My neighborhood is very homey. Sometimes a bit too much. On my bike to work Thursday morning (we're talking 9 am...not crazy early or late at night) I passed a little old man taking a wizz on the wall of the building next door. He wasn't in a corner, an alley, or even a bush. Just standing out in the open on my street, dressed normally (not a bum) and had to pee. Fabulous start to the day, I say. Then, on my way home from work that same night I had to pass a very portly 60ish year old stooge standing in front of the doorway of the sento (public bath) but very much outside and in the street in nothing but sandals and his tighty-whities. Come on!!! Ewwwwww. Granted, it was late and still hot, but he wasn't even in boxers which I could maybe ignore. Briefs!! yuck. Oh well. As Tom says, they let the foreigners in and the place went to hell.

It is still actually quite nice to be here besides the few folks who are obviously a little too at home. I have tons of green space nearby, which though currently full of the electric hum of the cicadas, keeps me insulated from feeling like I live in such a huge city (though I do). The weather is still rather muggy, but I think there was less of a sauna feel to it this week. It is still HOT, but should cool off in another couple of weeks, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This week was very busy at work since we were transistioning between an outgoing and incoming teacher. Since there are only 4 of us total, it left the three of us who were staying with a lot of extra work. Erik, my new colleague, is a huge and wonderful improvement on the previous teacher... but he isn't quite up to speed so we were all exhausted by the end of yesterday. I think we're all quite happy about our new team though, and things should go back to balanced pretty quickly.

I also ran two fun hash runs this week- one which started in the neighborhood I used to work and proceeded past Tokyo Tower and Tom's neighborhood, the other running over about 75% of downtown Tokyo (I swear) and included the beautiful Nihonbashi (a fabulous old bridge that now has a highway running about 15 feet above it) and the circle sidewalk around the Imperial Palace. I'm feeling pretty strong recently, which is good news since I've decided to do my first half marathon in 3 years. I'm registering for the Koto City Seaside Marathon which is in my neighborhood on Nov. 27. My other major goal for this fall is a 3 day hiking/camping trip we've planned for a 3 day weekend at the end of this month. Depending on the weather (though we have non-refundable bus tickets), we're hoping to hike out from Kamikochi (a valley in the middle of some awesome scenery in Nagano) and summit both Yarigatake, Oku and Mae Hotakadake. They are the 5th and 3rd highest mountains in the country, respectively (Mt. Fuji is the first, I don't know what the 2nd is). The second day of hiking between the two peaks is supposedly really tough with a huge down and then back up again all on a very narrow ridge line. Above are two pictures of the ridge from Yari (the pointy one) through the Daikiretto (Big Hole) and then Hotaka on the left of the Daikiretto. I took it from Mt. Jonen which was the closest of the Kita (Northern) Alps to my old Misato home. Both the hike and the run will be huge challenges; I'm psyched and in training!!