Jeally Bear in Japan

My sister and I have long had thing thing about bears.  She made up a human stick-figure character called Pooky-a when she was little.  I started calling her Pooky Bear at some point, maybe in HS.  Pooky Bear became Poo, which sometimes becomes Poop because it's funny.  And I found a Paddington Bear mini stuffed animal with a suitcase that said "P.B." on it at Heathrow Airport.  I bought it for her, but like a couple other stuffed animals that I've bought for her in my life, I ended up keeping it, and it travels with me now.  So she became Paddington Bear, as well.  And then we made a foil character to Paddington Bear, who's lucky and gets to travel everywhere.  That foil character's name is Jeally Bear.  PB & Jeally.  You're Jeally Bear when you end up in some undesireable position. 

Anyway, I was off to Japan again.  I call it Jeally Bear just because this was a tougher, lower-energy trip, and not much exercise has been happening.

On the bright side, I did see a stunning Mt. Fuji at a worksite that I visited.  It was far away, but it's huge, so it still looked huge.  One day, I hope, I'll get to climb it.

 (You can barely see the snow-capped triangle top of Mt. Fuji in this picture.  The peak is just a little bit higher than the peaks of the dark mountains in the foreground.  I got to see it much better late in the afternoon, but I regretfully didn't get my phone to take a picture then.)

Thursday, April 7:
Did a 50 min strength session in the hotel room.  Hotel rooms are very small in Japan.

On one night (don't remember which), we visited Roppongi, which is supposed to have lots of restaurants and ex-pats, since it's close to a military base.  Maybe.  But I did see Tokyo Tower, which was cool.

Saturday, April 9:
Went to the Imperial Palace again for a catch-up run.  My hotel this time was farther away, so I took a metro there, then ran 4 laps plus a bit.  It would've been nice to metro back, but I walked instead, to not offend the pristine metro-goers.  My knee had been a bit wonky right before the last 3-mi lap, but I ended up going for it, anyway.  The cherry blossoms were out in full force, so I'm fortunate to be here this time of year.

 

Did some geocaching afterwards, in the "electric city" Akihabara, which used to sell a bunch of electronics, back when it wasn't so easy just to go online to get them.  Now, they sell a bunch of Manga and teen toys.  It was a place full of loud sounds and bright colors.

 

 

The caching was cool... I found the biggest ammo can that I've encountered, in a residential area that I hiked to (through the urban jungle).  There were probably about 20 different trackables in there!  You have to be an appealing one, to get picked up!  I picked up three.

 

I also got a Letterbox Hybrid Geocache, which I really wanted to get for my stamp book.

 

It was at an out-of-the-way shrine that was a cool surprise, where I got to take some pics with my new traveling companions.

 

(only the 3rd geocoin that I've encountered out in the wild)

 The next day, I was pooped... after church, I just stayed in, maybe took a nap, and did my taxes.

Saturday, Apr 16:

Another strength session in the hotel room.  Didn't have the energy to go out for a run.

So... looking back, maybe it was a decent trip overall.  Got stuff done at work, got to see Mt. Fuji, had some good geocaching.