some schools don't.  But I guess that's the norm so everyone is sporting really short boy cuts.  They all look alike because they all have similar face and black hair.

Referee meeting before the games began!  Very organized.  They came marching in military style.  And they're really serious about their job.  You never see them spacing out or resting after the whistle blew.

When we came out in the afternoon, it started raining.  These hats are file folders that one of the shop owner gave the girls.  Came in handy. The rain didn't last very long.  Even with the rain, it was still warm and muggy. 

The girls wanted to go back to Harajuku after the games.  Shaeli will blog about this later. Below is what we did after the shopping trip to Harajuku.

All pooped out from all that walking and shopping!

Napping on the train!

Jordan fell asleep for real.

Dinner - Rice Bowl Bar!

This place specializes in rice bowls.  No ramen, no sushi, no tempura,...just rice bowls. We really liked this place so we went there again the next morning before we got on the plane.  

Susan loves half boiled eggs over her rice bowls.

My dinner -- spicy shredded pork and long beans over rice. 

Almost everyone tried the fish (looks like unagi) and shredded pork over rice.   This and ramen shops are considered Japanese fast food restaurants.  Everyone who comes in to the shop, leaves within 5 to 10 minutes.  We stayed the longest.  You don't see big groups or families in rice bowl and ramen shops.  It's mostly single guys and single girls.

This little store front was next to the rice bowl shop.  They only sell octopus balls and red bean fish-shaped waffles.  It's pretty cool how he makes these octopus balls.  Susan said she tried these before and didn't like it much.  Since we ate dinner already, we decided to share the red bean filled fish-shaped waffles.  Very fresh and very tasty. 

That's how we ended our last day in Japan.