San Francisco-2010 (US) -> Athens-2010 (Greece) -> Berlin-2011 (Germany) -> Niagara Falls-2011 (US/Canada) -> Singapore-2011 -> Kuala Lumpur-2012 (Malaysia) -> Venice-2012 (Italy) -> Phuket-2013 (Thailand) -> Mt.Fuji-2013 (Japan)
The odyssey that I planned to kickoff at Athens, coinciding with the 2500 years of marathon legend, reached Japan this year. I landed in Tokyo on a Friday, late evening. Narita airport (the main international airport that serves Tokyo) is quite far from the city. I planned to spend the night close to the airport and go directly to Mt.Fuji area, where the Marathon is going to be held on Sunday. Within no time, I could experience all that I heard and read about Japan and Japanese. A nation obsessed with hygiene, ultra courteous people that are routinely punctual and procedural.
After a couple of hops, I reached the Marathon expo on Saturday to collect the runners kit. They had arranged the kit right in front of a railway station (Lake Kawaguchiko), for the convenience of overseas runners (300 out of 16000 runners), and that was quite unceremonious. I went all the way to spend time and run in a different environment and culture. So, this special treatment was a bit unwanted. I collected the kit and went to the actual Marathon expo, meant for the locals. And, I could realize the rationale behind that special treatment. There were a lot of activities and festivities going on, but, everything was in Japanese and no one understands or speaks a word other than Japanese.
Marathon was scheduled to start at 9 AM. I reached the venue quite early at 7:30, as I read that it was chaotic at the start, the previous year, due to huge crowd. But, apparently, they learnt. It was quite meticulous this year. Temperature was around 6 °C. And, all I could do till 9 AM was, just freeze wearing shorts and porous shoe in open air. Thanks to my runner friends pestering, I at least carried a thermal top, which kept half of my body warm, through out the run. I found out during the run that I was one among 20-30 runners out of 16000, who were wearing shorts. Rest were running with full body thermals. It was tough to run in that weather, particularly because, there was no time to acclimatize. But, I generally don't worry much about finish times and just enjoy the run and the surroundings. That way, it turned out to be one of the most scenic runs, as the course circumambulates two beautiful lakes overlooking majestic Mt. Fuji.
Spent the next couple of days walking length and breadth of Tokyo and visiting interesting places that I came across. Oedo Onsen was one such. Onsen, a public bath at hot springs, seems to be a part of Japanese culture. This particular Onsen was quite fashionable with several modern facilities. Got rid of Marathon fatigue here instantly, and walked another 10 KM from central Tokyo, all the way to the hostel that I stayed, checking out several things en route.
I made it a point not to eat anything other than Japanese food during those 5 days. Ventured into the places full with locals and only locals. It's interesting. Typically, noodles or rice with seafood, chicken or pork. Pork and chicken cutlets with rice seemed to be very popular, besides noodles, of course. I could as well have spoken in Telugu or Hindi at all those places, as it wouldn't have mattered to them anyway, as long as it's not Japanese. I could still manage to order something, and insist on replacing chopsticks with spoon and fork :-)
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