Running with Chaba through a fashion shoot

Tokyo, Week 1, Day 6; 6 miles, 9:53/mile.

Today was one of those days when you look out and you think, "Maybe if I wait a bit more, the rain will stop." Sadly, that's not going to work when you're at the front end of a typhoon. So despite the rain and wind, which both got progressively worse as I went along, Chaba and I enjoyed our little run.

Today's course was around the Institute of Nature Study, which looks like a big park in the middle of Tokyo on Google maps, but in fact is some kind of science thing like the Morris Arboretum back home. Bottom line for runners: you can't run through it, but you can run the perimeter.

And that's what I did. The south and east sides are right next to lots of green stuff, so you feel like you're in a park, while the north and west sides are mostly a kind of alley between houses on the outside and some big road on the inside. Part of it is covered completely from the rain.

It's about a mile from my house to the closest part of the perimeter, and then it's about a 1.3 mile loop around the park, so that meant three loops and change plus the runs to and back.

It was on my third and final complete loop that I had one of those only-in-Japan moments. I was running through the fairly secluded alley part on the north side in a part that was out of the rain, when I saw some guy holding one of those things you use to reflect light up at a photo shoot. As I got closer, I saw three photographers snapping pics of some girl modelling clothes, and it's definitely the first time a run has taken me through a photo shoot of any kind.