The jet lag isn’t too bad. It’s now Saturday morning and this is the second day in a row where I’ve woken up around 4 AM and been totally unable to go to sleep. It makes for a very early morning, but the 4-6 hours of sleep I get per night are exhausted sleep, the kind where you’re out fast and don’t wake up until your batteries are at least minimally recharged.

Also contributing to that exhaustion: extremely full and exciting days!

What we did on Friday:

Woke up early and went to the bakery on base

Walked around Fussa

Learned that sake actually comes in a juice box with yes, that’s right, a straw. (Toddler seeming a bit out of sorts today? Do we have a solution for you…)

Went to lunch with some friends and coworkers of Travis (yakiniku!)

Went to Big Sight to pick up the race packet

Walked through the sensory overload that was the convention center crammed full of vendors hawking running-related wares. This picture does not do justice to the experience. Travis has a video that we’ll upload later.

Took the train to Shimbashi to meet up with Simon, a coworker of mine who just moved to Japan

Got dinner in Tachikawa (something with rice and goyza)

Crashed.

PHFR:

Pretty: The city. Tokyo is beautiful. Daylight or at night, there’s continual movement, lights, and activity. I’m not sure Tokyo has a pulse. That might be too inefficient. It’s a constant flow. Before we left on this trip, we watched a documentary about Tokyo’s architecture, and we saw some things in person on Friday that we’d seen in that film. It’s great being able to recognize something and understand a bit more of why it was built the way it was and what it communicates.

Happy: Getting us from Big Sight to Shimbashi to Fussa all by myself and Hyperdia. This felt good. Seriously, the Hyperdia app is the single best possible thing for getting yourself around Tokyo. Google Translate runs a close second.

Funny: Squatty potty.

Real: Squatty potty. I told Travis I felt like I’d been hazed in a very civilized way after using one. I can tell you that these were not designed by women.

And now, adding another photo so that the squatty potty isn’t the one that shows up on my main page for this post…