Lost In Japan: November 2009

Another five days

rush by in the blink of an eye. I can't believe I threw that picture up last Saturday - where does the time go?

Good news is that the study seems to be working -this and next week sees final review/cram/panic study for the test on Dec 6, and so far it looks like I'll have an even chance of passing...fingers and anything else I can crossed. I guess it's one good thing to say about my current employment situation - lots of study time. Comparing to my friend James, an engineer at Toyota here, who will also sit the same test, I am very lucky - he hasn't been home from work before 930 once since we decided to do it 11 weeks ago. Poor guy.

I got home from school early today, and managed to sneak in a ride of almost 90 min before dusk (5pm is pretty dark these days) then managed over three hours of study tonight, and it looks like I'll get to bed in time for almost 8 hours of glorious sleep! Oh the luxury of it all!

Anyway, speaking of riding bikes, and that's really what this blog is here for, here are some more poached photos from the race:

Photo time.

I'm wery, wery tired so only one for now. I managed to track down a few from last Sunday, but I think this one is the best 'racey' pic, so have at it:

FIG JAM

No, the title of this post has nothing to do with my race results from Sunday.

The school lunch at Asuke Jr High yesterday was (among other things) fig jam on some big ol' slabs of bread.

Weird.

...anyway, so about that race.

As some people already know, I've made some new friends who own a bike shop and are releasing a new bike and I have helped them out a little bit. They have an Autumn MTB race every year in Nov, and it was held this past Sunday. I was asked to help out with the setup/cleanup/carrying heavy things (my particular talent), and I decided to enter while I was up there. Two races - a two-lap short XC gut-buster and a longer-and-slower two hour enduro. I entered both.

I won both.

I don't have any pictures of the race yet, so here's a bunny with a pancake on its head.

More soon - gotta go to school now.

Yes.

I got my new visa today - am good for another three years. Acutally three years and a week from today.

Amazingly fast turnaround, and glad it all went smoothly - the preparation was quite painful. It's a huge weight off my mind to have it safe and sound.

That's all.

Sheesh.

Was it two weeks ago already that I tortured that gnocchi? Amazing. Where has the time gone?

Not too much notable to report - same work/study/ride pattern has been repeated, however in order to ride more in the ever-shortening daylight I did start commuting by road bike. 16km each way, not too many hills, a good 35min ride. Sadly, it takes me about 25min to warm up these days, so I only have about ten minutes of pain free riding. Meh.

The reaction at school has been interesting, people everywhere get into their usual life-patterns and tend to be surprised at anything outside of that routine, and folks here are no exception (even more so, perhaps) so when I turned up in skin-tight cycling clothes (on a pink bike nonetheless) it caused quite a few shocked reactions. They have, however, adjusted quickly, and now I am "kakkoii" - cool - for riding so far to work. It'd be nice if some others would follow the lead, but I doubt it will happen, certainly not before next spring, anyway.

In other cycling news, I did go out and get lost in the hills on Tuesday (public holiday). It had the potential to turn into an epic, as a two-ish hour ride rapidly crept up to the three hour mark and dead end after dead end pervented me from getting any closer to my car. Using up life number 7, I think, of 9, I stumbled onto the road leading to my car after three and a half hours. Wonder how long that kind of luck is going to hold. One more wrong turn and I wouldn't have been too happy - it was 5 degrees when I got back to my car at 4pm.

Did get some nice pitures, though.

Tokai Nature Trail again. If you look carefully, you can see a snow-covered Mt Fuji in the distance.