saitama

i want to kick myself for not bringing my better camera to the japan-wide ALT football tournament this past weekend in saitama. on top of only having my old, 2-mega pixel cannon, i had also forgotten my memory card and only had a 32-meg which wasn't even working properly (lost 1/2 the pics) SO the photos below are of shit quality. gomen. please peeps, send me some of yours onegaishimasu!
overall, it was a highly enjoyable weekend. over saturday and sunday, our niigata boys won enough games (all but 1) to qualify them for the championship game, to be played in the big world cup stadium. we were the defending champions as we won the tournament last year, and after a great (and much deserved!) goal by giovanni, it was looking up. however...in the end we lost by one meesly goal to saitama, who...i might add...had less supporters than the niigata team AND it was held in their own ken! their greatest chant was a rather pathetic poke at us "...niigata, town of snow..." or something.
it was lovely being down in saitama with the sun shining, a mild 8 or 9 degrees, and no snow. on the bus ride back we pulled into a service station in echigo uzawa...and we knew we were almost home. the ski mountains which engulfed us glissened with the glitery white fluff...that we have now come to feel as all our own. "we've got more snow than you...doo da, doo da..."