Rugby

On May 29th, 30th and 31st I went to Tokushima prefecture to participate in a touch rugby tournament. I almost backed out of the tournament because I was running very low on cash due to my trip to India and the 22,000 yen price tag was a bit high to play a game I had completely no experience playing. It turned out I was already confirmed, which I didn't think I was, so I basically had no choice but to pay the fee and compete. I was more or less looking forward to finally landing on the Japanese island of Shikoku which would complete one of my goals of going to the 4 main large islands of Japan.

The name of our team was the Biwako Basselopes. Biwako is the lake in Shiga, and the largest in Japan. A Basselope is some kind of fictional animal, that I think we created, which is a cross between a bass and a antelope. Utterly ridiculous, and perfectly perfect!


Biwako Basselopes' cheer.

Overall the games were pretty good. And although I was on the B team, considered to be less skilled than our A team, we won more matches! Overall we won 2, lost 2, and tied our last game. Not bad considering many of our players have never played rugby before. I am not a real good competitive team sports player. I guess I just never have my "head in the game." I usually think people care too much about something that means absolutely nothing. I mean there is very little risk in your own life. I guess I just am not one for fame and so the idea of glory in this case means little to me. People pretend they are at war. Thankfully, my team mates seemed to have the idea of fun a couple of notches above demolition.


Everyone wants white lemons.


Forming defense.

In the end, meeting people from all around Japan was what I enjoyed the best. I met some really great people with all kinds of interests, and hopefully made some friends along the way. Even if great distances separate us in the future.


New friend from Seattle, WA.