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Posted On Saturday, September 21, 2019 at
at
8:22 PM
by Alvin
A completely random brain wave hit me one day last November - I stumbled upon the opportunity of attending the Rugby World Cup, taking place in Japan, September 2019. I thought, yeh, at last, not so far from home in a nice Japanese city, fine weather and a cosy indoor modern stadium, the chance of a life time to watch a few rugby matches, without the sleet, rain and wind of Europe ! Why not ? We managed to draw successfully two tickets each for the two matches (Fiji Vs Australia and Tonga Vs England), both took place at the Sapporo Dome (札幌). We arrived in Sapporo three days earlier and took time exploring this beautiful city (大通公園, 北海道神宮, 伏見稻荷神社 鳥居, 二条市場 and 狸小路), and the surrounding hot springs area (定山溪溫泉) which was about an hour's bus journey away. The matches themselves were rather contrasting in nature. The first match, Fiji Vs Australia, took place at 1:45 P.M. with a full attendance of over 34,000 and the match was exciting as both teams played well and the scores see-sawed and Australia eventually won as the better team. But the second match, Tonga Vs England started at 7:45 P.M. and by the time the match started, many supporters were obviously intoxicated as they had the whole day of drinking behind them. So their supporting chants were rather slurred and the atmosphere was quite rowdy but other than a few drunks using the side walk pavement as their moving toilets, things were under control. The match itself was nothing to write home about; as one English fan noted, it was like watching paint dry ... We actually left the match 20 minutes before the final whistle, to avoid the crush at the Subway as England was leading by a huge margin. All in all, a fantastic experience to have watched these top teams in action in a beautiful city and stadium; not to mention, we ate to our hearts' content, all the sushi and bento's we managed to find !
A completely random brain wave hit me one day last November - I stumbled upon the opportunity of attending the Rugby World Cup, taking place in Japan, September 2019. I thought, yeh, at last, not so far from home in a nice Japanese city, fine weather and a cosy indoor modern stadium, the chance of a life time to watch a few rugby matches, without the sleet, rain and wind of Europe ! Why not ? We managed to draw successfully two tickets each for the two matches (Fiji Vs Australia and Tonga Vs England), both took place at the Sapporo Dome (札幌). We arrived in Sapporo three days earlier and took time exploring this beautiful city (大通公園, 北海道神宮, 伏見稻荷神社 鳥居, 二条市場 and 狸小路), and the surrounding hot springs area (定山溪溫泉) which was about an hour's bus journey away. The matches themselves were rather contrasting in nature. The first match, Fiji Vs Australia, took place at 1:45 P.M. with a full attendance of over 34,000 and the match was exciting as both teams played well and the scores see-sawed and Australia eventually won as the better team. But the second match, Tonga Vs England started at 7:45 P.M. and by the time the match started, many supporters were obviously intoxicated as they had the whole day of drinking behind them. So their supporting chants were rather slurred and the atmosphere was quite rowdy but other than a few drunks using the side walk pavement as their moving toilets, things were under control. The match itself was nothing to write home about; as one English fan noted, it was like watching paint dry ... We actually left the match 20 minutes before the final whistle, to avoid the crush at the Subway as England was leading by a huge margin. All in all, a fantastic experience to have watched these top teams in action in a beautiful city and stadium; not to mention, we ate to our hearts' content, all the sushi and bento's we managed to find !
