Following football from here has been an adjustment, mostly because of time zones. Half the matches I care about are on in the middle of the night, and the other half I am at work.
For the first year I watched everything alone on my phone, usually the day after, carefully avoiding the result. That works, but it is a lonely way to follow something you love.
What changed it was finding a bar that shows matches at odd hours. I had assumed nowhere would bother, and I was wrong. There is a small crowd of people who turn up for exactly the same reason, and after a few visits you recognise faces. Almost nobody there supports the same team as me, which turns out not to matter at all.
The local league has also grown on me more than I expected. I went to a match initially because a colleague had a spare ticket and I did not want to be rude. The atmosphere is different from what I grew up with, more organised, a lot of coordinated singing, and families everywhere. I now go a few times a season and I have a team I follow properly.
Some practical notes for anyone in the same position:
Stadium food is worth arriving early for. This is not a joke, it is genuinely part of the experience here.
Tickets are easier to get than I expected for most matches, though the big ones sell out.
If you play rather than watch, there are casual pick-up games if you ask around. I found mine through someone at work who mentioned it in passing.
The thing I would say to anyone newly arrived and missing home is that following sport gave me a routine and a set of people, which is most of what makes a place feel less foreign. It sounds small. It was not.
Anyone else watching at strange hours? And if there are people playing regularly, I would be glad to hear about it.
#mongolia#football#livinginjapan
