G8 Online

Today, we decided to split up, with myself and George having been overcome with determination to see more football matches. Accordingly, we decided to go to Cameroon v Saudi Arabia. I'll start by explaining what we got up to.

Since the match was taking place at the 67,000-capacity Saitama Wing Stadium just north of Tokyo, and there had been empty seats at other matches, we reasoned that this would have to be the easiest match to get into of the entire tournament : two teams with few travelling supporters, playing in an enormous venue.

How wrong we were. First of all, we made it to the station nearest the ground (there were alternative stations we tried, but they had shuttle buses which you needed a match ticket to board). On the plaza outside, supporters without tickets were beginning to congregate, more than four hours before the early evening kick-off time. Inevitably, the Irish began to arrive, keen to see a match in their group which could affect their qualification chances; with them on the plaza were a few random Japanese punters with bilingual signs explaining "I Need Ticket." After more than an hour's futile wandering around trying to work out who looked dodgy or where money was changing hands, we decided to wait until nearer kick-off time, and went for a stroll towards the ground itself, about fifteen minutes' walk away.

This is what we saw. Suitably impressed by the stadium, we wandered back all the more determined to get inside. However, it still seemed to be a sellers' market, unbelievably, and we wasted yet more time, so that kick-off was fast approaching. Some Irish blokes that had been hanging around the place seemed to have finally found something, so we questioned them, and they put us on to some suitably dodgy-looking American who had sold them tickets. But just as we found him, he buggered off back into the station, leaving us still without the tickets we needed.

As it turned out, our luck was in after all, and with half an hour to go, George succeeded in acquiring some tickets from some mobile-phone-toting Japanese businessman type for about �50-�55 apiece. This was particularly impressive since shortly before this we'd seen one ticket go to a sharp-eyed punter for over �80 (with face value around �42). They looked authentic enough, so we hot-footed it to the stadium, and got to our seats (12 rows back, behind the goal) just five minutes before the national anthems.

After this success we were so pleased with the con that we wouldn't really have minded a shit match. We knew that other people had failed to get tickets altogether, so we were pretty happy with ourselves, and we had an excellent spot to watch the game from - not to mention the experience of being in a massively impressive stadium. However, fortunately for us, and perhaps surprisingly, the game was good value as well. Unfortunately, Sami Al-Jaber, the Saudi captain and talisman, wasn't playing (we'd been preparing the Airplane gags : "Hey, I know you - you're Sami Al-Jaber!" etc). His replacement up front missed a remarkably easy headed opportunity just in front of us after ten minutes or so, to our disappointment, and then proceeded to sustain a nasty injury (we could hear his yell of pain from the stands) and get carried off. Cameroon's trademark long, accurate passes soon let them get control of the general play, but after initial problems the Saudis soon got Mboma and Eto'o under control, and only Wome and Geremi on the wings posed any real danger. The game was lively and entertaining, though, and didn't die down in the second half. Al-Temyat for Saudi Arabia beat half the Cameroon team before blowing his chance at goal of the tournament with a weak shot; then Foe did almost the same thing for Cameroon not long after. But after an hour or so of play, Eto'o tucked away an opportunity right in front of us and scored what turned out to be the winner for Cameroon, and the match petered out a little towards the end.

We had nothing to complain about, however, especially since, in contrast to Ibaraki, we were out of the stadium (leaving behind an impressive view) and on a bus back to Tokyo within minutes of the final whistle - it only took us an hour to get back to Tokyo station. From here we were able to get back to the ryokan and catch up with what the others had been up to ...

Apparently, they had headed for Tokyo's "Electric Town" at Akihibara. Having stepped into a department store, Fox had become separated from the other two. The pair of them wandered around looking for him for a little while, failed to find him, and had a go on the massage chairs, which DV had decided to show to Sultoon. Fox, meanwhile, waited patiently outside the shop, assuming that they would have to go there eventually. After sitting there for the best part of an hour, he had given up and wandered off to amuse himself. Sultoon and DV, meanwhile, oblivious to all this and without a phone (inconveniently as it turned out, myself and George had taken it) had visited the bay area of Odaibu, had a look round, enjoyed a good lunch, played some pool (DV won 10-8, I'm told), enjoyed sake in the sunset and then bought some bourbon on the way back to the ryokan. There they met a less-than-ecstatic Fox, but his anger was soon assuaged when they worked out that it had all been a bit of a misunderstanding. So they switched on France v Uruguay (hard cheese France, again) and waited for George and myself to return.

