Jun 29 2015

Osaka in Spring with Ice

Sakura season – hard to get a hotel? That depends on how fussy you are!

This is a post from spring that I have only now managed to find the time to publish. Hopefully my summer postings will be more timely!

When Kate arrived, I suddenly remembered that I had promised to book accommodation for us in Osaka months ago. My friends said I would have no chance booking something this late and so close to Sakura (cherry blossom) season. Well I did and I’m sitting now in a nice hotel, taking a break from sight-seeing to write this post.

It hasn’t all been carrots and potatoes though.

We left for Osaka on Monday. The previous day we had activated Kate’s rail pass and booked our tickets. We were leaving on the 10:22 am Shinkansen (bullet train) from Shin-Yokohama.

I had planned a bit of extra time to get from my house to Shin-Yokohama as it isn’t a route I would normally take and I have gotten lost on the way there before. On top of that, Kate had lost a lot of confidence in my ability to lead our travels when Sunday’s trip to Kamakura ended up in Tokyo which is entirely the wrong direction! Kate is still hoping to visit the picturesque village of Kamakura some time in the future.

On this journey, I was determined to regain some of the respect I’d lost. I had planned a route that would involve one bus and then a train to get us to Shin-Yokohama. Unfortunately, we over shot on the bus and missed the stop for the transfer to the train on the blue line. We got off on the next stop and then walked the rest of the way to Yokohama station to transfer there. Thanks to my good planning though (I had included a time buffer), we were still on track to make the train. On arrival at the station, Kate stopped short in her tracks.

The face of despair when Kate remembered she’d forgotten her Japan Rail Pass.

“I’m just having a panic attack that I’ve left my rail pass at home,” she said. It turned out that her panic was well founded. We changed our reservation for the Shinkansen to a later time and went all the way home to pick up her rail pass!

In actual fact, this was helpful for me as I had forgotten to pack my iPhone charger, my camera and my hat. All of these I could have lived without but I had also forgotten a solo traveller’s best friend – my selfie stick! After reloading with all the stuff we’d forgotten, we headed back towards Shin-Yokohama and finally boarded the Shinkansen with just a two hour delay from our original plan.

Once on the train, I settled in to a false sense of confidence that we would be right from here on in. This was shattered when I knocked my drink over and I watched as the movement of the train caused the liquid to run down the aisle. I tried wiping it up with toilet paper from the loo but there was just too much liquid and not enough paper. This also left little bits of toilet paper stuck to the floor all around me so even new passengers arriving could tell I was the culprit!

On arriving in Osaka, we found our hotel and I congratulated myself on a good choice. It is in an excellent location and there is free wifi everywhere. When we got to our room though, we were a bit disappointed. It reeks of cigarette smoke and the one bed for the two of us is snug to say the least! Hence I’m currently sitting in the lobby writing this whilst Kate is upstairs sleeping. We are using the bed in shifts!

Last night, we walked to the river area for dinner and found that it is much colder in Osaka than in Yokohama. I hadn’t brought any warm clothing. I had a jumper on and a pair of light spring pants. Kate was also without any warm layers to put under her fleece. And to add to her problems, she noticed that the only two pairs of pants she had with her had blowouts in the inner thigh area making walking a risky adventure. On the way to dinner, we managed to find a cheap beanie for Kate and a couple of cheap extra layers for me but we knew we were going to be in trouble.

Today we decided to walk around the parks and Osaka Castle but it was bitterly cold. We bought extra gloves and scarves to help but we knew we were defeated when it started to sleet as we made our way to lunch. Actual ice was falling on us. Kate was not happy by the time we finally found the ramen restaurant we were looking for and sat down. She ordered a coke, only for it to arrive in a super-chilled tankard. She had to keep her gloves on to drink it.

Two days pass…

We have now completed our trip and are are back home. We are both snug and cozy in our dressing gowns, relaxing in my warm and comfy apartment. We need this.

