Day 20: Someone Forgot to Publish This After They Wrote it

So, as the title suggests, I may (Or may not, but most likely may) have finished typing this and then forgot to publish or post it to Facebook cause i was super sleepy. Oh well, whats life without a little uncertainty? (Predictable, thats what it is. predictable)

Today was thrilling, well actually, no, no it wasn't. Not for the most part. I didn't run this morning, I saved it for this evening. I spent the full day at work, same old, same old. Some planning of my exciting long awaited return home.

(I warn you, I am going to be annoyingly secretive in this next sentence)

My day then picked up a bit after school and I headed to pick up a gift for someone special, something that I got made, it is brilliant, and beautiful and now I just wish Christmas would hurry up and come so i can give it to the person if is for. (See, lots of words but no real substance, you know nothing!)

Mystery box, mystery box, how exciting

If you wanna know the secret, check back after christmas day.

Following my collection I came home and grabbed some food from the supermarket.

I have a question for you. It's Christmas, your friend comes over, you hand them a present you got them, maybe a bottle of wine or.... a bottle of some alcohol that isn't wine (As adults we know that a bottle of something alcoholic rarely goes down badly as a present). It's your turn, you have quite a large box. You are excited, you know it can't just be a boring bottle of wine, "people who give wine as presents are the worst" you think to yourself. You unwrap it and this is what you see:

At least it is in a nice box, I think you get a lid too!

"What's that?" you ask. That is 15 cans of tuna, 5 varieties, 3 cans of each, all made by the same company. How would you feel about that?

What about if it was this?

Ohhh, different colour lids! But let's be honest, the gold lids are the best

How's that? 6 different types of instant coffee, is that better?

The can top, second from the right really upsets me!

There we go, that hit the spot, 27 cans of fruit juice. None of these items are particularly specialised, they are all items you could pick up from from the supermarket yourself if you so wished. Now, I don't want to insult any part of Japanese culture, but I find these as gifts rather unusual.

Being totally honest if someone bought me a present I could have easily picked up myself on my weekly shop I would feel a bit put out. I think many westerners would be (And you would make a note to ensure you bought that person some toilet cleaner or cans of beans next year. 2 can play at this game!). And this is something I have noticed about Japanese present culture. It is much more modest than in the west.

This links to what I have said before about the price of fruit in Japan. Fruit is a common gift, I have seen grapes, mangos and apples all packaged as gifts. It is not just food either, I had a teacher tell me once that the present she got from her son for her birthday was a mechanical pencil, that was it (I am not knocking mechanical pencils, they are the kings of pencils, as long as you have enough lead that is).

Something that flies in the face of my modest gift thing however is melons, yes thats right melons. This is how much I am used to paying for a galia melon, £2/$3/¥300. However, I have seen melons in Japan costing as much as £300/$500/¥50,000. There is something about the pattern on it's skin that Japan just loves and if the pattern is just right they are willing to pay unbelievable amounts of money for it.

All this being said, if i received this, I would be very happy:

For those who don't know, this is beer! Delicious, delicious beer

After the supermarket I went home, marinated some chicken and went on a run. As my leg was still hurting I ran slower than I wanted to, but I still ran 6km instead of 5km, I had extra energy that wasn't being used up.

Something I have noticed is that even though I was running at a slow, I have hurt my leg pace I was running at about the same speed, if not a little faster than when I started all this.

After, I cooked the chicken. Soon I will soon be off to bed, it is much later than I intended to stay up to, especially as I have to get up for a morning run and I always find running in the morning after 2 days not running in the morning hard.

I didn't want to leave you with not ever seeing my chicken meal, I know that would just eat you up inside. Get it? Eat you up

Day 19: I Would Have Made a Terrible Danial-San

Right so, here I am, doing my 5km walk as it is my rest day, just like my first Wednesday I thought I would kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Then after that, I will walk and write my blog.

Not really in the mood for walking, don't want to run though, so I am in a pickle aren't I? But after all, part of the reason I decided to do this blog after the ramen adventure was to ensure I had a reason not to be a lazy arse. So walk I shall. 

This morning I got my lie in. It was great. Well, actually I barely noticed it, that's the problem with sleep eh? You know you appreciate the extra time but at the moment you are having it there is no appreciation or even awareness.

