Note - this a story of when we visited Japan back in June 2023.

The first city we visited in Japan was Hiroshima, which I have a 

to write about, but I wanted to focus this short story on our funny experience going to a baseball game. 

To be honest - going to a baseball game in Hiroshima wasn't our number one goal that day, but after noticing the day before that there was a home game and that the Japanese go pretty hard for baseball (and that our other plan for the day was rained out), we decided to go for it.

Now, I'm no huge baseball fan, I'll be the first to admit it. However, Joana is 

baseball. I took her once to an American baseball game, where she immediately drank a beer and then fell asleep for most of the game. (Fun fact, she also managed to sleep through two quarters and the halftime show of a basketball game. A 

 basketball game - amazing). That being said, I had read blogs about the stadium, the fans, and the 

So first of all, I want to bring attention that the name of the stadium is "Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium"- a 

name. Second, I mentioned that Japanese baseball fans go hard - and that's 100% correct. Even with bad weather, including a potential thunderstorm, the streets were filled with the red color of local team (the "Hiroshima Carp", like the fish) and the stadium was quite, quite full.

We bought tickets (decent ones with roof for 2,500¥ or ~15USD each) and we headed in. We immediately bought two things: the first was the classic Carp rain jacket everyone was wearing, and the second: a very-important-to-the-story set of Carp 

and hand pump that were part of a seventh-inning tradition that I'd be part of later on... to tragic consequences.

Stadium Food Paradise and.... Beer Girls?

To be honest, one of the main reasons I was excited to go to the game was to check out all the amazing baseball food they had in Japan. They didn't only have beers and hotdogs, they also had bento boxes, curry, ramen, yakitori (skewers), katsu, onigiri, sushi... 

In the end, we decided on sharing a big bento box, gyoza, and some fried chicken. Not bad!

We had heard that they also serve this type beer that has I-kid-you-not "soft serve frozen beer foam" on top, but as much as we tried we couldn't find it being sold in the stadium itself. I read on another blog that they're easier to find on the streets on the way to the stadium, as many vendors set up stands to sell merch, food, and drinks to fans as they pass by. So definitely seek that out if you can!

However, we did immediately get beers from 

 or in English, "beer girls", who carry beer kegs around on their backs selling beer to fans directly at their seats. As far as I saw (and read about 

), they're nearly always younger women who are also wearing shorts or miniskirts, so there are 

 similarities with the American cheerleading customs at NFL games. Without going too much into this topic: a) props to all of them as those kegs did 

look light, b) it was awesome go have draught beer directly at my seat, and c) the prices were great - the whole experience was much, 

better than spending $10+ for a lukewarm bottled beer in the US. 

Absolute side note: the stadium had absolute 

 terrified-looking tourists swiveling their heads back and forth trying to choose the correct bin - just look at these options:

The Great Japanese Baseball Balloon Disaster of 2023

Before I begin, what you must understand about my choices in the following story is that the night before I watched the previous live Carps game on the television. I saw their 7th inning tradition: all the fans would blow up these 

 oddly-shaped red balloons and then at the same time they'd all release them and they all floated up in the air. That was what I saw and that was what I understood.

bought the packet of balloons. Then, at the beginning of the 7th inning everyone in the stadium started to fill them up, so 

I did the same. And after I filled them up, I tied them closed 

wait - how could the balloons rise in the air if you filled them up with air?

 " If you are thinking that, congratulations - you were far, 

 ahead of me, because if you look closely at the photo above, everyone is holding the balloons at the bottom. That's because at the bottom of the balloon there is small plastic ring that makes it easy to put your finger in to plug the balloon closed. That 

made it incredibly hard to tie the balloon shut - something I had noticed, but not thought through.

Not too long after though, I finally put everything together: I was 

supposed to tie the balloons shut, I was 

 supposed to blow them up;  the tradition was 

 for the balloons to inexplicably rise in the air while breaking the laws of physics, it was for them to fly up as they slowly deflate - hence their 

That also meant that in the following moments the entire stadium was going to release their balloons, gleefully watching them fly in the air like the giant, red, ribbed rockets while Joana and I would be left holding on to ours like giant impotent markers of shame. Well, that was true until Joana realized what was happening and then quickly threw the other balloon over to me and 

,  abandoning me in an attempt to save herself...

So long story short the moment arrived, everyone released their balloons with big smiles on their faces. I, on the other hand, decided my best bet was to throw the balloons as high and as far away from me as possible and then act like I had never seen these strange, closed balloons before.

Of course, my balloon didn't go that far and it immediately came right back down, hitting my neighbor in the face. He then gave the ballon right back to me with a bemused "wtf" look on his face. Having attracted the attention of everyone in my vicinity, who were laughing at this silly tourist-who-tied-the-balloon-shut, all I could do was loudly, sweatily explain my confusion and put both balloons next to me on the ground, hoping no one else would notice.

I realize I haven't even written about the actual baseball game. It ended up being a very close game decided in the eighth inning, with the Carps winning it right at end. The quality of the game was high, and the fans were 

impressive - they chanted and cheered throughout the 

game non-stop. I gotta admit that having been to both, I much prefer Japanese baseball games over American.

After the game, we enjoyed the walk back from the stadium to our airbnb - the rain had stopped, we took a few photos, and we were ready for some sleep. By then Hiroshima was quiet. Fun day.

Japanese Baseball in Hiroshima