Got the call from Sendai today, our apartment application has been approved! Let’s take a look at a couple places that are in our new neighbourhood.

Just a short walk (or a 2 minute train ride) away stands the home of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, aka the Rakuten Eagles. Pro baseball teams in Japan are sponsored by companies. Rakuten is an Internet shopping company. Think Amazon, but with travel as well. The Eagles are the newest team in Japanese baseball, playing their first season back in 2005. I’ve watched a little bit of baseball since I moved to Japan but never had any rooting interest in a particular team, so I suppose I will adopt these guys as “my” team.

The softest stadium in Japan!

And where do the Rakuten Eagles play? At the mighty KLEENEX STADIUM!!! Yeah, that Kleenex. It isn’t very large, which is nice, so the atmosphere will definitely be more intimate than the Kingdome or BC Place ever were. I checked out the stadium back in November during an open practice. The sightlines look pretty good from any seat. Tickets are priced well; the cheap seats being only 1200 yen (about $16CDN).

Open practice at Kleenex Stadium.

Next to the baseball stadium is Miyaginohara Athletic Park. The day of the open practice there was also a race through Sendai, so I stopped by and snapped a few photos.

Just a block away from us is Tsutsujigaoka Park, one of Sendai’s largest parks (maybe?). It’s one of the most popular places to do “Hanami“, Cherry Blossom viewing. In the spring everybody goes to various parks to hang out with friends and family, eating and drinking till all hours of the night. Here’s an old video of some hanami from Akita City.

Tsutsujigaoka Park - 榴ヶ岡公園

At the little amphitheater tucked away in a corner of the park there was a DJ spinning some techno, pretty cool… There’s also a supermarket a minute away, a YaMaYa, and a bunch of restaurants, a Starbucks, and a 7-11. From all I’ve heard and seen this is a pretty nice neighbourhood to live in. It’s gonna be good to live in a real city again!

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