Hot Child in The Windy City

Thank you so much to global warming. No really, just fantastic. Crap.

This Sunday, October the 7th is forecast to be 30 degrees (C) in Chicago with a nice dollop of humidity just to top things off. These are not, for those of us running 42.195K, ideal conditions.

It makes it much more difficult to stay hydrated and, in my case, a challenge to stay salty. Lemme 'splain. There are those of you that say things like, "Oh my god it is so hot today. I am sweating like a pig." You say things like this and have nothing more than a few drops of sweat perched on the end of your nose. At most, a mist of perspiration covers your brow. There are those (me) who say things like, "Oh my god it is so hot today. I am sweating like a pig." Rivulets of water are running off my brow, down my neck, my hair is wet, my t-shirt is soaked through in the back, armpit, and breast areas. We all have our curses to bear, this is mine.

Not for nothing have a earned the name "Sweaty Monkey Ass" among my running buddies. Don't get me wrong, there are advantages to sweating this much. I have fantastically clear skin and even during the entire 5 hours of the marathon, I never have to stop and pee even once.

Anyhow, back to the salt thing. It isn't just water my body is expunging, but salt as well. Much to the delight of our cats and dogs, I come home covered in salt after nearly every run. As with everything else during a run, the salt you lose you must replace. It just gets difficult at some point when you are losing it faster then you can put it back in. Drink too much water, lose too much salt and you come across a lovely condition known as hyponatremia.

Hyponatremia is a dangerous condition of imbalance. In the early stages the symptoms include apathy, confusion, nausea, and fatigue. In advanced stages, it can lead to death.

On a positive note, we now have a scientific name for the Bush administration.

4 More Sleeps Until the Silver Bean

(Cue Dramatic Music!) (Something like - Dunh Dunh Duuuuuhhh.)

Only four nights and three and a half days until we are sky bound for Chicago. Yes, we! Markus did decide to join me for this round of out-of-town great marathon adventures. Mostly because I hounded him with Puss-in-Boots pathetic weepy looks for about a week or so. I've never been above emotional manipulation so don't expect me to begin fighting fair now!

I'm nervous. Very nervous about the 42.195K endeavour. I've been having stress dreams in which I am, oddly enough, running marathons. They oscillate between triumph and heartbreak. Last night I didn't even finish the marathon since I had this inexplicable urge to stop and get cookies from every Subway along the route (the edible sort of Subway that is.) Who knew that there could possibly be so many damn Subway shops in Chicago. If I recall the details rightly, there was one about every block and a half. This amounts to a hell of a lot of cookies and a very sad race time.

The night before last was fantastic. Although most of the marathon consisted of running through mazes of cubicles in office towers, I managed to finish in just less than 3 hours 30 minutes. Who knew the stench of photocopy toner could knock about an hour and a half off my best time?

Morpheus sure is having fun with me lately.

The White Windy City

Three and a half weeks until I'm off to Chicago for what will be my third marathon. Markus may or may not be joining me this time as he is growing weary of standing around for hours trying to get a fleeting glimps of me as I zip past the crowd with Roadrunner-like agility. Actually, much more like Wylie Coyote in real life.

Marathoning is turing out to be a fantastic way to see parts of the world I have not yet had a chance to visit. Of course, I could just go to Chicago without putting myself through the punishing effort of running 42.195K. What fun would that be?

Plus, all of this running is giving me legs so muscular that I could crush a Chrysler. It would be just dandy if the rest of my physique would follow suit without any effort on my part.

So Kiss Me and Smile For Me

Final night in Tokyo. Back in Kabukicho nestled right in the heart of Shinjuku. Ah Kabukicho - one day I will tell you how I was offered a sex massage in a room with three different shower heads (stop me if you've heard this one before) at 6AM on the rainy morning of the Tokyo marathon. Soaking wet hats off to those who brave the morning air to divest me of my money in a house of ill repute. I had to save all my energy for the marathon so in the end, I declined.