The final two days didn’t go much better than the first two. On Wednesday we decided to take a day trip to Nara which is just an hour away from Osaka. At one of the first temples we visited, there was an opportunity to get a paper with your fortune on it. Kate decided it was a bargain to have the rest of her life mapped out for her for just ¥100 so she picked a fortune. It was uncanny! And a really positive fortune too! Based on the test sample of one, I decided that this must really work so I too parted with ¥100 and picked a fortune. Mine was not so positive. There was a message saying that you could improve your fortune by tying it to the tree. When I tried this, the paper ripped in two. At this point, I should have taken the cosmic hint and insisted we went home but instead, we ventured further into the park.

In Nara Park, I was continually terrorised by the ferocious deer that are all around. At first they look harmless. Children are petting them. There are people everywhere selling deer biscuits so you can feed them. The deer aren’t trying to eat the deer biscuits in their neat stacks by the sellers. This fools you into thinking the deer are docile creatures.

I bought a packet of the biscuits and immediately the seller barked at me, “walk”! I hesitated a moment because I didn’t quite understand her but it was already too late. I was surrounded. Deer were coming at me from every direction. I managed to get a couple of biscuits out of the loose binding to feed to individual deers before I was just overwhelmed. I couldn’t get the biscuits out quick enough. In the end I gave up and threw them into the pack and fled!

For the rest of the afternoon, deer would sidle up to me without me knowing and attack me at the last minute. One terrified me when it tried to eat the map I was studying. Another came up behind me and menacingly removed my temple ticket from my back pocket and ate it. I was glad to finally head back to Osaka.

I’m so terrified, I couldn’t keep the selfie stick still!

It wasn’t a simple trip back however. We boarded a train we thought ended at Namba (the station closest to our hotel) but when we reached Osaka central station, we realised we’d completely missed it. We then continued to board the wrong train again and again, until after taking no less than six separate trains, we finally made it back to Namba.

Yesterday we left Osaka for Mirajima Island off Hiroshima. We had both visited the island before but I had thought that it would be nice to stay overnight and experience the island when the day trippers had left. Wrong! We discovered that the reason why people only go for the day is because everything shuts at six. And I mean everything. There was only one restaurant open for dinner and it was under quite a bit of pressure to accommodate the other hapless tourists who were also marooned there for the night.

And of course, there was the deer. These ones aren’t fed but they are still pretty inquisitive towards anything you might be holding that’s made of paper. Kate couldn’t find a bin for the paper bag her snack came in but it didn’t matter because a deer took care of it for her.

We also made one other discovery worth noting. Thanks to Ylvis, we all now know the answer to the question, what does the fox say? And thanks to our careful observations, we are pleased to report that we can now answer the next driving question. What does the deer say?

They really do sound like that. That toy was uncanny and fully worth the ¥500 Kate paid for it!

Today we left Mirajima with plans of walking around the Peace Park before boarding our two o’clock Shinkansen back to Yokohama but we got potteried along the way and ran out of time. When we got home, my apartment was as we left it as my cleaner had called in sick – dirty dishes in the sink, a pumpkin that had liquified in the kitchen bin and the only other clothes Kate had with her, still unlaundered in the basket. So we ended our trip with a few household chores.

Tomorrow, I’m going to take another crack at getting Kate to Kamakura.

Mar 10 2015

Back on the Wagon

Over the last month or so, I’ve totally undone all the good work I’d done in the lead up to my half marathon the other weekend. I should mention that this is a half marathon that I ended up withdrawing from.

I withdrew because my training had been interrupted by several trips where I couldn’t train. Two ski trips, one trip to a snow festival and another to tropical Cambodia. All of these interrupted my long run training plan. In the end, I just hadn’t done enough long runs to be ready. That, and it was raining on the day.

Again my clothes are feeling a little too tight. I threw out a pair of jeans last week after I noticed that I had a blow-out where my thighs were rubbing together. I’m now forced to wear a pair of corduroy pants that at this weight, is definitely a fire hazard.

I’ve been so busy with work, I haven’t been shopping. So I’ve been eating out and ordering pizza online. My weight has ballooned.

A taste of what’s to come!