Anyway, standard day of school, nothing much to report, then off to the gym.

I went a little early today and still came out at the same time, I was rather tired and the dead lift is proving difficult to get used to, it's a movement I am not used to. 

Despite the book suggesting I try to add weight every workout I decided that I wouldn't because of my injury, so I just squatted the same weight and then ensured I worked harder on the other things.

Now I hurt!

Ok, not the best looking meal, but the meat is on the bottom, remember that

Then I had dinner, the rest of the sirloin from on Monday with pumpkin and sweet potato mash with some French mustard. おいしいでした。(o-I-shi-I de-shi-ta, oishii deahita) meaning it was very delicious! 

After I stuffed my face (yes like a hamster does) I had karate, I didn't want to go, and felt my injury was a legitimate excuse but as I only have 2 classes left before the 3 week hiatus of home, I felt I had to go. 

This resulted in some rather comical kicks. "Low kick" I kick low, "middle kick" I kick low, "high kick" I kick low. You get the idea. I was even asked if I was ok, I tried explaining, not sure if I explained it right but the Sensei smiled and nodded.

Not sure if you can tell but I was super hot and sweaty after. No I am not in a dressing gown.

I am coming to the end of my walk and it is lovely, kinda. I just want to go to bed, let my body heal and my mind rest but when I'm not looking at my phone it is very pretty. Not a cloud in the sky. I tried taking a picture with my phone but it turns out iPhone cameras were not meant for star gazing

I modified one of these to be a little more starry, it's so subtle I bet you cant work out which one it is

Nearly home, tomorrow is just running, no other working out. Normally I like to get it out of the way and give myself the evening, but tomorrow I will rest more in the hopes of healing and also I can have no time pressure if I run after school.  Here's hoping this heals up soon or how will I prepare my body for the inevitable gluttony and laziness of being home for 3 weeks? 

Day 18: It's cold and it Hurts

I have been bitching a lot about the cold, I do know that, but it is bloody cold to be out in shorts, a t-shirt and under armour (the sportswear, not something to go under my chain-mail. Unrelated; chain-mail is always overlooked in a zombocolypse, it would always stop a bite). I don't know the exact temperature, my iPhone app said 7°C but judging by the ice all around I would say it was colder. This is what the morning looked like out on my balcony. 

Pretty yeah? Pretty Cold!

I got dressed, headed out and away I went. Same old, same old. I listened to the audiobook (That is probably why I talked about the zombocolypse up there), and managed to focus on it while I ran. I have realised that in the mornings my first kilometre is alway fast, I guess because I want to warm up, but it was a little painful. 

You can see I have changed my language to Japanese, hope fully it will help. Maybe it will be to little of a gesture

It's painful because I have a slight injury on my right leg, it is on the inside of my upper leg, might be called the adductor. I think it must be a strain, it caused me a fair amount of pain when I took longer strides and squat with heavy weights. I will have to take it easy from now on for a few day. I wont stop but I wont strain it either.

I feel a photo of my inner thigh might be appreciated more, but this is more informative

Do you like my diagram? The red stuff is muscle, the area that hurts. I drew both sides as I think that it would have looked rather inappropriate had I just drawn the muscle that hurts. As you can see, running with smaller strides is less painful, and bigger strides with a tiny head is more painful. More jogging than running. There is also the squat, I must keep my weights low and ensure I don't strain the muscle. I know my form isn't good, but take it easy on me, that is more to do with my artistic skills than my actual form. Maybe.

Before my evening class it was time for sushi, once again, same old sushi. Delicious

It can be all too easy to just keep grabbing plate after plate

One thing I love about the sushi restaurants is how easy it is to take stuff home. You just take what you want off the conveyer belt and put it into these plastic containers and away you go. I took a couple of pieces for a post class snack and away I went.

So, off to bed with me. With my flight home a week on friday I only have 11 days, 7 runs and 4 training sessions left till I get to rediscover the delights of the UK. Very excited I am.

Tomorrow is my running rest day, that means I get to stay in bed an extra hour tomorrow morning, YAY.

