Gently Hotel Toyohashi

... you really love. But, having people like that around will make it easier when Christmas comes and I'm away from those whom I love the most.

I've also learned that if you eat a big bowl of instant noodles, you need to sleep for about an hour afterwards, that you get safety headwear with purchase of a hair straightener, and that not everything in a hundred yen shop is a hundred yen.

... wondered where I could find a decent breakfast. Yesterday's option of a McDonald's bacon & egg muffin was only to be repeated as a last resort. The muffin was actually no muffin at all, rather a pair of squishy pancakes with maple syrup dollops inside. So, off I stalked around the station, trying to find somewhere that was a step up from Macca's, but still cheap.

I found my answer at Morning Cafe. I ordered ...

... and huddles around the fires, and sprang into the midst of it. Cameras went up, and they sort of surged around the Oni (which means ogre, or demon) like they would in a Toronto club should Furgi suddenly show up at 2AM. Except this was a scary ass Furgi. The bottles of sake starting darting into people's mouths randomly, where I was forced (Oh...I gave up quite the fight) to slug back at least three different bottles while dancing and singing around this fire and Oni. Good times.
Toyone-mura, Aichi, Japan kawaiguy

... same best time, and it was recently that he had done it too (the half-marathon also had other race-lengths).

So with this in mind, and failure imminent, I showed up, wiping rain on my race and trying to keep warm; I lined up, looking at the stop-watches in either hand of our observers, and we set off. I kept it slow, running behind Tanaka-san, an exchange student from somewhere else in Japan staying at the Youth Hostel in Tomiyama. He was a year older than me, and looked fit. He ...

... I've been getting used to doing on occasion nowadays.
During that period, before and after, the rain seemed to pick up, and it was a wonderful sound to drift into for that short period. The dojo itself is a small rehearsal hall, with wooden floors and a stage. It being next to a retirement community (there's plenty of those around here), I'm sure it serves them for special events. It being somewhat of a hall, the acoustics in that place from the ...

... here. I really wanted to hike up the mountain but apparently hiking season is
only in July and August since it can get really cold up the mountain. We took a limited express train from Shinjuku all way to Otsuki and then took a local train to Kawaguchi. The trains were not as nice or fast as the Shinkansen but the trip wasn't too long. The local trains were really old trains. The trains had only two or three cars ...

... and then left within two minutes, did so because of my tattoo. Maybe he just didn't say anything. Or, that old guy who was flopping about in the waist-high, leaving as soon as I dipped in...maybe it was just because I was a foreigner. Or maybe it was that it was a chilly night...

I puzzled over these things for a day or two, rejoicing in my success.

And then I decided today, after meeting the second 65 year old doing the amazingly intense hike I ...

... rarity in Japan I suppose, and did my best on a busted up foot that I've been nursing for two weeks (while on this topic, I recommend to all foreigners in Japan to immediately ask for 'wide' fits when buying new runners; TWO WEEKS...).

Although it definitely was as bad an experience as I describe it, I think that's what gets people hooked: bragging rights. It's like Robin Williams' stint on how the Scots came up with ...

... and I could enter. The landlady gave me some information and allowed me to see inside of the inn, although I paid a small donation. As a matter of course, it would have been a better experience, if I had stayed there. Additional Note I also visited Miya Post Town, 41st of the Old Tokaido Route, but nothing special to see there but a restored ferry port. The post town had the largest number of inns of the Old Tokaido Route, which had ...

... cum-museum. Feeling cheap and short on time, I declined the opportunity to pay the ¥400 entrance fee and actually go in and instead got back on a train for the one stop ride to Toyohashi proper. Like Hamamatsu, Toyohashi itself isn't a big tourist draw, but I knew that it too had a castle, Yoshida-jō - or at least the remnants of one. It's also historically been one of the more international towns in the country, so I was also able to pay a visit to its ...