Attack of the orificeman

On the subway the other day, on me way to a client, just sitting engrossed in my book ("A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry, which is brilliant, btw), when we stopped at Ebisu station. This slightly scruffy looking man comes bounding onto the train, sports bag slung over his shoulder, and almost runs to sit next to me. Quickly gets up again, shunts his back up onto the rack above and then sits back down, in a kinda sprawling manner, legs apart, feet pointed outwards. He then proceeded to use his right index finger to literally drill into every nook and cranny on his body, starting with some deep digging of his nostrils. I thought at first he'd just spend a couple of seconds at it, but he continued for two stops! First the nose, where he'd excavate some sludge and bring it forth into daylight, give it a good examination before plunging back in, wiping any treasures off on his trousers. Next ears, which must have burst an eardrum, seeing how deep he was going. Then onto the gaps between his toes. Yup, shoes came off, and socks, and it was time for the rummage between toes game. This time, he was actually smelling his finger each time, which almost made me puke. Finally, he finished with some scratching under his armpits and then some manic rustling of his hair, before settling down into a deep sleep.
Throughout this little adventure over the contours of his body, nobody else would look at him. It left me slightly flabbergasted and feeling ill, as I hurried off the train.

Photos from recent thangs

Scorching sunburns and an aborted ekiden

Made my way down to Arakawa river near Akabane yesterday, for my first ekiden (running relay), with Joseph, Nami and Phil. We hadn't done any training together but were feeling quietly confident we'd put in a decent performance.
It was bloody hot - somewhere in the low 30s, and being beside the river meant there was very little cover. Still, there were at least a thousand people gathered for the event, and we wandered around the grounds enjoying the various costumes that people had come out in. We had decided on doing the race in drag, sans the make-up, so I donned one of Miyu's purple wigs, and Nami had brought along a spare skirt. Must say we looked good, damn good, and there were plenty of appreciative stares as we mingled with the crowds.
The order of running was 10km (Phil), 5km (Tom), 3km (Nami) and 5km (Joseph). Phil got off to a good start, and we expected him to reach the hand-over point at around 50 mins, giving us enough time to have a further wander around, where we came across a small taiko group (Japanese drummers), banging out some thumping tunes.
I then went over to the handover point, jostling with the other runners, looking out for our teamates to come running past with the relay band. And I waited...and waited...and waited...by the time 90 minutes had passed we knew something serious was up with Phil, but Joseph and Nami couldn't find him in any emergency tent or when they ran along the track. After 2 hours we finally gave up and went over to the emergency tent again, to find Phil lying on the floor, covered in wet towel and very confused. He had no recollection of how he got there, and the last thing he could remember was going through the half-way mark but then getting very tired and hot. Then nothing. Everything went dark, and he woke briefly vomitting, and being surrounded by medical staff, who were throwing cold water over him and spraying him with some cool sprays. He blacked out again and then found himself in the tent, wondering where we were.
Although we didn't really get any sort of explanation from the medical staff, who were pretty busy treating about another 20 or so fallen runners, they tried to make Phil as comfortable as possible. We stayed with him for the next hour, chatting and making sure he got re-hydrated, then when he was feeling a bit better, made our slow way back to the station and home.
Disappointed that we couldn't run, but very glad Phil has now made a full recovery, and is looking forward to trying again next year!
Due to all the waiting around, I got pretty badly burnt, which left me feeling very tired and I ended up just crashing out after getting home. Quite a day.