My old hometown of Sapporo was so much fun. We hot-springed, ate all manner of meat on sticks (Kushidori!), Karaoke-d (and Markus said never!), grilled lamb in the Sapporo beer factory on a dome shaped grill shaped like Gehngis Khan's hat. Memories of this place where I lived for three years grew more full all the time we were there. Standing in front of the burgundy and concrete front of Pearl Heights, I felt giddy. Friends that are too far away were not. All of the fun and significant places came back bit by bit. I forgot how friendly the folks of Sapporo are. They look you right in the eye and give you a smile. In Toronto, that is an outright violation of personal space!

The train ride from Sapporo back to Tokyo was hell on bullet train tracks. We booked too late and rode most of the way in a cramped, over heated compartment with sick children and sweet little old men who chew their rice balls with mouths way wide open. Add slurping of hot tea and coffee, 35 C, and you have a fun picture. The last leg of the trip - 1.5 hours of the Shinkansen - was in the smoking compartment on the train. All other seats had been reserved. Two Hundred People. In One Train Car. All Smoking. Yet Markus and I still walk among the living. Ah, it wasn't as bad as all of that. Although the memory of that smoking car will say in my hair for a long time.

On our first night in Tokyo, here in Shinjuku, we tripped over a Sukiyaki place. There were one hundred and then a thousand more restaurants right outside our hotel door. We stopped in here on our first night in town because it was one of the only signs on the street that my mind flashed back to. Sukiyaki. Don't know what it actually means, but it spells delicious (forgive me for that one!) So tonight we tripped over it again on purpose. It was a really perfect way to tie up what has been a perfect trip. It was such a chance encounter and that made it all the more part of the adventure.

As for three entire weeks with Markus, only he can tell you what a fantastic tour-guide and a huge pain in the ass I have been.

:)

I and we have far more stories from this trip than can ever be told here, but have a look back now and then since I still would like to tell some of them.

Wish us a safe trip home. See you soon.

mikael-

Tokyo Park

We've had a relatively "quiet" day here in Tokyo - here's a few pix from one of the parks we were strolling through. This will likely be the post from Tokyo as we're on the plane home tomorrow at 5pm. We arrive in Toronto the same day, but 4 hours earlier. Should be fun jet lag.

Back in Tokyo

We're back in Tokyo for a day, and then heading back to Toronto. We're due back sometime Tuesday afternoon.

I've uploaded some pix of the bullet trains of Japan (mainly for my Dad.)

The transit system here is incredible. Today we were on a few different high speed trains - one of them was a connection with 8 minutes to spare. In typical Japanese style, the trains arrived exactly as expected. I've never seen anything this efficient before. Incredible!

-Mark

Hunting the Past Presently

Not a chance that I am posting pictures from Sapporo. It was the scene and the city of my life about eight years ago. I have been revisiting the behaviours of those days (and dragging Mark into the sinkhole of days gone by).

It has been sugoi subarashii!

Yakkitori, Jingisukan, Tabe-to-Nomi-Houdai. A night of Potato Circus with Noriko and Yasuko ending in two hours of 80's laden karaoke. All you can eat and drink and two hours of a microphone for 4000 yen each ($40 each) leads you down a path you probably didn't expect the evening to explore.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy the right of return.

Yesterday we went to an Onsen (Hot spring). Volcanic activity bubbles to the suface here in Hokkaido - and not just in the social lives of the Japanese and their foreign friends.

In a Japanese Onsen you split into boy's and girl's baths. Enter the change room. where you shed it all and leave your clothes and your modesty in a plastic basket.

Enter the common bath where along the wall are about a dozen spouts. Sit down on a wooden stool just big enough for your generous North American botton and scrub until your skin is pink and you are Mista Spakeruu.

Choose your own adventure. a) Go out the door to your right. b) Slip into the steaming bath in front of you.

b) Good jeebus are you insane?

a) This door leads the Rotenburo - the open air hot sping bath. You soak there for an hour and feel like a nicely manipulated bit of play-do'h.

Ma-ku, Noriko, and The Boy in Red rested well that night.

Many more tales unfit for television await.

-mikael