Friday, Miranda and I spent the day in Nagoya, which is about an hour and a half drive away. She spent most of her adult life there before moving to the states, so there were a few places she wanted to go and see and do some shopping etc. Kris stayed at home with Obaachan (Grandma).

We stopped for a late lunch and made a few other stops at some stores on the way back. We were both completely beat by the time we got back around 4:00 p.m. but said we were going to try to stay up and beat the jet lag. But when we got back, Kris was struggling to stay awake herself. We got some food in her then she crashed. Miranda was out like a light by 5:00 p.m. and Obaachan had retreated to her room to let us rest. I held out until around 7:00 p.m. doing some reading and recreational coding, but finally gave up and went to sleep too. At around 10 p.m. Kris woke up with a bloody nose. We took care of that and the girls went back to sleep. I stayed up until around 1:00 a.m. and then hit the sack for the second time, hoping to sleep past 4:00 a.m. By 4:20, Miranda and I were all wide awake. Kris stayed sleeping. I went out running at 5.

For this run, I went in the opposite direction, towards the mountains to the north. Where we are staying is on the western edge of a foothill to the south of the mountain range. Running north for a quarter mile up hill got me over that hill, where I could then go down into the valley between it and the southernmost mountain. Running through the village of the main street of the valley, I finally found a break in the houses which led to a path into the mountain. It was paved, but narrow and very steep. A lot of runoff also made it very slick and slippery. I ran a good ways up, but obviously needed to stop and walk quite a bit. Took a few side paths, but these all eventually ended in very tight paths overgrown with bamboo. Huge spiderwebs blocked the way in spots, and I was worried about wild monkeys (no lie), so I turned back and kept going up.

Eventually, the narrow path gave way to an actual street. I kept going up and at the peak of the slope of that street there was an opening in the trees and I was awarded with a stunning view of the valley and plain of the town below. It seemed like I was about half way up the slope of the mountain, but I have to guess that it was significantly less than that.

After the peak, it was a serious downhill run back into the valley. Even trying to brake myself, I hit a 6:30 pace. Then back out of the valley and to the old homestead. It was only 4 miles – I had planned on doing 5 or 6. But it was such an awesome run overall that I felt I had done much more than that.

When I got back home, I found that Kris had finally woken up but was not feeling well. Thirteen hour jet lag has a way of doing bad things to your stomach. At least that’s my experience. Seems to be the case with Kris as well. She’s doing better now, but we postponed our plans to go to “Sea Paradise” today. Will just do some stuff around the town.

Pics from the run:

After 29 hours door-to-door, we have arrived at the old homestead in Japan. Called a taxi at 3:00 a.m. Wednesday, got to the airport around 3:30ish. Amazingly, there was already a crowd at check in, so it’s a good thing we arrived a bit early. First leg of the journey was a 6:00 a.m. flight to Chicago. A three-hour layover turned into a four-hour layover, but we finally got on the next flight to Tokyo. A thirteen hour interminable ride across Canada, Alaska, Russia, the Sea of Okhotsk, across Hokkaido and down into central Japan. Some amazing views of mountains in eastern Russia.

Arrived in Tokyo about 2:30 p.m. local time Thursday. It took two hours to get through customs, immigration, re-check in, etc. Then another two hour wait for our final flight to Nagoya. Arriving there, we rented our car and finished the final one-hour drive into Tado-cho at 9:30 p.m. ・29.5 hours from when we left home. Ouch.

Some drinks, some snacks, catching up with Grandma and exchanging news , presents, and plans for the next two weeks, and we池e ready to hit the hay. Or the futon anyway. It was a rough day, but very happy to be here.

Friday Morning

Got to bed about 11:00 p.m. Slept on thin futons on the tatami floor. Not as uncomfortable as it sounds. I slept soundly, but at 4:00 a.m. I woke up and realized that was it for me. I rolled over and Miranda asked me what time it was. She was wide awake too. Within seconds we noticed that Kris was up too. Lounged around for a bit and when I noticed dawn was breaking, I geared up and went out for a run. That was about 5:00 a.m.

I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go. I figured if I could take the back roads south to the main highway, I could come back to the house via the route I was familiar with. While I didn’t quite get lost, I never made it to the highway either. I wound up in a loop around mile three that took me back to the main road I’d been on. At that point I decided to turn back. Things started looking a bit unfamiliar, so I turned on the map feature of my Garmin 305 and verified I was on the correct route back. In fact, that even helped me find a shortcut back. Total was 6 miles at a decent pace of 9:15/mi. Decent especially considering it wound up being a pretty hilly route – we are in the foothills of a mountain range, so there’s not much chance of avoiding hills. I had to stop and walk briefly 2-3 times to recover from hills.

It’s a very rural area, all rice fields, and bamboo and pine covered slopes. No sidewalks to speak of, and and 18-inch deep runoff channels on each side of most roads. Had to be really careful with oncoming traffic. One wrong step to avoid a car and you face a near certain broken ankle. At one point where I stopped to let some trucks go by, I looked down and saw a bunch of stuff on the side of the road – a lighter, some pens, some baggies with nuts and bolts in them, and a couple handfuls of coins. I quickly scooped up the coins, not realizing until I got back that they were mostly tokens of some kind – probably for pachinko or video games or something.

The rurality gave way to an industrial area filled with factories around the area where I turned back. There were no other runners out, but a few factory workers were getting off of the night shift and heading back to their cars. And encountered one guy on a bike, probably heading to work. I gave a few cheery “Ohayou Gozaimasu”s, but mostly I think people were wondering who this crazy gaijin out running at dawn was.

The plan for the rest of today is to drive back to Nagoya to do some shopping. Not sure why we’re going all the way there, but apparently there are some places Miranda wants to go there.