Patrick and I got up to run at about 6. Corey joined us. They let me set the
pace, and yes it was slower. We headed off to the park with the Meiji
shrine. Somewhere along the way I got hot so I took off my jacket and tied
it around my waist. Pretty soon we approached a bike along side the road. I
caught it with my jacket and it was flung around behind me. Right into
Patrick's knee. There was a Japanese man walking along beside us (we were
passing him). He cracked up laughing! We continued on to the park and ran a
loop through the park trying to find the shrine. Corey stopped to ask a
Japanese man if he knew where the shrine was. Of course he didn't speak
English so we went on. Pretty soon we came upon a westerner and asked him.
He pointed us towards the gate and said to go out the gate and to the left.
The security guard wouldn't let us run in the park with the shrine ("No
Sports"). So we walked in to the shrine and looked around and then came
out. I asked Patrick if he had more clothes for running in Beijing. (He only
brought a t-shirt and shorts). He didn't but said he was planning on
purchasing more in China. He asked me if I would rather he bought
"knock-off" Nike's or Adidas. I said Nike, as long as it was spelled
correctly and the swoosh was right. At least then he is sporting the right
brand.
We had a very good lecture by a Japanese economist that has studied in both
Japan and the US along with working in both countries. He gave us a full
spectrum view the Japanese economy from World War II until now.
For lunch, Yachin and I went to the "Food Show" underneath the hotel and
in the subay station. It really is a HUGE food market. We took the food back
to the hotel and quickly ate it before taking off for Kamakura. Some where
along the way we lost half of the group. I followed Saori and some full
timers to Kamakura. Kamakura is both a town and a giant Buddha. Kamakura is
about an hour from Tokyu. The actual bronze statue was built in 1242. I
have pictures on shutterfly that I will post a link to later. After the
Buddha we walked up to a shrine and temple. Words don't do it justice, you
will have to look at the pics. The shrine was up on a hillside/cliff. You
can see the pacific ocean, extremely old temples and walk though a tunnel
that was carved out by the ocean. All very cool.
We ate dinner in this tiny little town (evidently many Japanese have second
homes here). We ate at another Oknomayaki place. I thought I knew how to
cook it from my previous experience the night before. So I start to dump the
stuff on the grill and the owner comes over and yells at me and puts it back
in the bowl and then proceeds to cook it a different way. In case I didn't
say before, Oknomayaki is a Japanese pancake with vegetables and meat. I had
Yakisoba, which the woman didn't even bring to the table to let me try to
cook it. I guess I can't feel too bad Saori did it wrong too.
We browsed through the 100 Yen ($1) store by the station while we waited for
our train. I got some chopsticks and white chocolate and strawberry kitkats.
On the way home we evidently got on the wrong train and ended up 1 JR (Japan
Railways) stop past where we wanted to go. So we had to get off and get on
another train to go back to our subway stop and then ride the subway to the
hotel. Bless Saori's heart, she was a very gracious guide while we were in
Tokyu.
Once back at the hotel I promptly fell a sleep.
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