It’s still in the middle of the champion battle race, as today is the 13th day of 15 day competition,   he won championship with no loss without waiting for the final day match.

Congratulations !

It’s easy to suppose how his life was hard in this far east land without knowing language or custom of Japan.  Now he speaks fluent Japanese and behaves like a champion in a gentle and traditional way that Sumo champions should be.

I hope fans in his country, Estonia, also is glad to hear this news.

Japanese fans seem very glad to know this news,  although some of his fans would miss him as they can’t see his pitching live in Japanese stadiums.

Many Japanese players went across the Pacific Ocean to Major League Baseball of the USA.  Among them, I personally think Darvish is the most expected player with such ability on both sense in physically and mentally.

He controls himself to construct ideal body structure for best pitching form, and it’s carried out under perfect planning targeting on the playing term in a year.  He is a given talent player indeed, but we know he is at the same time smart in achieving his ideal results.

It’s fact that we are deeply impressed to see his play.  He has various types of pitching.  Fast ball is amazing, also carve, slider, sinker, and more wondrous breaking balls leave us stunned.

HIdeo Nomo was also a fabulous pitcher,  however,  Darvish could top the record of Hideo Nomo in the Major League baseball.  Daisuke Matsuzaka went to Boston Redsox with high expectation some years ago but no good result since then.  I didn’t expect him at all, at the time, I wondered why many said Daisuke Matsuzaka would be great in the USA.  Apparently Darvish is far greater than Daisuke Matsuzaka.

We all expect Darvish with much loving support.

Now internet hotel reservation is already a standard method for personal travelers in spite that we hesitated using internet reservation some years ago for fear of risks on booking through on line.

At present,  there are many online hotel reservation web sites which offer very low rate compared to the standard rates when using travel agencies.

However, it’s also hard to find the BEST RESERVATION SITE among a number of reservation sites.

Below,  you can find a real beneficial hotel reservation web site.  The best rate is shown after searching hotels on a certain date by comparison of all the available hotels on your tour schedule.

This is really convenient, and after you use it, you will understand how it’s amazing and beneficial for your travel.

Click or search doesn’t cost you at all, just after the reservation is made, cost is charged on your credit card.  Please just try to know how it works !.  Before deciding the reservation, you don’t have to pay at all.

We can’t judge if what he does is just magic we know or human super power.

For example, he puts milk and sugar into coffer cup through the AIR ! without using hands.  Also he takes hamburgers out from menu a board picture into real thing.  He changes what we eat in front of us into different food before our eyes….

It’s sure that he uses professional magician’s techniques too, but audience are always faced with incomprehensible happening just before their eyes.

Cyril Takayama recently has special TV programs a few monthly in Japan, also he is famous in Taiwan or some other Asian countries.

Cyril Takayama got the top prize of magicians in the USA in 2006 ( or 2007, not sure) as the Magician of the Year.  His magic quality is proved now in the world, including the sacred place for magic, Las Vegas.

He speaks English and Japanese, as his father is Japanese, he was raised in Japan some time in his whole life in OKinawa or in Tokyo.

Can you believe your eyes ?

Much more Cyril Takayama magics are found on Youtube.

Personally, among the Japanese players in American major league teams,  I think Hideo Nomo and Darvish are the real heroes  for me.

Hideo Nomo is still in my memory as the van of the Japanese baseball players who went across the Pacific Ocean to the USA.  He already was million dollar income player in Japan, but he decided to go to the USA as a test player with only 100,000 dollar contract a year.   The result of his brave action was now known to all of us in Japan.

And Darvish is truly exciting pitcher now in Japan.  He is the god-sent talent in baseball but he never stop his efforts for enhancement of his pitching.  He is a little like Ichiro Suzuki in the sense that both players are, in a way, stoic and never compromise whatever the results are.

I thought Darvish would soon get contracted with Texas Rangers after the first negotiation right on Darvish was transferred to Rangers.

Some say the reason for delay in making contract is the gap of money between Darvish and Rangers.   As Boston Red Sox Apparently failed in getting a famous pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka,  it might be natural that American teams don’t want to bet such a big money to Japanese players.   Matsuzaka was really expected to win constantly every year, but he was not as good as the Japanese career.

I suppose that Darvish is a far greater pitcher than Daisuke Matsuzaka.   So I hope he would join in Rangers after all.

One different thing between my heroes, Darvish and Nomo, might be a hungry heart.  Nomo was really such a guy with hungry spirit to search for his dream and success in the USA with much less money, but as we know, Darvish is regarded a great player already before the contract, so he requests much much instead of being a dream weaver.

It’s a little strange that she is now a very famous football player in spite that there hardly were Japanese people who knew her before the world cup of 2011.

But it’s a beautiful story to know how she got today’s fame.

In Japan, women football were always under fiscally hard status.  Even the national team players work for temporary jobs or part time workers.

