pictures i owe you from the marathon

Pictures from my trip to Tokyo for the 2008 Tokyo Marathon.  Did I write about how I ran that?  Well, I did.

pictures i owe you from winter

I’m trying to rectify my lack of posting by posting copious amounts of pictures.

random, old newspaper clippings

I lied. These aren’t random at all.

I managed to make the front page of the local (3 page) paper.

Hidaka shimbun. This time I got sub-prefectural coverage.

Page 28 of the Hokkaido newspaper. Who knew running a marathon was such a big deal?

the last night

Just as an FYI, I didn’t have much to say about Osaka. It seemed a little different than the other Japanese cities I’ve visited—it’s dirtier, and the people are a little more in your face, but still nice, I guess. I don’t think Zach and I were there long enough to get a good feel for it. The pictures say enough-ish.

There are also a couple of pictures of Himeji Castle, another UNESCO World Heritage site (three in two days!) near Osaka. It’s big and castle-y. And a couple from the Ghibli museum in Mitaka, Tokyo. Ghibli produced Hayao Miyazaki masterpieces such as Princess Mononoke, Sprited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.

Moving on. If you want to talk about fitting endings to our excursions around Japan, I don’t think there could be one better than tonight. After another day of shinkansen-ing around the Kanto and Kansai regions, we ended in Tokyo eating bad ramen and doing last minute capsule-hotel reservations. We saw a kabuki performance, had another dinner (remember that post I made about eating all the time?) and drank at the most surreal bar I’ve ever visited (Mysterious Bar in Shinjiku). Girls in weird, neon, futuristic lingerie in a black-lit room serve multi-straw drinks with flashing ice cubes where each straw produces a different color liquid.

Now, I’m laying in my capsule that is about one foot too short for my lanky ass, going to bed at the end of a long, long journey through the country. My feet might literally kick someone walking by my pod.

the real phoenix

Even after reading up on Hiroshima, I still expected it to be a shadow of a city. And the prevalence of JET stories of terrifying interviews with questions like, “What would you do if a student blamed you, as an American, for the atomic bombing in Hiroshima?” had also made me worry that the citizens are still angry and hostile towards Americans. It’s not like that at all. The city thrives, and while there probably are some survivors, or relatives thereof, who are still angry, in general the city chooses to present itself to the world as a symbol for peace and regrowth.