Day 17: 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25

Not too much trouble getting up for a run today, however I have noticed I am pushing the time I get up back a little each day. Its hard to get out when you know there will be frost on the cars and a bitter wind. This is why I prefer my evening runs, the sun has already warmed everything up and, while still cold ,its not your thumbs hurt for the first 2km cold! But I still did it, with a meh time compared to my evening runs, but still.

Maybe one day I will include a more interesting picture about me running

The audiobook is really good for distracting myself from trying to calculate exactly how long it will be until i can stop. It is also a little creepy. It's a book about the zombocolypse and running early in the morning when few people are about is a little off putting. Well, at least I know I could run away if I did see some zombies...or would I be too tired because I have already ran a lot???? Maybe I need to give this running thing a little more thought.

No classes at school today so I could just catch up on some work, sort out some computer stuff and read the book that I was recommended by a friend about strength training. It's good, very informative, but very heavy on the technical stuff, such a giving lists of exactly all the muscles involved in an action and such. However, it is very informative, detailed and it has pictures! Those are the best kinds of books, ones with pictures.

This is either how to do an exercise or how to stand up as creepily as possible

This is the deadlift, it's what I tried to learn to do today, I say tried because it's not so easy and the book itself says that even regular lifters hate doing this so much they will try to find excuses not to do it that session. It is, however, the lift where you can pick up the most weight, so that is cool. Some people lifting 100's of kilos. Me??? Oh yeah, I'm like totally up there, managed a huge 50kg deadlift!...... Shhhhh, I'm still learning. 

Anyway, something much more exciting happened to me today, something that I have been looking forward to and happens very rarely, this:

Sometimes it's the small things

Yup, thats right, I have all the weights in descending order on my squat. woop woop! I dunno why but I find this really satisfying. What you see here is 10kg, 5kg, 2.5kg and 1.25kg all that on each end plus a 20kg bar adds up to 57.5kg. The next time I will see this is when I add the next biggest weight, 15kg. So I won't be seeing this again until I can squat 87.5kg. It is a long way off but I am already looking forward to it. All the more reason to train hard.

After my gym session I headed home to make dinner and do my dishes (That's right, my weekday nights are crazy!). My dinner was something I have been looking forward to. Meat in Japan can be very expensive, and there usually isn't much variety so I sometimes order from a website called the meat guy. It all arrives frozen so I had this big sirloin steak that I needed to eat before i go home because if my electricity gets cut off because i'm not here to pay it this winter break, I am not going to waste 400g of prime sirloin!

So this was my dinner:

No "witty" caption, just mmmmmmmmmmmm

Lot's of protein to help me grow the muscles needed for those damn deadlifts and get up to 87.5kg. I slightly overcooked it but it was still good and I'm sure it will do the job. I better let this digest, I have my early morning freezing run to look forward to, as the Japanese say がんばります (ganbarimasu) or "I will do my best"! Off to bed!

Day 15 + 16: Making a Mountain out of a Hill

Please forgive my lack of a post yesterday, I had to wake up early this morning to go look at some nature with some of my Japanese friends so I went to bed early. But I think going in chronological order will be better, people seem to prefer chronological order.

Saturday, my friend and I climbed that mountain that I talked about last weekend. As I said last weekend, if you climb it 30 times you can get immortalised with your name up on the wall of the restaurant, that is our goal. 2 down, 28 to go, with 30 weekends left until I leave Japan I will be climbing it most weekends. 

  

I think Mt. Fuji is in the background somewhere, maybe

I realised that I made a slight error last time I talked about this mountain. It was the result of lazy googling. I said that this mountain, Mt. Awagatake, is only 50m shorter than Ben Nveis, the tallest mountain in the UK. This was because I found a Mt. Awagatake which is 1293m tall, however the Mt. Awagatake that I will be climbing is actually only 532m. Just a tiny difference! Well, no, not just a tiny difference, actually in English (according to the UK's definition) my Mt. Awagatake is technically a hill. 

I've got some circling skills!!

Above is the book that you sign every time you reach the top. I will photograph every time, but i doubt you want to see a number increase by 1 every weekend, if you did I'm sure you would just write different numbers on your calendar.

Because of the running, strength training and boxercise on friday I felt that it was best to have saturday as my rest day. So the 5km hike counts as my rest exercise. 