But today is a new day. Today I went to the gym. Today I recorded my food diary in MyFitnessPal and I was under my calorie limit. Today I weighed myself at the gym and I was less than expected. Today I resisted apple tea cake from a colleague.

Tomorrow is what I’m worried about. Over the next few months, I will have some challenges to deal with. A busy time at work, my first assignment for my masters degree due, a presentation at a conference and a bunch of house guests that I like to drink wine with. How to juggle all of this, make healthy choices, sleep enough and exercise. Advice please!

Oct 7 2014

Eating the Evidence

I’m not losing weight because I eat too much. Let me share with you an example of this. Here is what happened today!

The day started out well with a breakfast of steamed spinach, a whole wheat english muffin and 2 poached eggs. I probably should have had only one poached egg but I figured that this should see me through to lunch. I had prepared some dahl and a small naan bread to take to school which I put in the fridge of the staff room.

It is now about 8:30am. This is where my good behaviour finished and my diet blowout for the day began.

It looked nice in the picture!

I had made a lemon sour cream cake for a colleague’s birthday which I put in the staff room. A bunch of other people had brought snacks too (most of them chocolate themed) and they were all laid out on the staff room table. At 9:10am I went down to the staff room to do some marking. I moved all the treats and the cake and spread them out on the various other small tables around the room as I wanted to use the big table to work at.

As I was distributing the treats, I sampled each one. Other people dropped by the staff room and all of them asked about the treats. Each time they tried one, I got them to throw me a sample too. By 10:30am I was feeling a bit sick.

At 10:40am it was recess time and my colleague with the birthday arrived for her cake. I cut a slice and decided immediately that it wasn’t my best effort. It really needed another five to ten minutes in the oven but the top had begun to catch so I had removed it prematurely. The result was a stodgier than perfect cake. I had a second piece to confirm my original observations.

Lots of people tried the cake and some said it was nice and some told the truth. Recess finished and there was still a lot of cake left. I didn’t like it sitting there for everyone to see my imperfect cake. The only way to solve the problem was to consume the evidence. So I ate a lot more cake.

By half-way through lunch, I had finished the entire thing. I felt happier that the evidence of my botched baking effort was gone, but I also felt quite a bit sicker.

I didn’t eat anything else for the rest of the day until dinner. Normally on Tuesday, I stop at a little Indonesian place for tea on my way home from the gym, but this week, I realised my purse was empty so I just cycled on home. I made myself some porridge with soy milk and steel cut oats and cut up two fresh figs on top. That was tasty. I then washed that down with a free, one-serving-bottle of sparkling plum sake I had picked up from a school function on the weekend.

No point inputting such terrible numbers into MyFitnessPal (my calorie counter app). It might explode! Instead, I have decided the same thing I decided every day for the last month. I’ll start my diet tomorrow!

Image Credit: cc licensed by Merilyn Winslade

Sep 22 2014

Nail Trails

How many nails do you have to lose at the gym, before it becomes a bit of an embarrassment?

Loss of Nail #1
You can see why I wanted to save it!

It was only a week after I had the shellac done. I was showering at the gym after my swim. I looked down to see that my middle finger was no longer deep purple in colour. At first I thought that I must have lost it in the pool, but to my relief, I noticed it on the shower floor. I picked it up with a view to saving it and gluing it back on with some super glue when I got home.

I got out of the shower and went to the powder room to brush my hair and clean my ears. I put the nail on the bench there while I fixed up my hair and face. Half way home on my bike, I realised the nail was still sitting on the bench.

Loss of Nail #2
It was the following Sunday and I was changing for my first hot stone experience with @mscofino when I noticed something on the floor. It was my index finger nail. Since I already had one nail out of sync with the rest (I had painted it deep red as that was the closest I had to matching the others), I didn’t think this nail was worth saving. So I left it on the floor.