A player in the team needed to work as a bath washer every day to keep her football life.  Her income was under 20,000 USD then but she wanted to play football even if she was so poor.  I read something like that in a magazine in Japan.

Homare Sawa was a top player of Japan but with no exception, she was also living hard with small income before the world cup of  2011.  They say their life was not miserable because they were happy as along as they could play football.

In that sense, Japanese national women football team were like part time workers’ team.

Now I think the financial condition of women players  got a little better, but still it’s bad compared to male teams, or compared to just a normal women workers of Japan.

Because we knew this fact through media information when we watched the games of world cup 2011, all the Japanese were really teary about their honor.  They, players, wanted mental satisfaction of achievement, not the money, status, or fame.

Now Homare Sawa deserves receiving MVP prize.

As she worked hard and she gave us joy through the games,  she also should earn more.  It’s truly natural for the result of pursuit.

We Japanese had a hard time last year, 2011 with huge earth quake and tsunami.

We also are worried about Nuclear Power Plant problem, but fortunately it’s settled now and Prime Minister of Japan announced the settlement of it although the way to the final completion of the recovery work is still ahead of us.

Now no one is reported to be sick or have died because of the accident.

However, we lost more than 20,000 people by the tsunami.  And the devastated places are not yet recovered perfectly.  I think many who live there are trying to rebuild the cities, also I suppose those places would be back in nearly normal situation in this year.

Last year I was also busy and was affected by this earthquake accident, so that I could not write here constantly. If you read some of articles here last year, that’s my pleasure.  Thank you for your support and care about Japan in the hard time.

I hope you would have fun this year.  あけましておめでとうございます(  means A Happy New Year in Japanese )

Listening to the recent news of American economy crisis, just like going to default, I really become depressed. It’s like a feeling of losing hope or brightly shining past memories in my mind.

Perhaps, I also know a little on how it’s terrible in the USA.  Though, that’s not a real information even if I got much information through media of Japan or through the highly admired American media.  I want to know how the  Americans are faced with inexperienced life by this crisis.

Japan is also terrible.  To my eyes, far beyond Japanese situation, American situation looks scary.

Could someone in America tell me the truth ?

Hideki Irabu played in New York Yankees as we all remember.  Before his time in America, Hideo Nomo was featured as the first Japanese big player.  Hideo Nomo made remarkable records in major league baseball of the USA and his brave play style encouraged Japanese people then as we all thought Japanese small size players could not be successful in major league.

After Hideo Nomo’s noble success, such wonderful players as Ichiro, HIdeki Matsui, and more went across the Pacific ocean to the USA and Hideki Irabu was one of the big names who followed Hideo Nomo then.

Hideki Irabu was thought to be more talented in baseball than Hideo Nomo because Irabu had very fast ball and various types of pitching.  Against our expectation, he didn’t make such big success compared to Hideo Nomo although he became one of the famous players in the USA then.

Fans like us thought Hideki Irabu had problems in his character. He sometimes went outside of the team play harmony and often talked against team, supervisors, media and sometimes to fans.

After he retired baseball,  it seems that he tried to run restaurants in L.A.  News says it was not really successful.  He seems to have struggled much in both baseball life and in the rest of his life.

It’s really sad to see such era symbol player’s decadence and the death.  Irabu always carried a burden in his mind.  I often thought like that when I saw his play or his life although I didn’t know what it was.  Probably he needed to obey to its fatal burden after all.

Rest in Peace, Great Pitcher.

The game was supposed to be a complete victory of the USA by many of football fans in the world. I also thought it would be like that even though I expected a good match.

I’m very very glad now just like all of them in Japan.  However, the game was apparently handled mainly by American team from the beginning to the ending.  Certainly there should have been a luck on Japanese team.  I think the only way to win the USA team for Japanese team was like the game pattern we saw this time because the physical potential of American players is far greater than Japanese team.  So, we were lucky in some ways.

But I respect the Japanese players very much. They didn’t give up until the sound of ending whistle, they kept running until the last minute.  I think they found a luck by restless running in the game.

Japan had a very hard time, yes, still in the hard time as we are still in the way to recovery from the damage of serious earthquake and tsunami.  More or less bad mood affected on them, I think.  What they did encouraged many numbers of Japanese people of lost heart by the disaster.

I don’t hesitate to thank the players.  They also are in the hard time just like all of us. We know many of them are working as part time workers to keep playing football.  They got the most precious experience in their life, and we saw the most beautiful life through them.  I thought we Japanese might be able to overcome the hardship again.

Thank you, beautiful people.

I don’t want to forget the friendship of the USA team.  The game was a very clean match with lots of fair sports spirit.  Thanks to American players,  we can accept the victory of Japanese team with good memory forever.  Also, the German supporters were really gentle in the games.  I understand this time how they German people  know the right attitude to enjoy sport games.

Anyway, I need to go to bed now.