The Sapporo Dome, site of the 2002 World Cup Final group match between
England and Argentina (the 1-0, Beckham penalty one). Today's
entertainment was provided by a J-League 2 game between the local
team, Consadole Sapporo, and Ventforet Kofu. All Japanese football teams
have a glitzy, American Football type name. Sapporo's is particularly
Japanese: "Dosanco" means "local to Hokkaido", whose katakana
characters, if cleverly reversed, spells "Consado"; add a cheery, Spanish
"ole" to the end and you get a great team nickname!


The local supporters were not so much typical football fans as a massed
choir: take away the actual game and the scene resembled a giant
karaoke session!

The game itself was of fairly low quality, but had a most dramatic climax.
1-1 at half-time, Sapporo score soon after the break; the rest of the second
half offered little excitement, the home fans excited at a win which would
keep alive Sapporo's hopes of promotion to J-League 1, but then came
injury time... Kofu managed to score three times in 2 minutes to win 4-2!
And throughout, the choir carried on singing in perfect unison, as if
nothing had happened!!


After the final whistle, the home team apologised to the supporters for
their performance!

Susukino, Sapporo's entertainment district, without and with María.

The Kirin Beer Garden with Yuzo, a seismologist from the University of
Hokkaido. Jeff orders a tower of beer, forgetting that both María and Yuzo
are on antibiotics and so not able to drink much.


That'll be 3 litres of beer for Jeff, then, to wash down his all-you-can-eat
Gengis Khan lamb barbeque! Yummy!

"TAXI !"

OK, no problem, we are in Japan, of course!