After training with us for three days, the Japanese team left to go to the competition arena in Oakland today.  I believe they trained at the arena today and will be at training at nearby Cal Berkeley tomorrow before competing on Saturday.

While it was only for a short while, having the opportunity to train with them was great.  Even though they’re only the U-21 team, I was impressed with some of the stuff they unveiled and it really showed the depth of the Japanese team as a whole.  Some of those guys will definitely climb up the rankings during the next couple of years.

Since yesterday was a lighter training day, I took them out for a quick tour of the Stanford campus before they headed out to the outlets in Gilroy (about an hour south of Stanford).  For those of you that don’t know, there’s a custom of buying gifts in Japan, hence their itinerary involves a lot of shopping so that they could buy things for their friends and families back in the homeland.

As an “ambassador” to the Japanese team, It’s been another busy week.  I’m glad that I’ve been able to help out though. After all they did a lot for me while I was in Japan.  Anyway, I’m hoping that they’re accustomed to the US by now so that they could compete full force this weekend!