Aug. 25 (Sun)
Here was the planned schedule:
9:00～12:00 Baseball Clinic, Day 6 (Multipurpose Field & Athletic Field)
9:00～12:00 Exchange Game #6 (Tsuruga city General Athletic Stadium – Baseball Field)
13:00～13:20 Tree Planting Ceremony (Tsuruga city General Athletic Stadium – Baseball Field)
13:30～14:30 Closing Ceremony (Tsuruga city General Athletic Stadium – Baseball Field)
But unfortunately it was raining quite hard when we woke up and the fields were too wet to play on. So we went inside the gymnasium and we played 2 games inside there until noon when we had lunch.
4 teams watched 4 teams play and then they switched every 45 minutes. Here is coach Edgar Perez throwing pitches to a team.
We started off watching and had a loud presence of course from the stands.
Here is Ryan fielding when it was our team's time to play.
And Mary batting...
And Ethan batting...
Ryan batting....
And Kayla Catching.
At the end of the games the coaches signed some hats and traded items with the children.
Ryan was interviewed many times during the baseball fair, Maki did a great job of translating.
Here is one of the Japanese girls, Kasumi, that we made friends with at the fair.
The coaches and Akiko missed our performance the night before, so we gave them a private showing right after lunch, and they loved it! Here we are taking a picture with them right after.
After the games ended we had the closing ceremony, where the USA took home awards for Effort and I also received an award as a Chaperone. Akiko told me this was the first time that the USA had received both the team and the chaperone awards!
The end of the ceremony was great, we walked out of the gym through a tunnel of Japanese staff members clapping, cheering, high fiving, and even crying for us. It was quite a feeling to see them so appreciative of all of the countries for participating.
Here I am with the other chaperone awardees, Canadian Chaperone (Brian) and the Australian Chaperone (Erin).
At the end of the ceremony after we walked out of the gym, we went back to our lunch area and took some photos with the new friends we made to remember them.
Here we are with the Germans and a Japanese team. We played with them each day as group #7.
Here is Mary with the Australians Jamie, Ella, Stephanie, and Hollie (From left to right).
After the ceremony and picture taking, we had time scheduled to go to a local store and purchase some items from the equivalent of a dollar store in the US.
I took some pictures of the landscape because it was so beautiful. Green everywhere from the trees that covered the mountainous landscape and rice paddies that were planted along the way. The sky was starting to clear up and was making for a nicer day.
Here was our stopping place to walk to the dollar store, I believe it was a temple of some sort but I wasn't able to get too much information about it. Not a bad shot Ryan.
Here is Kayla at a manual fountain with the Cameroon team.
Here is Ethan inside the store, he found a nice air soft gun to bring back.
When we got back to the Center, we ate dinner and began packing since we had much to do and needed to get to bed. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 7:30am and we had breakfast starting at 6am. The Germans and the Netherlands were not as fortunate and were leaving the Center at 3am on a bus. They came into our room to say goodbye to their new American friends and shed some tears to show us how much we meant to them.
It was quite a scene to see, since as an adult I rarely see such strong bonds generated between adults however these children who didn't even speak the same language and only spent a few days with complete strangers, were able to open up their friendship to the fullest extent. I was very proud of all of the US kids for being so friendly and not being afraid to show their emotions.
