I haven’t ridden a century since I moved to Japan but with a bit of spare time on my hands before baby number two is due, I decided I was going to get back into decent enough shape that I could pull one off. I’ve been using mornings and weekends to get back into riding longer distances, and slowly building up toward the goal of 160 km by riding further and further up the Tama river every weekend.
Five minutes looking at Google maps yesterday morning at 6 am convinced me that Lake Okutama was exactly the necessary 80 km away, so without a minute to lose I got dressed, headed out the door and rode north up the Tama river.
The ride along the river is gorgeous, one of the few places in Tokyo you can ride uninterrupted through a green belt that runs from the ocean at Haneda airport all the way into the mountains in the northwest corner of Tokyo. The bike path ends at the south Hamura dam, but by then it’s pretty inaka, so you can continue by road from there without much worry about traffic. At the north Hamura dam, I crossed over to the west side of the river, to pick up Route 411 through the towns of Oume, Sawai, and Mitake before leaving the city completely and starting the climb up into the mountains.
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How many police does it take to catch a monkey in one of Tokyo’s busiest train stations? Apparently a lot more than the 40 or so that tried. The monkey was first spotted around 9:45am on top of the Tokyu Toyoko Line schedule display, possibly one of the best choices for people-watching in Shibuya Station, strategically positions between the exit of the Tokyu department store and the entrance to one of Tokyo’s busiest train lines.
It hung around for close to two hours while commuters, shoppers, news crews and a posse of net-wielding cops showed up, before finally deciding to make a break for it. Police never did catch the cheeky monkey, and its current whereabouts are unknown.
Apparently this is the third incident of a monkey getting into a train station in Tokyo in the last few weeks.
One of my biggest complaints about Japan has always been the complete and utter lack of garbage bins in this city. There are none to be found. If you buy a (most likely seriously overpackaged) snack, you either have to carry all the wrapping and leftovers around with you until you get home, or toss it on the street. But the streets are impeccably clean here, which had led me to believe that like me, the other 12 million people out for a walk this afternoon, will be carrying their litter around in their backpacks and shopping bags.
But it turns out this is not the case: an article in Metropolis unveils the answer to The Big Tokyo Trash Mystery.
Canadians in Tokyo got a head start on the Canada Day celebrations, kicking things off at 8:30 am with a pancake breakfast at the Maple Leaf Bar & Grill, followed by a Canada Day barbeque at Yoyogi Park including hot dogs, yakitori, a massive Canadian Flag cake, and imported Canadian beer. By 6pm things, as started to wind down at the park, people started the long trek back to Shibuya and into the Maple Leaf, where it was standing room only. Some pictures of the event.
Yesterday was my first trip to the dentist in years. The last time was just before moving to Mexico, in the summer of 2001. As you might imagine, I was not entirely expecting a clean bill of dental health. The fact that I had once again ignored my dentist’s advice to floss daily was not improving my outlook one bit. Click to read more …
The big news is that Yasuko and I will be getting married in November at Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto. For the desperately curious, I ‘officially’ proposed in February at Souvenir, a French restaurant down the street. Click to read more …
Last weekend, the temperature shot up to 23 degrees, and in the space of two days, the cherry blossom trees erupted into bloom. The Japanese take this opportunity to throw impromptu picnics, dinners, and random sake-drinking events under sakura trees all across the country. The street behind my building is lined with sakura for as far as you can walk, so it’s been packed with everyone in the neighbourhood until almost midnight every night this week. With the cherry blossoms falling like snow since this morning, the whole thing will be over with by early next week, so Yasuko and I plan to get in one last hana-mi event tomorrow evening before heading back to work on Monday.
As I stared blankly out the window of the train on my morning commute, something caught my eye. As the train flew along its raised track, whizzing past the rooftops of Gakugei-daigaku at 80km/h, I swear I saw a guy standing on the roof of a building alongside the track, dressed in a red cape and wearing a giant fish on his head, wailing away on a guitar. He was gone from my view before I was able to catch a second glance, though. I don’t know what makes him do it, but I’m glad it turns out he’s not just a figment of my imagination.
Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu. Jumped on the Nozomi Shinkansen from Shin-Yokohama station on the 31st to arrive in Kyoto two hours later. It was dumping snow from Nagoya onwards; and by the time we hit Kyoto, about 10cm had accumulated. After stopping by friends’ for the traditional osechi-ryouri and soba dinner, Yasuko and I did hatsumoude at Yasaka shrine from 11 at night until 2 in the morning in the midst of the blizzard. Spent the next few days shopping in Kyoto, visiting more friends, and re-visiting shrines and temples before heading back to Tokyo on the 3rd — though on the return trip, I had to stand from Nagoya onwards since the trains were booked to 120%.
I came into work to a nice surprise this morning. Sipping on hot green tea, we all crowded around the windows to check out the view. With the recent cold snap, the views this morning are incredibly clear. A little less so when passed through the tiny lens of my cell-phone camera. To see it in person, it really does dominate the horizon; and at over 100km away, that’s a pretty big feat.
