Bon Festival

July 15th was the start of the Bon (or O-bon festival) here in Japan. The Obon festival is similar to the "Day of the Dead" celebrated by the hispanic race. Obon is short for urabanna which means suffering in hell. The legend is that Mokuren wanted his mother to stop the suffering she was receiving so he asked Buddha what he could do. Buddha replied with having a festival for the dead on the 15th of July. He did this and upon seeing his mothers release he danced for joy. The Bon-Dance was born. It basically shows respect for their ancestors sacrifices. In a country where the elders are given great respect, this is a big thing. The next month or so will be full of such dance festivals and alot of partying. It wraps up in the middle of August with the launching of paper lanterns into the sea to symbolize the casting off of souls.

Friday night the Japanese Navy held one in Nimitz park and envited any American that wanted to attend. It was an event to boost relations between the two nations. The night included three traditional bon dances around the drum and instrument stage. In between dances the JMSDF (Japan Meritime Service Defense Force) band entertained us with traditional Japanese music. After the second dance the roles switched from us trying to learn their dances to us showing them some of our traditional dances. The ones they thought of to showcase were the Electric slide and the Cha-Cha slide. 500 years of traditional ancient music compared to two cult icons no more than 30 years old themself. Go-figure.

End of the Season Tournament

The first tournament of the year didn't go quite as we expected. Our bats continued their ineffectiveness against the base security team as we could only put two runs on the board while only giving up 3. A first round loss in the double elimination tournament wasn't something we came to accomplish. Our second game we opened up alot better scoring in almost every inning and ending up run ruling one of the teams from the Essex and moving on. Our third gamewas against the other USS Essex team whom we have had mixed results with during the season. They started the scoring but we came back and that was the storyline every inning. We teeter-tottered back and forth until the last inning where we went up for good 12-8. Security got beat down to the losers bracket and we had to get through them to go to the championship game. However, for some reason we couldnt get on the board until late and dropped another 1 run game to them 3-4. They have now beaten us thrice in a row all coming form one run games where its not them that do well, its us that can't hit to save our lives. Hopefully next season we can remain consistent.

**We finished the season with a 34-6 record which is 2nd best all time for intramural softball. The best team went 40-2.

The sun IS still up there....

After about a three week span of typhoon warnings, thunderstorms, and daily downpours we have finally had a decent week where the sun was out everyday. There was reports of us getting the brunt of a typhoon on Sunday. However when we woke up that morning we saw another unusual sight, the sun. I guess the Navy was wrong (again) and the typhoon ended up hitting Korea and giving us the most enjoyable day in a long time.


The good weather has kept up and we were even able to squeeze in some softball games. Wednesday night was the first night we had played since before all the rain and it showed, early. With a good part of our team on summer vacation, we patched the holes with people who had played on and off for us through the season. It took about three innings to get going and once we did we ended the game up 10 and winning due to the mercy rule.


Last night we had a double header and the humidity was still lingering as we had the two earliest (and hottest) games. The taco salad I had for lunch wasn't agreeing with me so well as I stood in the outfield and it showed as I made a couple of costly errors in both games. Luckily my teammates backed me up with a sudden onslaught of decent hitting and we ended both games with a W.


Today we have the end of season tournament, and thankfully the field is dry, and the only clouds in the sky dont seem to be carrying rain.