Readying for Tomorrow's Race

The Yamanakako 13.6 km race day has approached so quickly - yet we are ready!

The last two years when I ran alone, I went up to the race on the day of, and sat in traffic, desperate for parking, like all the other 12,000 people. So this year, I thought ahead and booked us a room at a little Japanese hotel called Kaede. Although it is fairly close to the lake, it is not quite as close to the starting point as I wanted, but frankly, even two months ago, everything else was booked and I feel lucky to have gotten this!


View Kaede Yamanakako in a larger map

The three of us (Jenny, Brian and me) are going to drive there today (it's only about an hour away), pre-register for tomorrow's race, then check in and chill out with a chu-hi or two before finding dinner somewhere.

I'll be bringing my iPod Touch, but doubt that I'll have any kind of internet access to post updates...however, if I do find wifi in the village, I'll be sure to post an update on Twitter (http://twitter.com/japanrider)

Watch Japanese TV on Your PC

Expats are some of the most resourceful people - we know where to find all those hard-to-find goodies, like English books, Basmati rice, and Portuguese sausage. Brian's friend is a Japanese expat in Australia, and she tipped us of to a useful tool I'd never heard of called "Keyhole". It is a software program (available for Windows, Mac and even Linux) that basically streams Japanese TV stations straight to your computer!

I downloaded and installed it on Vista. The install was quick and easy, and the interface super-simple and requiring no setup. Here are some screen shots:

The program can be downloaded - free - here: http://www.v2p.jp/video/english/

This is great for folks who don't live in Japan but would like to watch some authentic Japanese game shows or anime - great fun to be had!

Although we can watch Japanese TV whenever we want, we lazily opt to watch our many-channeled BBTV English channels, and so I am more likely to use the Keyhole to watch in Japanese as I spend more time in front of the computer than not.

Race Training

With the help of the handy tools at geodistance.com and my training partners, I have set a new personal distance record: 12.25Km. (This took an hour and a half exactly, under cool conditions.) I certainly felt tired after that, but not too bad, and hope to recover fully for another, final, training run tomorrow!

Here is the training course (check the satelite view, too!):  Susono Run

The race is actually this Sunday, and the course we'll be doing is 13.6Km, around Lake Yamanaka, kind of near here. We are all confident, but I at least haven't trained in crowded, wet, or hot conditions (the last two are possibilities, but it will definitely be crowded: 12,000 entrants and untold zillions of supporters).

Here is my registration card:

Shimizu Port

Weekends go by far too quickly! Friday night was a nearby house-party hosted by friends; Saturday I went for a run, then we drove to Shimizu (near Shizuoka city) where we met one of Brian's old friends for coffee. Mari was only in Japan for a short two weeks, and we last met her when she was here about six years ago. It was nice catching up, and meeting her daughter, too.

After coffee, Brian and I did some window shopping then stopped for dinner at S-Pulse Dream Plaza, a largish shopping mall right on the oceanside at the port. Apparently, the port was never quite this beautiful back when Mari was younger, she said. Now, as you can see from the photos, it actually is a nice place to spend an afternoon!

Today, Sunday, was rainy and chilly, but the rain let up for a brief window this afternoon, and I got out for a good solo ride on my precious Clockwork Orange (more pics of this in another post!).

Just Another Thursday

This week has been neither exciting nor boring. However, it hasn't really been blog-worthy. We've been running or biking in the mornings, working during the day, and taking motorcycle lessons in the evening.

But today isn't just another Thursday - it's Brian's birthday!

We have a one-hour biking lesson tonight after work, so we probably won't go out for dinner, but I'm hoping to get us out somewhere nice for something good this weekend.

Motorbiking continued

Our motor biking lessons are going great. Last week, we moved up to Stage Two, which is 'Advanced Riding'. Up until that point, we'd been doing basic stuff, apparently - practicing basic balance techniques, showing we could slalom and stop and start on a slope.

The advanced stage seems to be focusing on improving our riding skills and handling of the bike. Brian's breezing through, but I'm still stuck on speed, and making slow, tight turns.

I don't feel too bad though - when I googled "how to do tight slow turn motorbike" I got about 723,000 hits. So at least I'm not the only one!

The lessons are really great and really useful, even though we're staying on the driving circuit or practicing on a simulator, and not ever actually venturing into the real streets.

As for the bike I'd like to buy (when I finally pass the course and the test, and get my license), I've got my eye on the Kawasaki Estrella or the Estrella Custom. It's a small bike in both engine and physical size, with a low seat so I'll be able to put both feet on the ground.

Brian hasn't settled on a bike yet, but is looking out for physically larger bikes -like the Kawasaki W400 - since he's rather tall.

We each signed up for two more hours of riding today, so with luck my skills will "level up" a little!

Sawayaka Walking in Susono, 2009

JR (Japan Rail) organizes regular walking or hiking tours around Japan; the walks are free, and feature a little badge that you get to wear, and a stamp card that gets stamped upon your completion of the walk. What does JR get out of it? Well, the walk starts at one JR station and then finishes at a different JR station, so you've got to take the train to get to the start point.

On Saturday, Brian and I joined two of our friends and co-workers on a walk in our own local area; it was a 12km stroll and we got the chance to explore and take photos of parts of Susono we don't always see.

The JR-Central Sawayaka Walking website is http://walking.jr-central.co.jp/

Health and Fitness: Limping Along

In this lovely spring weather we've both been naturally improving our overall health and fitness.We've been out running regularly, and trying to do some weight training on off-days.

