Sunday, September 29, 2019

Day #10 - Shinjuku and the Wallabies v Wales.


As has been the case for the last two nights when the boys have been billeted the boys have returned the next morning full of enthusiasm and enjoyment of the experiences meeting a new family and making new friends. This was the case once again this morning at Sagami HS, where the boys were fare-welled by their abilities and their families before we set off heading towards Tokyo.

As it’s one of the largest cities in the world it’s understandable that the traffic here in Tokyo even on a Sunday like today is quite heavy. We are getting used to travelling around in a bus together and getting on and off very quickly has become second nature to all of us over the past 10 days.  As was the case today we pulled up near the mega-store for the Rugby World Cup and had to race off the bus before our bus driver got a parking fine. The mega-store is in the middle of an area called Shinjuku and it was full of rugby enthusiasts shopping for the latest Rugby World Cup clothing. Our boys didn’t miss out and purchased quite a lot of stuff at premium prices unfortunately. As this is the World Cup it’s usually the only chance you’ll get to get these items.

After having lunch in one of the largest sport stores in the world which was five stories high and full of sporting equipment we grabbed all the boys once again hopped in the bus and headed out to Tokyo Stadium. The stadium is located about an hours drive from the centre of Tokyo West but as use as I’ve said before you would never know it because the high-rises just continue as far as the eye can see. We got to the stadium and immediately hopping off the bus you could hear the atmosphere already starting to build with music, laughter and people having a good time from the forecourt of this stadium itself. We let the boys have a look around the fan zone before we all headed off to find our seats and prepare ourselves for what was to be a close match.

As most would’ve seen we feel we were fairly hard done by, by the referee on some of the decisions and also potentially the Australian coach may have made some selection mistakes particularly in the first half. But let’s hope the final three games will show promise heading towards the finals.

We got out of the stadium reasonably quick and back into the bus and headed to our final hotel destination which is over near Tokyo Disneyland. It’s a lovely hotel and what a nice way to finish what has been such a wonderful tour. We have two more days of sightseeing around Tokyo before heading back to the coast on Tuesday night and arriving early Wednesday morning. More tomorrow…





Best regards,
Ian Browne

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