Today-

As I said before, I had to wake up early, before 6am, so that we could go and look at some nature. There is a lot of nature in Japan, but the specific nature we were looking for was the changing of the leaves. Like this:

Ohhhh, look at the pretty colours

These are Japanese maples, I don't really know any more than that, but they are very pretty eh? It took us 2 hours to drive there and then there was a surprise monkey:

You may think he is jumping, but actually he is a flying monkey

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this, on one hand there is a monkey who is being forced to perform, but on the other hand there was a bloody monkey!

It is still a welcome change to ramen

This was my lunch, not so healthy lunch but it was very delicious, and then I was told about an interesting local delicacy.

Decide now before reading the next paragraph, does this look delicious?

These are hornet larvae, they are in a miso sauce. I tried a few of them, they tasted and had the texture of boiled beans. They are also supposedly meant to give you energy, I was informed it will help with sexual energy too.... I didn't really know what to do with that information. 

I guess it worked (Not the sexual energy) because it happened again, I went for an evening run, and ended up running a 6k again, at a pace of 5mins 18 secs/km. So it would look like it is becoming a pattern. When i go running in the evening I seem to be able to run further/not look forward to the end. Let's see how I do tomorrow with my morning run. 

Day 14: Boxersize is not jumping in and out of boxes!

Here we are (Well I am here, you shouldn't be right now, I didn't let you in my apartment). Late on a Friday night. An alcohol free Friday night I might add. And instead of falling asleep, like I feel i should and did last week, I am writing this blog post. Boom! Productive.

Today I succeeded in getting up for my run. already doing better than yesterday! Then I went on my run (I know, you expected something else but no luck). I finally got the audiobook onto my iphone and listened to World War Z while I ran. I was initially dubious, music has rhythm and a beat you can run to but as you see I did just as good as before while listening to the book.

Something, something, witty comment about this boring picture

While there is no beat the story itself is engrossing which gives me a different benefit to the beat. While before I couldn't really stop thinking about what I am doing I could just let my body go and pay attention to the story. I think that it is also a bout keeping it interesting, so when the book gets repetitive I will go back to music and so on. 

Then, off to work. I learnt a very apt and interesting Japanese phrase today "こころここにあらず" (kokoro koko ni arazu) Kokoro- heart/mind, koko- here, ni- location particle, arazu- to not be. Literally, "My mind is not here" or as we would say "I have mentally checked out". This is what has happened with today being 14 days till I board a flight home for the first time in 2.5 years! I just can't wait, work is just washing over me.

At least it isn't a ramen picture

Friday is my exciting lunch day, so I went to the Japanese lunch place I have talked about before. I got green tea, some kind of fish, fried tofu (Never thought i would opt for tofu!), miso soup, pumpkin and 肉じゃが(Niku-jaga) 肉- meat じゃが-Potato, so it is japanese meat and potatoes, DELICIOUS. I am genuinely worried I will get rice cravings when I am at home, I ate half of this without adding anything for flavour!

After school I headed to the gym, did my usual work out, managed to up some weights and stuff (I won't bore you with details, I would put money on no one giving a damn about them). It was good, other than the students getting in the way and of course just chatting/ playing with the weights seeing if their friend can take a dumbell on their groin (he couldn't).

After all that I remembered boxfit, I still had a 3rd work out to do! Damn my inability to say no. I headed to Sukiya (Rice bowl topped with beef, onions and other toppings), but I had to rush my dinner to get to boxfit on time.

Like seriously, it's not a ramen pic!

For anyone who didn't read my post about eating ramen just before karate, stuffing your face then jumping about isn't good. Boxfit is no different! I felt rather sick the whole time! (Unfortunately I can only blame myself)

Boxfit, it turns out, is not about jumping into (and out of) boxes. No, it is a room full of older Japanese women, and one of my older Japanese male friends. Following the instructions of a man, who (and this is complete conjecture) has never boxed or been in a fight in his life, for an hour. Unfortunately it was not for me, I would honestly rather just go for a run and do "real" fighting in karate, but it was amusing none the less, a great experience. 

No dramatisation, these diagrams are all to scale!

For obvious reasons I took no pictures but I was comically oversized, not only because I was a head taller than anyone else but also my limbs are much, much longer than anyone else's. There was also a slight thrusting in the groin region at some point and lots of, what I imagine in a real fight would be ineffective, kicking. There was also a lot of Jazz hands. The above diagrams show all of these as best as I could represent them. 

