What The Osaka Marathon Taught Me

Running the Osaka Marathon, and then recovering for the last few days, has given me plenty of time to reflect. Here's what I think I've learned:

Anticlimactic

Monday, the day after the marathon, dawned fresh and bright, and I wheezed and groaned and gradually extricated myself from my bed. Although we have a very nice room in the hotel, with a bed, and an internet connection, and some semblance of a wardrobe, the only view from our window is of three metal-clad walls, which gave us no clue as to the weather outside. The internet, too, was a unhelpful servant, as it turns out that the BBC's view of the weather in Osaka (raining) and the Weather Channel's forecast (raining all morning, sort of sunny later) were both way off: it was a lovely, sunny day, the kind that makes you regret tooling outside in a corduroy jacket and thick jeans.

Run out

Today I ran the inaugural Osaka Marathon. This is the first marathon I've run in over two years; the last one was the 2009 Tokyo Marathon - also the inaugural marathon in that city. Perhaps I'm going to only run marathons from now on when it's the first time they stage them in a particular place.

Megadeth and Japan

I read Dave Mustaine's autobiography on the flight to Osaka. It's packaged to resemble Slash's memoir, which is much filthier than what the man from Megadeth comes up with: there's reference to lots of sex, but there's not the explicit account Slash gives of what happens when you open the door on James Hetfield mid-groupie.

Osaka Aquarium

For our last day in Osaka, we got up early and went to the Kaiyuken, a huge aquarium near Osakoko subway station. It's an enormous building, vaguely reminiscent of a house made of lego, and apparently contains 314 tons of hardened acrylic glass (one and a half year's worth of global production).

Meeting up in Osaka

Because I know absolutely nobody in Osaka, I went on to meetup.com and looked there for people, and arranged to have dinner at a Canadian pizza restaurant north of the main station. Because I enjoy partaking of local customs, and when in Osaka, what could be more culturally appropriate than Canadian pizza?

Kansai International Airport

I was expecting to be really amazed by Kansai International Airport, famously designed by Renzo Piano on top of a big pile of compacted refuse in the Bay of Osaka. Maybe my expectations were a bit high: it's just another big airport; nice and efficient, like Narita or Hong Kong, but not exactly mind blowing.