早慶戦

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This is my first Thanksgiving not with my family...I feel like I should have had this week off. But I'm looking forward to the Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday with the Japan Study group~

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The day after Halloween was the first round of soukeisen, the baseball finals. Soukeisen is the name for a game between Waseda and Keio universities which have a quite intense rivalry. They were playing for 1st in baseball between the Tokyo Big 6 universities. The game I went to Waseda lost, but they ended up winning overall!

The actual game itself was just like any baseball game I've been to before. But the crowd is completely different. For one, there are cheerleaders. The whole school band was there too. Then there are a group of guys called ouen-dan who make people sing and lead chants. The cheering is super intense.



Things started long before the game actually did. This is the glee club--



cheerleaders with ouendan--



super intense...



Meiji Jingu Stadium.

It was really fun even if they lost, because by the end I had learned a bunch of the songs (including the school song), and the ouendan was super amusing.

Also, the Waseda pitcher, Saitou, is playing in the pros next year and I got to see him in action ;P