Friday Foto: Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium Hiroshima, part 1

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I took 1000 photos in two days in Hiroshima.

Wait, correct that. I didn't really go to Hiroshima so much as I went to Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium Hiroshima. I mean, I spent 27 hours in the city and around 13 of them were spent at the stadium.

If I wait to finish cropping/etc all the photos I took, it's going to take even longer for me to post anything about it, so here's at least a little bit of an intro...

When you exit the station, by which point you have already passed by a ton of Carp goods tables anyway, you start walking east and immediately get some positive reinforcement that you're heading the right way:



On your left, in front of the train tracks that you walk along, you see several boards with information about Carp players, starting with manager Marty Brown:


You approach the stadium along a walkway which goes up towards what they call the "main gate", entering in left field.


If you turn to the right and walk over to see the "Front Gate" behind home plate, this is what it looks like:


So, assuming you go in through the "main gate", this is what you see when you walk forward to the field. It's more than 2 hours before gametime, so nobody on the lower level is allowed to go to their seats yet.


Let's walk around the concourse a bit, shall we?

Here we are walking along the concourse behind the left-field stands. You can see the train tracks behind the stadium and the hills of Hiroshima in the background:


The outfield scoreboard as seen from center-leftfield, as well as the "Carp Performance Seats", which are a suspended entity above the right-field stands.


What's behind the scoreboard? Some food stands and a wooden picnic restaurant area...


This is the back of the scoreboard with the stadium name. I assume you can see it from the other side of the stadium or from the train tracks.


View of the infield from right-centerfield. The black specks on the field are the Nippon Ham Fighters and the big red cushiony things right in front of me were actual seats -- they're big lounge chairs that are intended for two people to stretch out on during a game.


Continuing around to the infield concourse -- it's big and concrete and really feels like an MLB stadium in many ways.


One of the stands, which sells sweets (donuts and so on):


Here's the requisite Player Bento Cart. The Carp are marketing player bento boxes for Kurihara, Higashide, Kan Ohtake, and Kenta Maeda, with each player's "favorite food". (I got a Kurihara bento because it had yakiniku, as opposed to the Kenta Maeda one with takoyaki...)


Almost all of the food stands have random Engrish. Seriously.


Behind home plate are some glass displays with stadium information:


Here's one with some team history:


Above the concourse there is also some history of Hiroshima city, the Hiroshima Carp, and of the Mazda car corporation...


I ducked down to get a shot of the field from the concourse behind home plate (I wasn't allowed in, of course, since I didn't have a ticket for that area my first day there)...


After getting my photo taken with Slyly, the Carp mascot who happened to be hanging out by the "Main Gate" for a while with the Fighters mascot BB, I went up to the "Visitor Performance Area", which is where I was sitting for Saturday's game.

Looking towards the infield, I could see another picnic area that is above the 3rd-base stands, between the main 2nd floor and the visitor area (which is really another quarantined 2nd floor area separated from the rest of the stadium):


Here is a sign posted inside the visitor's area basically telling people to please not wear or use Carp goods while they are sitting there:


The Fighters' ouendan set up at the far side of the area, but the flag wavers and cheer leaders spread out along the entire area...


And finally, this is a panorama I stitched together from a few photos taken from my seat at the edge of the visitor's performance area:



I'll try to post some more soon -- this covers the main floor, but I took other photos of the shop and various other stuff there, as well as spending time down by the field before Sunday's game taking some player photos in the rain.

But for now, off to 360 Beer Night at Chiba! Whee.