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Today I went to the mighty Hanshin Tigers baseball team shop to buy a mighty baseball cap.　Ｗｈｅｎ I was in there, three men, one with a camera, came up to me and asked if they could take some pictures of me for a regional magazine published in March so I may have fifteen minutes of fame even if it`s only “Look, even crazy Americans (I`m English by the way) like the Hanshin Tigers.”

Hanshin Tigers are by far the best baseball team to support in Japan. It`s unusal for me to live in a city where they have a talented sports team. My home county in England has the (not so) mighty football team Bournemouth, no cricket team nor a half decent rugby team scrapping the three most popular sports in England. I lived in Strasbourg in France whose football team swang between bottom of first division and second division and Essen in Germany who had an average lower league football team. This is one more reason why I am compelled to support the Hanshin Tigers. Look at the corporate logos and imagine a fight between the heavyweights of the Osakan Hanshin Tigers and their main rivals the “fluffy” Tokyo Giants.

VS

Of course the Tokyo “Giants” character would have its head ripped off in seconds stupid bunny rabbit that it is. It wouldn`t stand a chance against the tiger. They have attitude and an imposing aura which is great. Aha.

After that we did some more sightseeing and then we played pachinko again. I lost some money on my favourite slot pachinko Yohimune but then played Star Wars pinball pachinko and won 4000 yen or twenty quid or 40 dollars.

Here`s a picture of it. It`s vertical and the balls are released from the bottom left and naturally fall down due to gravity. You have to get the balls into the silver area in the bottom centre which starts the fruit machine-esque part of the experience. This is tricky. I managed to get three Darth Vaders (No. and then win lots of extra balls to exchange for cash. It was a lot of fun.