The Week #215

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  • 🏃‍♂️ I hit a major running milestone, running a 5k in 30 minutes. I've been close-ish in the past, but have never been able to sustain a 6 min km for the duration. 100% I was able to do it because I've been running regularly for the past few months and it was cooler. I feel like even like slow runs in the Japanese heat still helped me to run faster in the cooler weather.  
  • 🍦 One day we went to a nice big central park so Leo could play on a jungle gym for a bit, burn off some energy, and be around some other kids. While we were playing I heard the siren-song of the ice cream man! The ice cream man isn't a thing in Japan, so I told Leo to run and I got him a sponge bob squarepants ice cream for $4(!). Quadruple the price I paid as a kid in the 90's.
    Ice cream... mini van?!
     
  • 🏪 On our way to the airport we dropped by Pike Place market for a couple of hours. I could spend all morning there – all of the vendors and the food look so good. As we got there around noon, it was packed. The line to the original Starbucks was probably an hour long (despite the menu being the exact same).
    Carrots in multiple colors 😋

    Finding gyros is a challenge in my part of Yokohama, so I opted to get a lamb gyro for lunch. It did not disappoint, except for at the very end where it started leaking on to my jeans. 😂
    Walking with Leo in the market

    Next time I visit Pike Place, I want to go early when the vendors are just getting setup and there's less traffic.
  • ✈️ We stayed at a hotel near the airport because our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:45am. Hawaiian Airlines is so good. One of our bags was a bit over the limit and they didn't care or charge us. But even better was, because they heard TSA had long lines, she stamped our boarding passes for priority security checks, meaning we got to skip the wait.

    Ultimately though, our flight was delayed by about an hour as they had to fix something while fueling the airplane. This delay meant our 2-hour layover in Hawaii, where we could stretch our legs and relax a bit turned into a mad dash from Terminal A to Terminal C (thankfully we caught the Wiki Trolly (bus)) just in time, so we could catch our flight.

    There must not be enough bridges as or something at Haneda, as we had to deplane on to a bus that took us to immigration.
    Our ride to Japan

    When we got home I noticed that my bag that I had previously fixed in Hawaii was broken for good now. The plastic latch used to lock the suitcase, which is usually flush on the outside, somehow opened and snapped off transit. Always use a belt on your suitcases. Sad to see it go as it served we well since my first trip to Japan as a college student.
  • 🎥 On the flight from Hawaii and Haneda I watched two films: The American President and Mr. Nice Guy. Watching the first one film and I felt like it was almost a precursor to The West Wing. Probably because Martin Sheen was in it and the movie was written by Aaron Sorkin (who also wrote The West Wing). The sad point of the movie was that they were talking about global warming and trying to pass legislation for it in it...in 1995.

    Mr. Nice Guy on the other hand was the first Jackie Chan movie I have watched in ages and I forgot just how much fun they are. It's basically non-stop martial arts and stunts. Really good entertainment.
  • 🗾  America was fun and, compared to our last trip, Leo did so much better this time. It wasn't exhausting. Part of that is learning from experience and partly him being older. But man is it good to be back home in Japan 🥰.
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