So thats my day of 3 work outs done, off to bed now, I have to climb a mountain tomorrow. (Nothing metaphorical here, a real literally mountain)

Day 13: Strange Things are Happening!

I think I need help! Something really strange happened today. I'll start at the beginning. This morning I woke up at 6:20, and decided no, no way, I am not doing that, another hour of sleep for me! This meant that after my day at work I had to do my 5k. This was all ok, I wasn't looking forward to it but meh, I said I would do it so I will. I tried to load an audiobook onto my phone but it didn't work resulting in my phone not being able to access any of my music (a running nightmare!).

With a YouTube running playlist going and with my rage at Apple over the syncing fiasco i headed out on my run. I ran the path I walked yesterday, up the big hill near me, and around the really cool park with the amazing play area. As I came down the hill, the strangest thing happened to me.

My running app told me I had reached my 5k and I thought "I can keep going", so I did! I ran a whole extra kilometre! And whats worse is I ran it keeping the same pace I ran the other 5, which was faster than any of my runs since I started this "health" kick.

This could be the start of a downward spiral upwards!

The slowest and quickest kilometres, the red and green ones, are the hill. Also, my pace is 5:16 which is faster than my best before of 5:20. Yes I am complaining, but it's mostly out of confusion. I hate running, usually all parts of it (Except the end, that bit is great). However, this would suggest that I am starting to like running. Maybe it is just a blip, maybe I ate something funky. Only time will tell.

After my run I headed to dinner with a bunch of friends, no ramen for me! We went to a steak/burger place that is only in our prefecture, I opted for the steak because, well let's be honest, if you are going to eat beef, you may as well eat it right! instead of the usual chips I got a plate of rice (Rice goes surprisingly well with steak).

I'm not going to lie, the salad was 99% iceburg lettuce

BOOM, gone! It was bloody good (That's british bloody meaning very!) and I am sure the protein will help me with my strength training. Also, tomorrow I will be heading to Boxercise, I am not entirely sure what it is but I was invited by a friend so I will go (I believe it is when people have to exercise by getting in and out of different sized boxes). 

An interesting thing I realised, if a fellow ALT invited me to something like this I am inclined to say no, but I feel when a Japanese person asks I can't say no. I think this is because I feel it may be a good cultural experience when a Japanese person invites me to anything. I will let you know what it is when I am more au fait with boxercise.

Oh and before I forget, this restaurant we went to is famous for its hamburger that is the size of a fist, I forget the Japanese but the direct translation is literally "fist burger" (A joke here would be both too easy and vulgar). I have had it and it is pretty good.

Excuse me, sir, my fist burger has no fingers????

So, that is just another reason to visit Shizuoka prefecture. While sitting, eating and chatting we also noticed a strange picture in the restaurant, I won't discuss it, but just have a look and be as creeped out as we were that this was hanging in a family restaurant. Unrelated, but why are they white? All of the pictures consisted of solely white people, the chain started in Japan! 

erm......

Day 12: Motivational Posters....

Gotta love my day of "rest", I got to lie in an extra 45 minutes! That genuinely kept me happy for the majority of the day. Following a pretty standard work day I headed to the gym where I decided to try a new type of lift called the press. The press is where you stand upright and just lift a barbell from your chest up to locked out arm length (I know, riveting!). I would have taken photos but then I would need an arm free and that would be dangerous!

Anyway, seeing as I will talk about going to the gym every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I thought I would show it to you.

I would quite like to be here for an earthquake, just to see all those balls fall

I am pretty lucky, I have all of this, for free and, until recently, totally to myself. For obvious reasons I haven't taken any pics of the room when loads of students are busy "Pumping iron" and "bulking up" (By this I mean mostly chatting, and throwing the gym balls at each other). However, there is a good atmosphere when the student are in the room, they are all working together and shouting FIGHTO Meaning "fight" but it has come to mean "you can do it" or "do your best"(It takes a bit of getting used to).

But I know what you are thinking, you are thinking "This gym is nice but where are all the motivational posters?" Well they are all around the room on the walls, all the Japanese is motivating and those with a keep eye can see the classic "No pain, no gain", but these are all clichés, you want something inspiring. How's this?