Loss of Nail #3
This happened last Saturday, nearly a full week after the previous incident. Many of the nails had begun to come a little loose. During my swim, I noticed some extra drag from my thumb nail as the shellac coating was flapping with every stroke. About half way through my 40 laps, it was gone. On the next lap immediately after I noticed the nail’s absence, I spotted it on the floor of the pool. I swam past it. I decided that this was a bit gross and that I should pick it up, put it inside my bathers for the duration and discard it in the bin when I changed. Unfortunately, it must of changed lanes, as I never spotted it again.

I’m back to the gym tomorrow for my next work out and swim. With three nails down, I decided to remove the rest so at least I couldn’t be identified as the culprit if my third nail jammed the pool filter on my last visit!

Image Credit: cc licensed image (NC SA 2.0) by Melanie Allan

Sep 15 2014

Going Commando at the Hot Stone Spa

I’m a fully paid up member of the gym since the 1st September and I’ve been going at least three times a week. The challenge now is to keep this up and get my money’s worth from all the facilities. This includes using the hot stone spa.

Apparently, undies are also a part of the jinbei outfit.

Yesterday, @mscofino decided to try it out for the first time after our weekly long run. Unlike the onsen facilities at the gym, the hot stone spa has a real advantage for us, which is that people keep their clothes on. Even after two years in Japan, I’m still not comfortable getting naked with people I know. I have improved however, as I can shower and change at the gym with people I don’t know.

I didn’t know what was appropriate to wear so I hired the Japanese pyjama-like jinbei and a towel to use for ¥250 as advised by one of the gym personnel. I’ve never worn jinbei before and it did take me a little while to work out how to tie the straps whilst I changed out of my sweaty running clothes in the toilet. Then there was the other question – undies or no undies? The pants did resemble the type I was given to use during my colonoscopy minus one small feature, so I decided to go with no undies. I later inquired about the appropriate use of jinbei and this turned out to be the incorrect choice.

The hot stone spa itself is indeed hot. You can book it for up to 90 minutes but we had decided to just try it out for 30 on our first go. Ten minutes in and I was worried that my brain was starting to cook. I have no idea how people use if for such a long time even though they are going in and out during the 90 minutes to cool off every so often. It was great though and we both came out feeling relaxed and about a kilo lighter. This looks like becoming a regular Sunday thing!

Photo credit: cc licensed image shared by Phokin

Aug 24 2014

Wardrobe Malfuntions

I’ve got a new plan. I decided that in the end, doing two running training plans simultaneously was not sustainable. Who knew? So now I’m just following the 10 km in under 55 minutes plan. As a bonus, I now have more time for alternative exercises, so after putting on weight again last week because of an increase in my number of social outings, I decided I should try some strength training to compliment my running.

To this end and after much cajoling from @mscofino among others, I have joined Gold’s Gym for a trial week. On Thursday I went for my first workout. One of the trainers showed me around a few of the machines and helped me out. This all went well. Afterwards, I decided it would be nice to do some swimming, so I went to the pool which is in an entirely different building down the street.

I wasn’t well prepared and so I had to ask at the front desk to hire a towel, goggles and a swimming cap as it is against the rules to swim ‘hair out’. He then offered to rent me a shirt and shorts which I thought was an odd thing to offer as I was obviously going swimming. I declined and went to the change rooms.

Being Japan, I naturally had to change out in the open but luckily I’m a master at getting into bathers using just a towel for modesty thanks to being the fat girl at swimming for PE in high school. I walked through the shower area and noticed with a huge sigh of relief, that the showers were in cubicles (western style) and then continued out to the pool.

Nobody was wearing bathers like mine that would be the type you wear to the beach. I was wearing a lovely tankini specially designed for easy toilet use but at the same time, flattering for the fuller figure. Everyone else was wearing much more modest and tight-fitting swimming apparel. They looked a lot more professional than me.

I did a few laps of over arm and then rolled on my back to do some backstroke. Half way up the lane, my boob popped out of my tankini and I realised I was going to have to get a new suit!

