McLean Park - Canada vs Japan; Leaving Napier

Well, I've been to my last Rugby World Cup game for 2011. It ended in a draw for Canada and Japan, 23 all. It was a great game, which theoretically Canada should have won. Japan had great ball handling and pretty much every time they had a good chance to score, they took it. Canada, well... Canada made a lot of errors and failed to capitalize on several opportunities. The Canadians were actually behind a lot of the match, but managed to come back and tie it up in the last few minutes.

So no wins for any team I supported in person. I guess I'm a bad luck charm. Interestingly, each game had a different personality for me. The US-Australia match was just fun, relaxed, spent chatting and doing the wave*, since I knew the Americans had no chance. The Scotland-Argentina game was super tense, and a much more serious affair. I was so close to the action, the game was a real battle, and I was getting colder and more drenched the whole time. Tonight's game was a bit of both. I was in the general admission section, standing in a crowd, both taking the match very seriously and having a bit of fun. I cheered my heart out, and damnit, I felt like a Canadian.

Dressed for the match

I'm going to have to plagiarize Morrissey a bit to describe myself here: American blood, Canadian heart.

It was an early kickoff, so now I'm back in time to watch the Americans' final game against Italy on TV. But I'm just not as enthusiastic about it.

Anyway, before I headed to the game, I gave Napier another chance, and spent a few hours walking along its gorgeous waterfront. It has miles of pebble beach with a path above it, and is more like a park than a seaside, since it's not so much a good place for swimming. I took a ton of photos, but none of them could properly convey the vast expanse of turquoise water blending up into the clear blue sky.

Oh, I also checked out that Opossum museum. It was a store selling all manner of expensive opposum fur/merino wool blend knits, with a small area of bad marsupial taxidermy, fake trees, and a few vaguely informational signs. As a fan of the opossum, I was rather disappointed. And I didn't buy anything.

Tomorrow I have to check out of my hotel by 10am (dude, seriously?!), so I suppose I'll get to spend some quality time at the tiny airport before my afternoon flight to Christchurch. Remember the little airport on that show Wings? I think the Napier airport wishes it was that big.

That means it's down to the last 2 cities I'll visit on this trip. It has all gone so fast!


*We've done the wave in all the games I've attended, but the Kiwis call it "the Mexican wave." I asked why, and there's a pervasive belief in New Zealand that the wave was invented in Mexico, 25 years ago. Um, sorry, it was around before 1986, and while there's debate about whether it was started at UW or PLU, it's still Seattle, not Mexico. And much earlier.