Mahjong Travel Journal: North-Kanto League ( NOW WITH IMAGES!!)
Last week marked the opening of the Japan Professional Mahjong League’s brand new North-Kanto League. While JPML has leagues throughout the entire country, this is the first chance I have ever had to not only witness, but actually participate in the opening of a new regional league.
Saturday morning, April 11th I got up at the usually 8:00 or so, did my make-up and dressed for a magazine interview I had in the morning. I took Luna with me and when it was over we rushed home to get her ready for her Pet Hotel debut. Since I would be staying the night in Gunma prefecture I couldn’t bring my baby along. The traffic was horrific but somehow I got Luna checked in and made my way to the hot springs we would be staying at.
When I got there, Kaori Shimizu, Tomo Fujizaki, Yoshifumi Matsuzaki, and the new North-Kanto League president, Yukio Yoshida were waiting for me with drinks. With the tournament the next day and my exhaustion from the full day I already had, I chose not to drink and instead waited for the dinner of dancing clams (Literally! They were still alive!) and rice cooked right by our trays. Aren’t the boys cute? We spent the evening in the spa and getting massaged.The next morning I woke before the masses so I could get to the internet café (our lodge didn’t have internet) and run the Ron2 meet-up at 7am. We had 2 tables and I got to play (even though I didn’t make it to the final table) with Tom Sloper and some other great players. After the meet-up (it ended about 9:00) I had 2 hours to kill so I took a nap in that internet café and then headed to the parlor, picking up a Starbucks on the way (I love my iced soy chai latte!).The parlor was full of higher-ups in my league that I love. Yuko Ito, our vice-president that joined us in Macau for the Mahjong SuperCup was there, along with the president of our league, Asataro Nada and grade 8 Makoto Sawazaki. We were all guests and there were a number of other members of our league there to play too. The tournament wasn’t the first of the league but rather a celebratory exhibition match to mark the beginning of the North-Kanto league. There was a guest-pro at each table and in most cases another member of JPML. The rest of the players were amateurs, eager to be a part of this new development in their hometown. We played 4 games, all with A-rules and the winner would be the player with the highest aggregate score. I started off good with a win for the first game. After the game everyone was off in the smoking corner but I stayed put and to myself. To be honest I really thought that bragging about or even discussing my score would jinx me for the rest of the tournament so even when people talked to me I kept my mouth shut about the game.