I don't know if this is intentionally hilarious or not

Yeah, BOOM, motivation! But wait, you are thinking to yourself "This is good motivation, but I think I need something less ex bodybuilder/governor, and a bit more classical". Well, my training room teacher has that covered too:

This needs no caption (I still put one though)

I'm just gunna leave that with you........

After the gym, I rushed home, reheated Mondays dinner (Tomato, onion, carrot and leek fried with pork and on top of white rice) and forgot to take a pic. Then I immediately went off to karate. I still feel awkward with the kids, they just go to town on me during sparing but I'm literally twice their hight (The adults have to crouch down low to let them practice the high, head kicks) but the sparring with the adults is fun. They are all much more experienced than I (This was my 5th week, oh yeah! gunna be black belt in no time, well 3-5 years), however, it is still very fun to be able to be more aggressive. 

Following karate I had to have my daily 5k, but because it is Wednesday I walked it. This whole situation is vicious, when I run all I want to do is stop and walk, but when I walk, it takes so long to get anywhere so all I want to do is run! Bloody silly if you ask me. Anyway, walk done, I now must get to sleep so I can wake up and run (While just wanting to walk) early. 

Day 11: Back to daily

My day started fairly ok, got up, got out for my run, realised it was bloody windy and hated the whole run while the wind was in my face (Ok I hated the whole run, but I particularly hated the bit with the wind in my face) and had a fairly mediocre run. 5 mins 45 secs/km.

Then my usual day of teaching and back home for a quick nap before I headed out for sushi.

Once you come often enough you start judging how they put the fish on the rice

Gotta love sushi, especially when it is as cheap as it is at conveyer belt sushi. Also, look at that, top right picture, that's scallops. Yup ¥94/$1/64p for 2 scallops, I have paid 10 times that for dishes of maybe 3 or 4 scallops before. It hurts to think about. 

Yep, you can order a slice of pineapple for pudding

This was also staring me in the face, I have been fine with the whole no chocolate, no sweets and no puddings thing but when you spend your whole meal looking at the menu of what deliciousness you could be eating it is a different story. But, I resisted, it wasn't easy, as not only do they show you the menu but the desserts go round on the conveyer belt too. 

Following my sushi I had my evening class, which was a riveting lesson on auto-antonyms, words that are their own antonym. The worse example of this is "literally" which is literally one of the most difficult words to explain the usage of.

My ramen friend from before invited me to go to the onsen (Hot spring) with him again and this is what I did. After 10 days of running most days, working out at the gym, karate and climbing mountains my body really appreciated it. I now feel very relaxed and content. 

I had also been advised to try this no calorie, alcohol free beer by my evening class students (They are adults), so I thought why not.

Even if you don't read Japanese everyone knows what "kcal means" eh?

I will tell you why not, because it doesn't taste like beer, and it's not very good! I gave it a try, thought it might help me relax even more but it barely even tasted like beer. So I think I will be happy to keep this month free from alcohol substitutes too, shouldn't be too hard if they all taste like this.

Oh and if you were wondering, you still have to be over 20 (The legal age to drink in Japan) to buy this less than tasty water substitute. 

Day 7, 8, 9, 10: Yeah, it has been a while eh?

I know it will come as a shocker to many of you but it turns out that I suck at posting blog posts at the weekend. I would like to pretend there is a good reason, maybe I broke my laptop, lost the keys to my house or even died. But no, none of those are true. All that happened is that every night I was really tired and decided to just rest my head before I began writing. Needless to say, this didn't work out.

So lets have a quick run down of how it is all going rather than me update every day one at a time.

Friday:

Had the best run up so far, 5 min 26 secs per km. I then had a full day of work and following school I headed to the school gym where there was a gym full of one of the sports clubs, I'm gunna say the track and field club (I have absolutely no idea which club they were but it's better to pretend I know). I used to find it intimidating having students watching me work out but now since I have become established and have done a fair bit of working out I now find that having a busy gym makes me feel more pumped. (Yes, I just said pumped, I am aware of what a tool it makes me sound. Sorry)

After the gym I had to get ready for the thanksgiving party that was happening on Saturday. And this is the reason I got so exhausted and didn't blog:

What a sexy bird! (Bird is sometimes used British slang for woman. Get it? Get it?)

