Missy Ventures to Japan for DHC Intl Championships

This week, I travelled to my favorite country abroad  - Japan, to compete in the DHC International Bowling Championships at Inazawa Grand Bowl, just outside of Nagoya, Japan. Inazawa Grand Bowl is the largest bowling center in the world, spanning 116 lanes straight across.

Inazawa Grand Bowl

The trip was very eventful right from the start. My travel day to Nagoya was very long, stressful and scary at times. I was traveling with my best friend Scott Norton and we thought that we were booked on all of the same flights through to Narita airport in Tokyo. However, upon a late arrival into San Francisco and a brisk walk to our connecting flight to Tokyo, we realized that we were not on the same flight.

So splitting paths, I quickly boarded my plane for my nice 10 ½hr flight to Tokyo (minus a personal TV in the headrest in front of me…NOT happy!) To make matters worse, the flight was then extended another hour due to horrific turbulence upon arrival into Tokyo.

We circled the airport and attempted to land two different times before successfully landing on the 3^rd attempt. Side not…I’m not a nervous flier and I was pretty scared and started saying some prayers... Then we finally landed to find that Narita airport was covered in a winter wonderland with blizzard-like conditions. Another 45 minutes crawling to our gate and then we finally were able to get off of the plane.

The airport was a zoo with flights delayed, immigration lines incredibly long and everyone trying to get somewhere in a hurry, with little success. I couldn’t get ahold of Scott, whom I hoped had also landed safely in the mess outside. Finally after getting through immigration, getting my bags, going through customs, getting lost in finding the rebooking area (since my flight to Nagoya had been cancelled), I finally rebooked my ticket and was only told “hurry” to get to my next flight.

Running through another airport, getting through security and finding the bus to my gate and plane, I finally arrived as one of the last people to board the last flight of the night to Nagoya. Thank goodness as soon as I got on that flight, I saw Scott.

That was just the first of many crazy events on this trip to Japan.

Scott didn’t receive any of his bags and the airline had no idea where they were (which is always a good thing.) So long story short, that next day, the only way for Scott to get his bowling balls and lugagge in time to actually compete in the tournament was for him to take a bullet train back and forth from Nagoya to Narita airport in Tokyo (which is 265 miles away.) Taking the Shinkansen or bullet train is NOT cheap in Japan, so I was not able to go with Scott to help him out. Luckily our very amazing and helpful friend Mr. Noda met Scott in Narita and helped him sort everything out. He arrived back at the hotel with all of his bowling balls and luggage around 11pm that night.

The next day, Day 3 of our trip, I watched Scott bowl the qualifiers. I had been invited to the tournament and was therefore seeded into the main event. Scott successfully qualified on his first attempt but bowled another squad for practice, while I practiced for about 2 ½hrs trying to work out some kinks.

The next day, we had the official practice session followed by the opening ceremonies and then started our first block of qualifying. Qualifying consisted of 9 games, in sets of 3-game blocks. Then the field was cut to the top 24 players and then another 6 games were bowled to determine the top 5 stepladder finalists for the TV show.

I had a VERY rough start to say the least. I played the lanes incorrectly, missed some easy spares, left a couple pocket 7-10s and just simply didn’t throw the ball well. Meanwhile, the rest of the field was shooting 300 like it was nothing and the scoring pace was extremely high. I dug a HUGE hole for myself, shooting -67 with the cut being around +70. So needless to say, not a good start. The only good thing about the day was that afterwards, Mr. Noda graciously took Scott and I out for some yummy Shabu Shabu, which is raw meat cooked in boiling water with vegetables - my favorite!

Mr. Noda preparing our shabu shabu

After talking with others that scored well, thinking about things I didn’t try and just re-evaluating everything, I made some major adjustments for the next day. Needing two big sets, I started out with a 233, followed by a clean 192 (never missing the pocket) and then shot 239 to be -3 overall. They didn’t re-oil for the next set and I needed a big set to make the cut.

Changing hand positions and opening up the lanes, I shot 244 and 247, putting me at +88 going into the last game. I needed one more big game to make the cut, and then I hit a bad pair. Starting out with a double and then leaving a pocket 7-10, it was all downhill from there and I missed the cut to the top 24, which ended up taking +135.

I will say that I was especially impressed with 14-year-old Japanese youngster, Shion Izumune who nearly made the championship TV show. She did, however, qualify for the trios event representing Japan. 

Shion Izumune and I 

Immediately after getting done with my final game, I was heading over to see how Scott was bowling (the guys took a lot longer to bowl each block and were therefore still bowling), when Kelly Kulick ran up to me and said “Missy, Scott is looking for you, he wants to go to the hospital.” Being completely stunned and in shock, I quickly ran over to his pair to find out what was going on. He looked like a ghost and was still attempting to bowl his 2nd game of the block.

He quit after that game and I with the help of our friends and the staff of the tournament, rushed him to the nearest hospital. Thankfully we were seen fairly quickly and he was super dehydrated and needed an IV for an hour and received some medicine. He got his color back and slept for the next 13hrs once we got back to the hotel.

Thankfully that was the end of the craziness. The next day, Scott was much better and we went to watch the TV show and attended the farewell party.

Big congratulations to Shayna Ng from Singapore and Tommy Jones who won the tournament.

Tommy Jones during the title match

Although this was a very short, yet eventful trip and definitely the worst I’ve ever bowled in Japan (prior worst finish being 6^th), I still enjoyed seeing all of my friends and eating yummy Japanese food. I just hope that it’s not too long before I venture back to my favorite country abroad!