Friday, June 25, 2010

Go Samurai Blue

The end of June is upon us and summer is here. It is officially rainy season I Japan, but to be honest, it rains about the same amount as I recall from growing up on the East Coast of Canada. Rainy Season in Japan basically means that it rains once or twice a week. Nothing remarkable at all!

One thing that is remarkable however is the fact that Team Japan "Samurai Blue" beat Denmark early this morning 3-1 and secured a spot in the final 16 at the World Cup in South Africa. As of this morning, Japan is no officially the Land of the Fairweather Fan! Two weeks ago, you'd be hard pressed to find any one in Japan who cared about Team Japan or had anything good to say about them at all. Most folks here were simply dismissing them without a thought! That has now of course changes and I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to buy an official Team Japan jersey in any sports shop.


Keisuke Honda has emerged as a star player for Team Japan. This cat is going to make boat loads of endorsement cash and deservedly so.

In other news, I am going to be a father any day now. This is a stressful time of course and any first time parent will agree that that is a natural thing. I suppose that if I wasn't nervous, something would be odd! Although I realize I haven't been especially dedicated to keeping this blog current, I may take an even more dramatic lapse from online life once the little one is here. I plan to post a video later on the weekend on You Tube, but aside from that, I think my online habits will change.


In completely other news, I thought the recent allegations on CBC news from the director of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) were pretty interesting. he claims that the Chinese government (spy agencies) have direct influence over a number of Canadian politicians on a municiple and provncial level. These allegations have of course enraged the Chinese community, but it gets more spy thriller-like when several well known security and intelligence analysts say that these are not allegations, but very true things!

Read about here:
CSIS comments anger Chinese community

4 comments:

Jokko said...

I raise my cold Sapporo bottle to their victory.
It must be crazy in Japan now with all the "new" football supporters running around.

lasamurai said...

It still blows my mind to find Japanese who are upset that their own national team won. Nan-daiyo!
I'm all for Japan! Honda Ganbate!

Anonymous said...

I really can't believe how much of the world doesn't get into the Cup. The USA is slowly becoming more adept in football, yet no one really cares. At least some people in Japan are getting excited about the R16 prospects.

The Rainy Season is slated to begin today here, too. However, with the Reds playing tonight, and the fact I haven't been out to a public viewing of the game yet, I'm venturing out... rain or shine.

Kevin O said...

Iasamurai.....people are not upset that the national team won. Not at all. What I was saying was that Japanese people, in general, are very surprised that their National Team has been doing well. they are very happy, but also very surprised!