I prepared the turkey, I didn't just spend hours staring at it cause it looked so good (Honest).

Saturday:

Woke up at 8:30 to get the turkey going and then I just sorta rested putting off my necessary run until the final 40 mins of the turkey. It was around midday and it was warm(ish), the sun was shining and I managed to run my best 5k since I started this thing. 5 mins 20 secs! (Thats my average pace, not how fast I did the 5k in).

When I got home this was what was waiting for me:

Carnage: before and after

The thing on the left was waiting for me, the pile of delicious meat was what happened when I removed all of the bones. Mmmmm boneless meat! Off to the party! This was the thanksgiving feast for the 30 partygoers:

It was in Japan so of course there are rice balls in there

Everyone ate far too much, which I am told is totally in the thanksgiving spirit. So, YAY we did thanksgiving properly. And I didn't blog because I was in a food coma!

Sunday:

Check this out, my city, years ago, planted trees in the shape of the Kanji for tea 茶(cha) on Mt Awagatake near my house.This is because Shizuoka, my prefecture, produces massive amounts of green tea and my city is famous for it.

cha cha cha!

And I, with a couple of my friends, climbed that mountain. It is actually only 50 metres shorter than Ben Nevis (The tallest mountain in the UK). As my running friend told me to take 1-2 days off of running, I thought I would take this 5km hike up a mountain as my day off from running and have it be my rest day's walk.

Oh and if you climb it 30 times you get to have your name put up on the wall in the restaurant at the top of the mountain. One person has climbed the mountain over 1,700 times! He is in his 70's. Never say you are too old for anything, the Japanese will just laugh in your face!

One day I was talking to a teacher about climbing it and she said "Is that a hill or a mountain?" Thats right, the tallest mountain in the UK is nothing to the Japanese who's tallest mountain is nearly 3 times its height.

Just like CSI: "Zoom, enhance, zoom, enhance" "My god I can see the killers reflection in the snow" "How chilling"

Speaking of which, you could see mount fuji from the top Mt Awagatake, and check out this that was also at the top of the mountain. I will leave it to your imaginations

Today:

Not much to report today, I woke up, didn't wanna get out of bed so by the time I got running I was late and so much so that I rushed getting ready and forgot my Jacket, my protein shake and my bananas (I know, not the bananas!). After school I hit the gym again and was pumped (Sorry) to have a busy gym again, I upped some of the weights and got very frustrated with all the teenagers getting in my way and using the equipment that I want to use. Pretty standard gym stuff. And here I am now, looking forward to tomorrow because on Tuesdays when my run finishes I have no more working out to do all day, I'm free, FREE!

Day 6: Balls! Rice balls!

You will be happy to know my attempt to ensure I didn't lose my inhaler worked! Got up, was a big baby about going out in the cold and then when I hit 2km I warmed up and got over it. A fairly medeocre run all in all.

I don't know if it is just the run or if getting up 30 mins earlier but I am much better at getting ready on days that I run even though I get back from my run the same time I wake up. So despite the hating of the actual run, it makes my mornings less stressful (Once I'm over the initial stress of waking up knowing I have to get out into the cold).

I get back from my run, jump in the shower, iron my shirt, pour my cereal into a bowl, go to get my milk out of the fridge and guess what is missing? My fridge, it was just gone....nah, I had no milk. So instead I had to buy my breakfast from the convenience store. I'll use this opportunity to introduce one of the things I love about Japan but am also very confused by; おにぎり, onigiri (Rice ball)

Japan has some fun food shapes eh?

The one on the left is an おにぎり, the thing on the right is 手巻寿司 (te-maki-zushi) or hand rolled sushi. Onigiri are "Balls" (Usually triangles), of plain white rice, with some kind of flavour in the middle, above is tuna mayo, but there is also salmon, fish eggs, pickled plum, seaweed and more. The hand rolled sushi is exactly the same but with the flavour is all the way along the middle, not just a blob in the middle, like in my incredibly detailed diagram:

I am currently taking any commissions for diagraming

And now we come to the point of confusion for me. Which of the above distributions would you prefer (The flavour is the shaded area)? Equal amounts of flavour to rice with every bite, or 3 bites of nothing but white rice and one with all the flavour? And can you guess which of these is more popular in Japan? Thats right, The one with flavourless mouthfuls of plain white rice. Sometimes if you are lucky you get something like this:

See, I have real range with my diagramming

Yeah, thats おにぎり gold.