At this point, something strange took place. I had, in good faith, given Sultoon a few of my boxers to stick in with his washing, so I wouldn't have to (a) buy any more, or (b) bother to do a washload myself. Having laid them out neatly on my bed, the buffoons couldn't just keep their eyes on the game, but instead resorted (bizarrely) to playing with my underwear. This may have something to do with the fact that Sultoon and DV were getting steadily drunk. Anyway, Sultoon took it upon himself to make a "Jackass"-style film involving strange "stunts" such as putting the pants (fortunately clean) on their heads, while making derogatory comments about the standard of my perfectly respectable undergarments.

The film, I had to admit when shown it with great enthusiasm on my return, was quite amusing. I was, however, disturbed to be greeted on opening the door of our room by my three fellow holidaymakers wearing my boxers on their heads and grinning at me. Once the gag was explained, we watched the rest of the game in good spirits, and I was even persuaded to pose for this utterly ludicrous picture (why I have consented to put this on the internet, I don't know). Then we set about preparing for the evening's entertainment : the famous Japanese pastime of karaoke.

Our preparations consisted of awaiting Yuhei's imminent return, then buying more drinks : gigantic one-litre cans of Japanese lager, to be precise, from the shop over the road. Then we walked over to a karaoke place a few minutes away.

At this point I should explain that Japanese karaoke is not like our own version. You don't sing in public - you rent a room with a telly, a karaoke machine, and a microphone, and you inflict your singing voices on one another. So we wandered in, and Yuhei opened up with "Twist and Shout". At this stage, our enthusiasm for this novelty was remarkable, so we were all yelling along tuneless backing vocals, with DV's less-than-sober voice dominant even without the aid of a microphone.

George remained aloof in the corner, only once reluctantly picking up the microphone. Fox and Sultoon were not to be deterred, however ; the Turk was in masses of trouble at this stage, and he and Fox took it upon themselves to perform the inevitable highly amusing rendition of "Stayin' Alive", complete with comedy Airplane actions. Yuhei's lovely decided to turn up, thus introducing herself to us at a highly embarrassing moment. Even her presence couldn't deter us from making fools of ourselves, and we produced some particularly diabolical renditions of "Reach", "Lust for Life" and "Wannabe". On the plus side, we weren't too bad on "Stand By Me", "Back For Good" or "Whatever". After a while, Yuhei and the lady had understandably departed, with George making a dignified exit as well. DV, meanwhile, had wandered outside and started chatting to random Japanese people in the corridor. Sultoon was worse when he stepped out, immediately spying some young ladies and inviting them in slurred tones to join us, with unsurprisingly disappointing results. Instead he came back in and joined us in altering the words of REM's "Man on the Moon" to make lame jokes about the Cox-and-the-nail-scissors incident (along the lines of "Andy Cox and the scissors up his arse, yeah yeah yeah yeah" - if you're reading Coxy, it was nothing personal, we were just battered!). In the end, we stayed there for absolutely ages longer, until, after what seemed like the three millionth duet of "Angel" by Fox and Sultoon, we eventually agreed to fold.

Sultoon realised how expensive this mammoth session (well over three hours) was going to be, and was in favour of running away with out handing over the cash, but we eventually persuaded him to join us in coughing up the large bill (we were sure Y14000 was too much, even though we had ordered a few drinks). Having finally torn ourselves away from droning along to words scrolling across a TV screen, we realised that actually we were quite knackered and it was well into the early hours. So we went back to fold. Plenty to get up for tomorrow, after all - it was England v Argentina that evening ...

Day 12 >