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About last night....

Japan Scores Hands Clap

Shimokitazawa. World cup. Australia vs Japan. Approximately 6 (fairly vocal) Australians. A small handful of Europeans and Nth Americans - all cheering Japan and some actually booing Australia in an early stage of the game [that was pretty weird]. At least 50 Japanese, many wearing Samurai Blue jerseys and with flags painted on their cheeks. Lots of beer. Lots of smoke. No air. Lots of boisterous bantering and fever-pitched anticipation.

And then it happens.....

Japan Scores

Japan scores and things go very punk rock for a while with crowd surfing and beer flying through the air and pained Australians groaning....

Tim The Lone Aussie

Tim, in typical punk rock pimp style, decides to head to the bar just as Australia scores their first goal of the evening.... captured here in a lone stance of joy....

Gimme And Tim

Look, we found a Gimmie. That was him leading the shithead chant when that Australian fella pushed the Japanese fella over whilst in mid-air. Not surprised really.

Today was hard and not just because of the endless (urasai!) talk of the game (yabbai yo! [it was terrible] mukatsuku yo! [I'm really pissed off]) all through the school all frikken day but also the post-one-too-many beers at a way-too-smoky party fragility.

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frangipani wrote this on June 13, 2006 09:31 PM
Comments
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Jon Y said:

It was the only topic of discussion at work here too :)

June 13, 2006 10:10 PM
gleek said:

it was quite a game. the aussies played a very aggressive offense. i was little turned off by their behavior on the field but, hey, they won fair and square!

June 14, 2006 12:37 AM
Jennifer said:

Thank goodness I work with a bunch of South Americans or I'd be alone in my World Cup fever. Man, I miss the days of sitting in a parking lot, watching a game with a bunch of blue-clad Japanese drunks.

Congratulations to the Socceroos! That was one hell of a comeback.

June 14, 2006 01:21 AM
Gavin said:

Well done the Aussies. Me and the wife were watching it with about 100 people (a lot of them Japanese) in Melbourne (as I'm on a work trip here).
Naturally, she was more disappointed with the result than me (as a Brit, I supported Japan, though I'm not gutted with the loss).

Melbourne went crazy after the result, though most people were still friendly with the Japanese fans here (the Japanese fans were telling my wife though yesterday that they still felt a little bit intimidated by all the noise).

Anyway, looking forward to the next couple of games.

June 14, 2006 10:19 AM
nicole1980 [TypeKey Profile Page]said:

Yippeee! What a result! Yesterday was not productive at all with a rather bleary-eyed + hungover population here.

June 14, 2006 10:23 AM
MIssSin said:

wacthed the game - wasn't quite as exciting as your evening though.
spent mine in a lonely training centre in kitasenju with a can of beer & some nail varnish (ok, so i was painting my nails during the football...need to balance out all that testosterone...)

anyway - what a heart-breaking match for japan.
felt so sorry for them. but not that much.

because after all, who's going to win this year?

EN-GER-LAND!

hehehe...

June 14, 2006 04:55 PM