Hello From Japan!
This week I was invited to play in the AXA Ladies Open in Sapporo, Japan. Sapporo is a two hour flight from Tokyo. I have been to Japan over a dozen times in my professional career and always enjoy visiting this country. I left London on Monday night at 7pm and arrived into Tokyo at 5PM Tuesday. After a 12 hour flight I had a one hour photo shoot in the airport. I slept great on the plane but was not sure about taking photos after that..
I arrived to the hotel at 10pm that night and went right to sleep. At 2 am I was wide awake and ready to do something! I am staying at a Crowne Plaza hotel which is very nice. It has TV with two channels in English; CNN and ESPN. My first two days were long with appearances, golf and media for the first two days. I thought for sure I would sleep through the night on the second night but I was awake at 4am! I think the jet lag got the best of me when I slept 10 hours the third night and slept through two alarms.
The event this week is a 3-day event. I needed the extra day to get on the time schedule over here. I have now played one round of the tournament and shot an opening even par round, 72. The course is in fantastic shape, very fast greens that roll true. The players and fans have welcomed me graciously. Being the only American in the 108-player field is unique and the players have all taken time to say hello and help me out. Unfortunately there is a huge language barrier. I speak 10 words of Japanese and they speak about the same in English.
My favorite thing so far in Japan is the food. I love the way they eat with chopsticks and small portions. The food is so fresh from the fruit to the delicate Kobe beef. I eat a lot of sushi in the States and it is incredible over here. The food is so different. For breakfast, it is common to have rice, vegetables, salad, broiled fish and miso soup. Of course there are Western items as well like eggs, cereal and fruit but most people eat the traditional style breakfast. For lunch it’s much of the same and dinner includes beef, more rice, sea vegetables, and sashimi. The portions are tiny and there is very little fried food and sweets. They do serve ice cream with every dinner! At the dinner I went to last night with the event producers and Ippei, my contact from IMG, we took off our shoes before we sat down to eat. 20 small courses and 90 minutes later, the meal was complete. Yes 20 courses……an incredible meal! I ate sashimi and salad..not very adventurous. I did not want to eat anything my body may not agree with while playing.
Well I am getting ready to prepare for round two of the tournament. It was exciting to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Wow what a production. I love the Olympics I am really excited to watch it all. My favorites are gymnastics, swimming and track and field. GO USA!!
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Tags: Natalie Gulbis, LPGA, Golf, Golf Calendar,natalie gulbis, sapporo japan, crowne plaza hotel, miso soup, kobe beef, rice vegetables, broiled fish, time to say hello, language barrier, cnn, chopsticks, taking photos, favorite thing, espn, jet lag, photo shoot, professional career, traditional style, time schedule, axa