With this in mind and wanting to save money on swimming cap rentals, I went to Sports Authority to check out their bathers collection. Having a look at their selection, I realised why the man at the front desk had offered me a shirt and shorts. He was referring to the types of bathers for lap swimming here. There was very little on offer in the one-piece speedo that I was expecting. Instead I got a two piece shorts and shirt made from bathers material in the largest size they had. It is probably the most unflattering pair of bathers I’ve ever owned but what the hell. Hopefully in a couple of months I’ll look less like the Michelan man and I’ll fit more comfortably into my LLL size suit!

They don’t look that much better without my body in them!

Aug 13 2014

Two Timing My Training

I’ve signed up for two training plans on my RunKeeper. One is running for fat loss and the other is training to run a 10km race in under 55 minutes. The first plan started immediately and the second didn’t start until last week and even then I skipped the initial runs as they were the same or easier than the first plan. My thinking was that I could just skip the runs that doubled up for the couple of weeks that the plans overlapped.

If only I had 4 legs, then I could do two runs at once!

But now, I’ve reached the point that I’m in the middle of both plans. There is a lot of intervals or tempo runs that I don’t want to skip but I also want to space them with longer, easier runs too. Finding the time to fit them all in is becoming tricky but I don’t want to stop using one of the plans because then I’d feel a bit like a non-finisher. I’m supposed to take a rest day in between some of the runs but often now, I have two runs scheduled for the same day so I do the second one on the rest day. This isn’t working well for me.

Yesterday I went for an easy 5 km with a few 20 second intervals at the end and it nearly killed me. I think I’ve got shin splints. So despite there being two runs scheduled for today, I’m taking the day off!

Image Credit: cc licensed ( BY-SA 2.0 ) flickr photo shared by Photophilde

Aug 10 2014

Fartlek Fatalities

Last night I was running a fartlek (just typing the word makes me giggle) run. I was running as fast as I could to the end of the block. Coming towards me on the path, were a group of young people, plugged in with their noses in their phones. I realised they weren’t going to see me so I started yelling and clapping my hands as I raced toward them.

They didn’t look up. I yelled louder. I was going to reach them in seconds. It was at this moment I knew I had two choices. I could either slow down and ruin my interval or I could just run straight through them. I chose to complete the interval.

I don’t think anyone got hurt, but to be honest, I didn’t look back to check.

Aug 1 2014

Bottoms Up!

I wasn’t going to blog about this because I thought that some people might find the subject distasteful, but I just can’t help myself! So here it comes, my blog post on Monday’s colonoscopy! [Warning – Ben Keith – read no further, this one’s all about my bottom!]

After mum’s diagnosis, all my immediate family members have gone through this procedure. I was the last one. I’d been putting it off you see, as I wasn’t really excited about having someone poke around my bum. Terri and mum had both told me about what happens and so I knew that I wouldn’t know what was going on as I’d be asleep or at the very least, completely out of it, but I still took a long time to organise it, using work as an excuse. First week of holidays, and that excuse vanished so I went to a doctor and organised the procedure which actually took place last Monday.

My experience here in Japan, was nothing like that described to me by Terri and mum in Australia.

Firstly, the day before, I was still allowed to eat. Just no fruits, vegetables, seaweed or nuts. So I ate bread and cheese.

I had to begin fasting after my dinner. At 7pm, I took the laxatives. For some reason, I thought they would work fairly quickly. Three and a half hours later, I went to the loo. At this point, I knew it was going to be a long night. At 1am, I finally had the confidence to leave the toilet and go to bed. I hadn’t experienced the volume, frequency and consistency of this kind of bowel movement, since having amoebic dysentery in Ghana in 2010.

At 5 am the next morning I awoke due to an alarm set by my bowels. My instructions for the day were to report to the hospital in Tokyo by 9 am and bring 1L of water to drink as I would need to take more laxatives once I got there. The hospital was happy to supply the laxatives but I was instructed to bring my own water!

At just after 7 am, I entered the train with my 1L of water and my buttocks tightly clenched. I arrived at the hospital just before 9 am, where I missed the entrance but found the toilet and sweet relief.

