Baseball Clinic Day 4 and Dinosaur Museum, Friday, August 23rd

Aug. 23 (Fri)

Here is our schedule for today: 

9:00～12:00 Baseball Clinic, Day 4 (Baseball Field & Multipurpose Field)

9:30～13:00 Exchange Game #4 (Mihama General Athletic Stadium – Baseball Field)

13:30～16:00 Tour of Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum

On our way to the baseball field via bus, Ryan and the crew have fallen in love with a Japanese sports drink called "Super H2O". Here Ryan is doing his part to show his appreciation of Super H2O to bring it to the States. 

Once we got to the field for the 4th Clinic Day, we started running to warm ourselves up after a nice stretch. I of course took the running seriously, Emma however, well was Emma. 

We then practiced throwing the ball and used a crouching position to keep our bodies balanced. 

Next the kids practiced their throwing in a situation of trying to tag out a runner, I was lucky enough to be picked to run between bases and have them try to tag me out. 

We also had a really cool station where we learned about batting and had an opportunity to work on swinging at some easy pitches to work on our technique. 

Here is our Coach explaining to us how to hit over the plate. 

The last station of the day was learning how to slide, which was the best station of them all because we learned on a wet tarp that was like a slip n' slide into the bases. We of course, loved it and agreed that it was the best thing we had done so far!

After our Clinic was done, we loaded on a bus and had a bento box lunch and headed to the dinosaur museum, which was 2 hours away. Meanwhile, here are a few pictures of the views we had of the Fukui region. 

This of course was not a native and what I had to sit next to for the ride, we had fun singing songs and being goofy as usual. 

Here is the entrance to the Dinosaur Museum, which was a building in the shape of an egg. 

 This was the view when we looked up. 

Here are a few of the Japanese kids that we play with everyday, they are big fans of the Americans. 

They had some very funny cartoon people there too. You may recognize a few of them. 

This T-Rex actually moved around and would roar at the people walking by, it was pretty cool. 

Here is our crew checking out some dinosaur bones and enjoying all the cool sights to see in this big museum. 

This is the group of kids from the Netherlands, they are on our bus as well and are learning many english words. 

Baseball Clinic day 2 and Fishing, Weds, August 21st

Aug. 21 (Wed)

9:00～12:00 Baseball Clinic, Day 2 (Baseball Field & Multipurpose Field)

13:30～16:00 Sea Bream Fishing and Food Education BBQ (Obama city)

9:00～12:00 Exchange Game #2 (Ohi General Athletic Stadium – Baseball Field)

13:30～16:00 BBQ and Zazen Meditation (Takahama town)

Here is our first real clinic with Coach Angel Bonilla where he taught us how to catch pitches. 

Kayla all decked out in her catchers gear. 

Here we are listening to the last coach explaining the basics of how to hit. 

Then we got to play a game. 

We also got to go fishing!!!

Emma could catch the fish but wanted nothing to do with cleaning and cutting it, she let me take over shortly after this photo. 

Mary with her prized catch, she had the first catch of the USA group. 

Kayla with her prized catch and a big smile on her face, which was quite a relief to see because she was crying earlier about really not wanting to kill a fish. I talked her through it telling her she didn't have to if she didn't want to. I think she was more excited when she got to play with the fish. 

We all learned how to filet, gut, clean and cut a fresh caught fish. I believe these fish were called Sea Bream. 

The next generation of sashimi chefs. 

About to eat our fish. 

This is me right before eating a fish eye, it surprisingly didn't taste like fish at all. 

Baseball Clinic Day 3 and Ground Golf, Thurs, August 22nd

Aug. 22 (Thu)

9:00～12:00 Baseball Clinic, Day 3 (Baseball Field & Multipurpose Field)

13:30～16:00 Ground Golf (Mihama town)

9:00～12:30 Exchange Game #3 (Ohi General Athletic Stadium – Baseball Field)

13:30～16:00 Beach Net Fishing and Fish Cooking (Ohi town)

Baseball Clinic Day 3: 

Each clinic would have four stations and then end with a quick game. 
First we started off with some basic fielding drills. 

 I was happy that they let me participate in the plays as well. 

We did our best to pay attention to the coaches, especially the ones that only spoke Japanese because it was that much more important for us to listen to understand the details. 

Then we did some bunting practice. 

Then we did some pitching practice. 

 Here we are with our pitching coach Robin.  

Then the kids played a game at the end of the clinic. For these games, the teams would be a mix of USA, Japan, and German. So they are all mixed up and cheering for each other, a great way for them to play together and learn to communicate. 

  The game was tied up at 2-2 with a nice homerun off an error by Emma. 
After the game we took a bus and went to a beautiful park by the ocean and we played "Ground Golf", which was a combination of miniature golf, croquet, and real golf. 

 It was a little hot, but we had water stations around and we had a good time.