Today's run

Nakameguro to Yoyogi park and back

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Spring

Been a heck of a long time. Call it a winter hibernation if you want, but for some reason I just didn't have the inclination to write here, but my mojo is back again, so here I am!
Recent news is that Joseph and I completed the Tokyo Marathon 10km race last weekend, with a reasonable time of around 50 mins. Not quite what we were aiming for (around 40 minutes), but the field was so packed for the first 5km that it was more like a game of dodgems! The last 5km was much more on pace, at around 20 mins, but we lost around 7 mins in the first half. Quite an experience though. Never seen so much lycra in one place before, and the comaraderie amongst all the runners was very energising. There was a bit of anfare at the beginning, with speechs from some local government officials, a male choir and some fireworks. The really clever thing was that we were given individual microchips, which we strapped onto one of our trainers. When we passed he start line, it recorded our start time, and then stopped the count when we passed the finish line. Also provided splits at 5km mark. All the info could be accessed online staright after the race by just entering our bib number.
Next on our running agenda is an ekiden (relay) next month, and I'll be doing a 5km section, so it's going to be like a sprint. for that I'm going to aim for under 20 mins.
If you'd like to watch our race, Joseph test ran his new head-iphone video, which offered live streaming running straight to your living room. Click here to re-live the experience and take in some of the sights of Tokyo. TOKYO MARATHON CAM
Work is going OK, although we were all a bit gutted to get a pay cut of 5%, with little or no notice of it being actioned. Belt tightening time here we come.
Jay is in his dangerous jumping off anything high phase. The boy has no fear, he's like a little monkey. For some reason he says "no" with a posh English accent. Very funny.
Miyu has begun tinkering away with accessories again. The new work station that we installed in the front room, a big L shaped desk, is having a positive affect on both our works. So nice to have a wide exapanse of white desk to get productive.
Will write again soon...I promise.

Christmas 2

Christmas 1

Happy times!

Photos from Shizuoka

Buzzing

Another 12 hour day slogging away at work today, and I can't sleep because of the adrenaline. Jay's remaining teeth are coming through, so he keeps waking during the night, obviously in some pain, so I've been carrying him around until he nods off to sleep again, completely knackered.
My parents arrived last week, and its been really great having them here, and for Jay to get to know them. Weather permitting, they usually go out for a long walk in the local park, and I think having them around has really accelerated his speech, as he's now chatting away in baby speak, and can now say "papa" and "bye" very clearly. He's been saying "mama" for a while now, and it makes me happy that I've now joined his lexical repertoire : )
I'm bearing witness to the rounds of redundancies that are sweeping through the foreign affiliated companies that I visit. The impact has been quite severe, leaving those that have avoided the cut feeling angry, confused and fearful. One person said she cried for two days, as many of her long-term colleagues were axed. Another described it as the saddest moment in his life. I think people here have taken it so hard because they've never experienced such swinging changes in their work lives before, and such cuts are pretty rare over here. What I'm hearing is that it's going to get worse, which is pretty devastating.
Well, I've got 4 more days to go before I finish for the year, when I can take a break for two whole weeks! It'll be my longest holiday this year, and it's going to be filled with getting my eyes done, trying to do lots of training, and visiting the various Kobayashi and Watanabe clans for New Year. All very exciting.

Photos

Crisp

It's a crisp morning here in Tokyo, and I'm feelin rather chipper, albeit suffering from a cold which I think I must have picked up from Jay.
Last Sunday we did our first 15km run around the palace, and in pretty good time too - 1 hr 16 minutes. That's about an average of 5 mins per km, which we need to get down to around 4 mins. A big task, yes, but we have about 4 months to do it, so I'm pretty confident.
The Yen continues to strengthen against the Pound. Last night it was 137 Yen to the Pound, which is a 13 year high. Feel sorry for my parents to be coming over in this situation, and if only we could have reversed our visit to the UK to this year, and they to last year, it would have been much better. Oh well...
There seems to be doubts over the government's economic stimulus package. The plan had been to give everybody 11,000 Yen to spend as they wished, but the Finance Minister is now saying it's unlikely to work, so it may be shelved. Personally I thought it was a bad idea, as even though it'd be nice to have the extra cash, I think most people would have just saved it, which defeats its point.
I was speaking to a Private Equity bod the other day, and he said even though the current climate is tough, it's also a great opportunity to buy distressed companies at low prices, and build them up over a period of up to 10 years. Luckily, his company has a huge amount of cash available for such action, so that they are not solely reliant on financing from banks. This makes me think it's a good time to do some canny investing of my own, but its difficult to judge when to get in, as the markets are so volatile. One option is to buy sterling now, as I imagine it will strengthen in the future, but with its continued decline, again its when to take the plunge.