阪神万歳！

Hey guys. Yeah Ive been away for a while. Spent some almost two weeks in Tokyo, attending conferences and for research.
While Tokyo was splendid - always friends to meet, things to do - it was somehow heartwarming to meet my friends back in Osaka and head for the most Kansai of things to do: cheer the Hanshin Tigers at a baseball game. Go go Tigers! The atmosphere was amazing. This is one of my favourite shots:




Hanshin Tigers Onigiri (rice balls/triangles)!!!! I had to buy one...:)



It was a Kyojin (Yomiuri Giants, from Tokyo - kind of like a Yankees-Red Sox or Cal-Stanford rivalry??) game, and the crowd was raucuous

Guess what this is?

It's called the "Lucky 7", which happens just before the Tigers begin their 7th inning (or to be more specific, during the 2nd "out" of the opposing team's 7th inning - when the home team is playing). Everybody blows up these long (yes, phallic) balloons...

which they then proceed to launch into the air like this! Thought you knew this already?? Well what you didn't know that - whether tradition or not - the balloons aren't tied, and basically the balloons are fired onto the baseball diamond...psssstttttt and the field is flooded with thousands, literally thousands of...for lack of a better word, balloon skins...