Anyway, I really think these need to be all around the world (The evenly distributed flavour ones), they are a brilliant snack/ replacement for sandwiches. Generally onigiri have lower calories, have less unhealthy crap as the filling and, I think, are more filling. Also, I don't want to get into Japanese sandwiches again (I explained before the fact that they are awfully filled, in fact they are filled very much like the above diagrams), onigiri are much better. However, I can not wait to get a brown bread BLT when I return home.

Thought that maybe my diagrams were not enough to give you a proper understanding of the filling

Off to bed now, gunna place my inhaler on the "Don't lose me" spot again, then run in the morning, teach a day at school and then work out. After all that I get the pleasure of preparing a turkey for Saturday's thanksgiving party, I will have to resist the urge to cook and eat the whole 7kg turkey all to myself!

Day 5: I would walk 5km, and I would walk 5 km more

I write this as I walk around my local area, up a very steep hill and around one of the coolest parks I have ever seen. Who says men can't multitask? I'll explain why in a long and surely too detailed story:

I awoke on time and keen to run today (well as keen as you can be at 6:20am). In my clothes, ready to go, got my phone for music, my water for thrust and inhaler for... Wait where is my inhaler? 

That's right guys, I have Ass-mar. I would say that I have never had an attack, more of a tickling, maybe a light prodding, bad enough it's bloody uncomfortable, it cause me difficulty to exercise but won't ever kill me. I suppose that is better than killing me! But either way, tickle or prod, I need my inhaler to run, 2 puffs and I'm raring to go. Not this morning however!

This is my front door, I shall not be losing my inhaler tomorrow!

I could stretch the story out like a mystery novel but instead I'll just say that I looked for it for 30 mins, gave up and found it under the shirt I picked up looking for my keys to go to work. ( I have never pretended to be tidy) 

Because of all this I haven't been for a run today, but it turns out to have been a bit of luck. See, yesterday my friend who runs a lot told me that running everyday would equal bad body stuff (I studied biology at uni for 2 years, that's an official term). So I should rest/go for a walk 1-2 days a week, so here I am, walking a 5k.

Finished! New goal for tomorrow, I will run twice the pace I walked today

It all worked out too, because Wednesdays are both a gym day and a karate day, so I think that maybe running a 5k on top is asking for trouble. Wednesdays will be my rest day, so every Wednesday I'll walk 5k instead of run it.

Day was pretty bland, normal teaching, then hit the gym after school. I was abysmal! Turns out that just saying one day to your body "Hey, you know all that stuff I wish I could do? Well, we are gunna start it all at once" doesn't make for the happiest body. But tough titties, never give up, never surrender.

After that I had 75 mins to get food, get home, cook, eat and go to karate. It all came together and even though it was reminiscent of my ramen adventure, it was absolutely fine eating that close to jiggling your body about only 10 mins later!

I may, or may not have been too eager to eat it all, oops

I made a random dish of onions, tomatoes and mushrooms, fried with chicken and mixed with white rice. A bit of Cajan spice for flavour and Worcestershire sauce. Not gunna win any Michelin stars (unless they have really lowered their standards), but delicious enough. I would probably normally add some mayo, but not this month! 

Another win tonight (if cooking edible food can be called a win), I didn't get beaten up by any 12 year olds at karate! It really is great fun, (karate, not getting beaten up by a 12 year old) if it was on every day I would do it instead of my 5ks, it would give me the added bonus of being able to do more if I ever got in a fight than running away really fast! 

Ah, I have arrived at the park, and I know you have been waiting to find out what's so amazing about it. Well the park itself is pretty dull, in fact too much path not enough grass for me, but it is all about this:

Lots of climbing frames, nets, a wheely slide, 2 other slides and more!

Is that or is that not the sweetest adventure playground you have ever seen? (Hint: yes it is). Also, I can neither confirm nor deny that sometimes when alcohol has been consumed that my friends and I have been up here to play on it. Neither confirm not deny....

Anyway with that I can happily finish my walk, 2k left, and wait to tell you about more excitement tomorrow!