After registering, the nurse gave me the instructions to read in English and a form to sign. A quick look around at the other patients, revealed that I was the youngest there by about twenty years. I was then led into the colonoscopy rooms and sat at a table. A woman was brought in to translate for me and she gave me the instructions once again verbally. I had to drink the 1.2 L of laxative medicine they put in front of me in the next twenty minutes. I should then wash that down with another 1L of water, which I had to supply myself, over a period of one hour. Then, I had to use the special toilets in the room when I needed to go. But don’t flush! Instead, I had to put a little magnet board with my name on it on the door and fetch the nurse. She would then come and inspect the contents of the bowl to determine if I was ready for the procedure!

Doing a poo and then having to call someone to have a look at it, is not what I had been prepared for! Terri, my sister, found this particularly amusing. It took three attempts before the nurse cleared me. Terri then asked how I felt when I woke up.

Woke up? I was awake through the whole procedure! She asked how I got to the room where they did the colonoscopy. Apparently in Australia, you are put on a bed, heavily sedated so that you fall asleep and then wheeled off to the colonoscopy room and back to recovery where you awake, blissfully ignorant of the entire procedure.

How did I get to the colonoscopy room? I walked. I had put on a robe and was wearing a disposable pair of underpants with a hole in the rear and I mounted the stairs up to the table, fully conscious. The doctor, who was very friendly and nice and thankfully could speak English, explained that he was going to give me three drugs. One to stop my bowel from spasming, a painkiller and a sedative so I would probably fall asleep.

Now here’s where I think they went wrong. They never weighed me. I think they gave me the dose of sedative for the average forty year old Japanese woman. In other words, I would have been put asleep by this drug if I weighed what I did when I was six. Two seconds after the injection, a wave of sleepiness swept over me and away. I came up the other side and felt bright as a button. I watched the whole thing on the monitors and chatted with the doctor throughout. My second favourite part was when he showed me the entrance to my small intestine. My absolute favourite part was when he showed me my anus, from the inside!

Terri then asked me, “But how did you get to recovery?”

My answer was the same, I walked! The nurse did have to spot me at the elbow. She put me in a lazy-boy chair and covered me with a blanket. I lay there for a bit, not knowing how long I was supposed to stay there or what I was supposed to do next. When the old man beside me got up, I did too. I got dressed, collected and paid my bill, and caught the train home.

The good news is my colon could not be healthier. No cancer, no polyps, no need for another colonoscopy for at least five years. Who knows which country’s medical system I will be using then. After this experience though, I may fly home for the privilege!

Jul 31 2014

Terrible Timing and a New Toy

Tonight’s run was gruesome. I’m starting interval training and I was excited too because it was my first run with my new toy – a heart rate monitor that syncs perfectly with my Runkeeper. The run consisted of a five minute slow warm-up, followed by ten minutes fast, five minutes slow (walking pace) and then ten minutes fast again.

Yamashita Park – a great place to run and an even greater place to sit!

The first fast interval nearly killed me. I figured that ten minutes would take me around Yamashita Park about one and a half times. My new heart rate monitor was telling me through my headphones that my heart rate was in the 80-90% zone which I looked up when I got home, and this turns out to be spot on for a fast interval.

Needless to say, I couldn’t talk. Then my phone rings. I pick up with a quick squeeze of the control on my headphones and I attempt to say something.

“I’m running. Can’t talk.”

I hung up. The phone rings again.

“Seriously! I’m running. Later!”

The five minutes of walking in between the two fast intervals was glorious. It seemed to last forever and I had a beautiful view of Yokohama to enjoy.

The second interval was worse than the first although at least I didn’t get interrupted by phone calls. I still managed to hold my heart rate up in the 80-90% zone for the whole ten minutes which wasn’t easy for me. And at the end of the interval, I felt a bit nauseous for a few minutes and I was worried I might lose my lunch, especially since I’d spent a lot of time and effort making that homemade pesto from my home grown basil!

My favourite part of tonight’s run though, as always, was sitting on the bench at the park afterwards with my Procari Sweat. Once I had rested enough to be able to talk again, I called mum back.

Image credit: cc licensed (BY NC SA) Flickr photo shared by Vincent Van den Storme