Naga-no-no-no

Push pineapple, shake the tree, Naga-no-no-no.





June was a whirlwind month, and July is shaping up to be as well. I just got back from a weekend in Tokyo. For now though I'll start with Nagano. 


The first weekend in June was the semi-annual ALT soccer tournament, which is held in Nagano. You may remember, I went skiing there in March. It's a stunning prefecture with some mighty friendly ALTs. 

The Nagano team was short a few players to we helped them play a few games during our breaks. The are the lovely girls in pink. Karen, Maggie, and I are on the left.






Last November, Ishikawa rounded up a sizable crew to descend on Nagano with lively Ishikawa FC spirit, but with only a men's team and Stacy Higa fiercely playing with them. They gave it their best shot, but since the men's league is made up of mostly middle-aged men who play together weekly in Tokyo and Osaka, our ragtag bunch of ALT's came in last. In February, Stacy sent out an email begging girls to volunteer for a women's team so that she didn't have to play against a bunch of middle-aged me again. Fair enough, so I talked to a few other people who had never played soccer before and emailed my reply. 


We were able to fit in a handful of practices between February and June, and by the time the tournament rolled around I knew most of the basic rules of the game. I'd even figured out that I preferred playing midfield or forward to defense. However, we had yet to play together as just girls. During all of our practices, the girls and guys teams had been mixed so that we could share a full sized soccer pitch. 


So we went into our first game never having played together as a team. With Stacy, our team captain extraordinaire, directing all of us newbies we were able to win our first game and seriously pump up our adrenaline for the rest of the day. Karen even scored a goal (during her first soccer game ever), and I assisted. 

The tournament shaped up to be two days of exhaustion and awesomeness. We played in four games on the first day, and three on the second. Ishikawa FC was represented by both a men's and women's team. Both played respectably. The guys played respectively (against their ultra-competitive opponents) and kept their game losses in the single-digits. 

 Stacy and I heading toward the goal. 

 Maggie was our unstoppable soccer goalie. Standing six-feet tall she was as tall as the goal and was a force to be reckoned with.

The women's team, lead by the stellar Higa sister-duo, did some damage taking third place in the tournament after four wins, two ties, and one loss. Pretty cool, since half of our team, including myself had never played soccer before. We were appropriately awarded a tacky plastic trophy and a case of beer for our accomplishment.



Bill and Loki took all of the photos in this post. They made me look way more hardcore than I did in real life. Thanks! 



For anyone with Facebook, you can see more pictures of both teams here.