We've also been trying to eat more healthfully - no white bread or pasta; no pizza or deep-fried foods. In particular, I've also been watching my calorie intake and consiously burning more than I consume. As a result, I've managed to lose nearly two kilos in the past month. I'd like to lose another four before bathing suit season!

However - I'm suffering a bit of a set-back, exercise-wise, since I've been experiencing some real hip pain after Sunday's run. I rested on Monday and Tuesday, ran again Wednesday. However, yesterday I was limping everywhere, and by last night was nearly immobile. This morning is better, and though I'd been planning to go out for a good bike ride before work, but I decided against it and instead did some light weights. I don't want my cardio to suffer, but I also want to make sure that I don't damage my hip joint before the race on May 31st.

In other news, the weather this weekend is supposed to be cool with rain...probably a weekend for riding school.

Encyclopedia Britannica - free renewal!

Last year, I mentioned how Encyclopedia Britannica was offering a free one-year subscription to their online resources to web publishers who qualify. Japan Rider did qualify, and although I didn't take advantage, really, of the subscription (Wikipedia rocks!), I received an offer to renew, free, for another year.

I went back to Britannica, and it seems they've rejuvenated their site, have a lot of external sources, various contributors and a link to "suggest edit" to an article. This, in addition to good material, means that I plan to try to use it more this year to research and/or provide articles of interest here.

For today, here's their article on Zen Buddhism:

Zen (Buddhism)

Weekend in Macro

We've really been running more than biking these days, but overall we are staying fit and healthy.

We drove into the mountains on both Saturday and Sunday, and ran just over 7km each day. I know, 7km isn't much, but we're running in rolling (and occasionally steep) hills. The 13.6km race on May 31st should present no problem for either of us, as I think our endurance is good, and we probably could have run a bit more.

After running, we lied in the sun and read books, snacked on almonds, and relaxed.

Yesterday, I packed my D90 and my 100mm macro lens, and I even felt motivated to take a few photos:

After sunning, we drove back down the hill and stopped at Ichi-no-Se, a local onsen (hot spring) and spa.

This place is sort of out of the way of most people, but Brian and I have cycled and/or driven past it at least a hundred (probably many more) times en route to our favourite bike rides/sun tan spots/ runs. However, since Ichi-no-Se also has a swimming pool and lessons, we thought it was just a swimming school with nothing else to offer. We hadn't realized that it was a rather nice onsen until we picked up a pamphlet at our riding school.

We decided to check it out for ourselves, and are glad we did: the baths are deep and hot, and for only 500 yen, affordable. A great way to relax and get clean after running in the hot sun.

(Oh - and, since I was once again thrown out of an onsen in Shimada a few weeks ago, I've taken to pasting surgical tape over my tats:-)

First Little Fall

Our riding lessons are going fabulously well! The overall education course is very well-designed, and each hour-long lesson is very well guided, one-on-one, by an experienced motorbike instructor. The lessons are divided in two steps - Basic Motorbiking, and Advanced Motorbiking. Last night we did the final lesson of the Basic level, and tonight we get started on Advanced.

But I had my first little fall on the bike last night - lost my balance on the "ippon bashi" (a narrow sort of strip) and toppled over.

Falling is a good thing - I find my biggest problem is being too tense and overly cautious. This was true with mountain biking and downhilling in the beginning, too - forgetting to stay loose, and forgetting to 'look where you want to go, don't look where you don't want to go'. Those are two very basic, beginner tips for mountain biking. I think they extend to motorbiking too; and now that I've had a little fall, perhaps my deep inner-psyche (nick-named 'self-preservation') will understand that a small fall isn't the end of the world (of course, after toppling over at about zero km per hour, the bike and I were unscathed:-)

Final Holiday

Today, May 6th, is the final holiday of our Golden Week respite. For the first time, we actually didn't go anywhere or do too much of anything, and really just caught up on home projects, reading and relaxing.

I also spent some time getting reacquainted with Ubuntu, my Linux OS. I did a clean install a few months ago, but haven't done much since. So, I upgraded to the newest distro (9.04, aka Jaunty Jackalope), and worked on some web sites using Screem before deciding to switch to Bluefish, which are both very good HTML editors that run on Linux.

One thing I have not done has been to study Japanese...so perhaps that's what I'll do today, since the test is only two months away.

Re-Screening

After soaking up lots of sunshine yesterday, we got down to some home projects, like re-screening the doors in preparation for the mosquitos of summer.

Low Key Holiday - update

Today, Saturday, marks the fourth day of our Golden Week holiday. As I mentioned, we so far really don't have any plans to go anywhere or do much of anything.

Our riding school is closed for holidays from today, so we did as many lessons as possible (two hours per day) on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

After yesterday's riding, we re-screened some of our screen doors and windows (lovely black screen with great air-flow), and went out for dinner at ourfavourite local yakitori restaurant.

We branched out and ordered some non-yaki-tori food, such as the hotate (scallops) below.

A regular to this restaurant, this man was already rather drunk on his cho-shu and oolong tea when we arrived. He struck up a conversation with us and was happy to pose for me:

Today's activities will include: car washing/waxing, reading in the sunshine, and more door re-screening. Let the games begin!

PS - these images were organized with F-Sport photo manager and edited/resized in Gimp, in Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope.