Cross Training on the Shoulders of Giants

I spent the weekend in Yokohama, and while I didn't have much time for running, I did do a substantial amount of walking. Which, if you do it for long enough, starts to seem semi-respectable; as I'm sure a number of olympic racewalkers would undoubtedly assure you that it most certainly is. For whatever reason, most of the top record holders for race walking are either from Russia (née Soviet Union) or China (feel free speculate on why that is in our handy comments section below). A lot of the walking I did initially took place Saturday morning on the rainy streets of Chinatown in Yokohama. The skies eventually cleared up to reveal a stellar latter half of the day, but not before thoroughly soaking my feet, and undoubtedly drenching me in radioactive particles: しょうがないね (it can't be helped).

A Rainy Day in Yokohama:

The Chinatown Chronicles

The continued walking adventures await...

In the future, this restaurant guide-ish material will have it's own designated post section. This is more or less a test run. 

ばんわろう (Banwarou) in Yokohama's Chinatown

In order to get out of the rain I grabbed an early lunch at a little veggie friendly Chinese restaurant called ばんわろう (Banwarou). It's a tiny place, maybe seats 12 people at most, and that would be elbow to elbow. The only spot of English on the menu is on the back page that reads "welcome vegetarian restaurant". The rest of the menu is a ready made mix of entirely Chinese & Japanese writing. If you know either of those languages, you're good. They serve non-vegan items here too, but no worries, if you tell the owner that you can't have/don't want something in Japanese (and I presume Chinese as well) he'll point to one of the many photos of food that adorn the walls and show you what is right up your alley. I'm also pretty sure that if you're in a pinch and don't know enough Chinese or Japanese to order, flipping to the last page of the menu and pointing to the veggie section will most likely yield the same results.

The place is a bit pricy, and the rice based meals don't come with rice (yes, you read that right: in the middle of Chinatown, in the middle of Japan, in the middle of Eastern Asia, there is a place that serves rice based meals sans rice! Does that seem right?). The owner is more than happy to point out that your meal will taste better with rice, which you will then have to pay extra for, but if you go with something noodle based, then you'll be fine. Despite the logic on display here, the sesame noodles do come with noodles, and they're damn tasty too! They also happen to be one of the cheaper menu items to boot.

The downside to this place, and many others I've been to in Japan, is that smoking is widely permitted indoors. The first 10 minutes in this lovely little veggie shack went quite well, right up until the portly fella barreled in, yelped a quick order to the owner, then proceeded to chain smoke his way through lunch. Luckily, I was by the window, which I opened a mere crack, as I was battling a two front war between the rain streaming in on the coattails of the strong winds (which knocked the sign out front over at one point; I helped put it back in place), and the cigarette smoke drifting towards my precious breathing area.

さあみ (Saami) in Kamakura

The following day I headed down to Kamakura where I visited the grave of Yosujiro Ozu, then had authentic VEGAN Shoujin Ryouri (monk cuisine)* at Saami—which I would have missed entirely, had it not been pointed out to me, since it's a tiny entrance on an extremely narrow and crowded street—then headed down to Daibutsu (Great Buddha). Lots of walking, this time with LOTS of hills and steps and such.

Shoujin Ryouri 

(the second of the 5 courses)

Saami is expensive—you'll throw down about ¥3,000 (roughly $30 USD) for the entire meal—but for authentic shoujin ryouri, it's a steal. This place was also small, but oh, is it ever good! There's no question about the combination of the latter two elements: people were getting turned away left and right while we were there because there simply wasn't any more room. We got lucky by arriving when we did. It's the kind of place that has a pre-set course menu, so when you order, they already know what they're going to bring you. You really have no say in the matter beyond whether you want to drink water or hoji tea (the tea is included, so quaff down as much as you want). I was fine with not having a choice in the food, since you're essentially tasting everything they have to offer, and its all vegan, so what does it really matter? The meal is served in 5 courses. The portions, at first, seem deceptively small, but I assure you, by the time the fifth & final plate is placed in front of you, satiated, you will be, with all types of goodness.

My host Grandma was there and loving it too. She's 82 years young (no foolin') and grew up in the Kamakura area (after leaving Hiroshima at the age of 16; yep, she was there for that event...). She's a fascinating optimistic person. She's published a book of Haikus within the past couple of years, loves to cook, is versatile in the art of texting, has travelled nearly anywhere you can name, and remains eagerly curious about the world and technology around her. 

Daibutsu baby! 

Today was marked as a 3 miler on my new schedule, but since I didn't do the LSD over the weekend I decided to just head out until I was tired (or felt the slightest tinge of pain). Ideally this would be a good type of run to use a Nike+ for, just to keep tabs on my progress along the way; infuriatingly, this just isn't meant to be, since the piece of junk Nike+ receiver died on me about a month after purchasing it. I wrote to Nike about this problem and received no reply. In my brief experience with it, I enjoyed having it on my runs, but was very wary of the actual distance it was tracking. The measurements seldom matched to watch Google Maps told me. One, or both, are lying to me, but I tend to trust the one that uses information gathered from space (or thereabouts). I ended up running 10km (6.2 miles) off the cuff, and walked another 2.5km (1.5 miles) to round things out. All in all it felt good to get some of my distance back. Though it was a wickedly windy day, and my earphones kept popping out every few minutes. I know the reasonable thing to do here is get those wrap-around sporty earphones, but up until today I never thought I needed them. All through training I never once had the pop-out issues I was having today. It was a game of torture, I'd secure the right earbud, then the left would go flailing about: repeat times infinity. I guess all things considered, on such a blustery day, earphones popping-out wasn't the worst possible factor I had to deal with, but it didn't really help. All in all, I'll mark it down as an injury free run, and therefor a good one.



*Traditionally, Shoujin Ryori served inside the temples (ie. to the monks) is vegan. When it is served beyond the temple gates you start to see dashi (or fish stock) start to pop up in the cuisine, making it decidedly less monky like. Though large in part Shoujin Ryouri has come to mean vegetarian cuisine, derived specifically form its Buddhist monk roots.