The bar where she drinks after work (dangerous places- it was in just such an establishment that we both decided to get tattoos, back in 2001):
The "Old North Church" of Paul Revere's Ride:
And a nice Boston-y mix of old and new buildings at dusk:
She also took me to the incredible flour bakery where we tried one of every kind of cookie. It was amazing!
I really liked Boston, even in the cold rain. So I was happy to be flipping through the channels back in Tokyo and see the final game of the
World Series being shown live! I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, given the absolutely crazy amount of media coverage they had here about Daisuke Matsuzaka joining the Boston Red Sox.
What did surprise me was the coverage strategy adopted by the Tokyo broadcasters. The game looked like a blowout until the eighth inning, when Colorado scored two runs and came within one of tying the game. At this point Boston replaced Japanese pitcher Hideki Okajima with an American guy. I'm no baseball fan, but I was into it enough to wonder whether Colorado would actually build some momentum and tie or even win a game. It was just at this moment when the station decided to stop broadcasting the World Series and return to the usual daytime soaps instead.
I'm not kidding! They broadcast eight innings - and baseball games only go to nine - but apparently once Okajima was taken out the whole thing became unwatchable to Tokyo audiences. Fortunately I already use www.sportsline.com for live scoreboards in all kinds of sports. So I got to kind-of watch the end of the game and send my sister an excited go-Boston! email afterwards.
And that's how I learned an interesting lesson about baseball:
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the Japanese pitchers.
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