Sweating on Marc waking up miraculously cured....alas this did not happen and he looks like crap with an attitude to match. I can't blame him, so many months of anticipation for a trip like this and to get sick while your here sucks a big one! I thought a salt gargle would help his throat so I went accross the road to McDonalds to try and get some. I felt guilty just grabbing salt so I ordered breakfast. They have an item on the breakfast menu called a McGriddle Cake with a pattie, cheese and bacon. Christ it is terrible, imagine cooking pancakes with maple syrup, bacon and cheese, putting it in a blender then making it look like a burger and you have the culinary monstrosity that is the Mcgriddle Cake! Back to the salt....I asked for some salt...blank look to which I use my best Marcel Marceau impersonation of sprinkling a substance onto fries....It worked, but instead of a few sachets of salt she got the bag that the hash brown goes in and poured in salt from a big jar.

We got going and caught the subway to Shin Osaka which is the big station where the Shinkansen bullet trains leave. We had to activate our JR passes so we went to the office with passports in hand and sorted it out. Nice 50 min trip to Nagoya and exited the station into rainy weather with no umbrella or jacket! After stopping a few people for directions we found the hotel. They kindly let us check in early as I told them Marc was sick and wanted to sleep. We chilled until about 4pm then headed to the Aussie bar I had found on the net before we left, the Red Rock Bar & Grill. Arrived and to our surprise Drew, another Mariners supporter was there who we had met in Kawasaki in 2009 he had seen my Facebook post suggesting the bar as suitable meeting place pregame. The owner who I brought the 2 jars of vegemite for wasn't there but he turned up at the game which was cool. We had a few beers then caught the subway to the stadium. Hutch had organised some tickets for us which was handy and we collected them from a team staff member. Don't want to dwell on the result too much, suffice to say we lost and were pretty diasappointing but s*** happens? This trip is more about having fun with my two boys than just the result of one game. We also caught up with Ash the captain of the local Aussie Rules side the Nagoya Redbacks...yes they have an Aussie Rules comp in Japan. He has lived in Japan for 9 years and grew up in Denman in the Hunter Valley so knows the Coast quite well. After the game we went back to the bar for a couple and called it a night mainly because Marc was still sick but also because of the result if I was honest?