FIBA

We made it! Yesterday we took a chance and rode out to the suburbs to see if we could get tickets to the USA-GERMANY game. We headed to Ueno station at 19:30, even though the game had just started. The regional trains are a bit trickier than the subway, since those incredibly helpful route maps with English characters don't apply here. But the ticket office was much less crowded than the ticket machines, and we got tickets for the Saitama Shintoshin station with no trouble. In twenty-three minutes we arrived to find FIBA posters with NBA players plastered *all over* the place!

We ran over to the arena just past half-time and the ticket office had closed. But our trip was saved by a French scalper named Marc who sold us two really good seats for $100. After the game we just had time to grab the last piece of cake from a sold-out Starbucks near the arena before hopping on the train back. This time we had to try our luck at the Japanese-language ticket machine and hope for the best, but it worked out perfectly. We had to reach the subway station before midnight when the last trains leave. We arrived back on Odaiba at 23:50, with time to spare. But we did see a sea of taxis waiting at Shimbashi station for the people who arrived too late.



We also found the string of 24-hour restaurants on street level in front of Aqua City, near the hotel, and we finally got some dinner.

Wow, what a difference there is between the daytime metro and the after-23:00 metro! The people on the subway were smiling, laughing, and talking. I've read that there are a lot of people riding home from the bar on the last train. During the day it's pretty much silent. That was kind of a cool thing to see as well.