Well, one of the biggest events of the winter is the Kagoshima Marathon, which was held on Sunday. Short answer - I missed it.
I've written about the past 2-3 marathons here, and I wasn't expecting much new this year, but I did at least want to get some photos for the blog, and maybe grab something to eat at one of the food booths. I asked a few of my students if they were going to go watch (one did run in the marathon a few years ago, and was scheduled to provide support along the route in Aira), but they all said that the forecast was for heavy rain on Sunday, and that they'd stay indoors instead. The main announcement spot was in Central Park, and the sign-in tables, and souvenir shops were already up and open on Friday. I stopped by on my way to the school on Saturday afternoon, and it was raining lightly on both days. I just took a few photos then continued to the school. All the tables were closed when I got out at the end of the evening.
I've needed to clean up a synthesizer keyboard that's been gathering dirt and dust in a corner of the apartment, as well as some other stuff I'm thinking of selling off, and my plan was to wait until the weather turned good so I could take the gear outside and keep from rearranging the dust in the apartment. Sunday morning, the sky was looking clear and promising, so the plan was to clean the gear, then go to Central Park to watch the last of the race in the afternoon. Well, there was a fair amount of equipment to clean, and a LOT of cleaning to do, as it turned out. I spent 3 hours at that. Then, as I was getting ready to leave at 2 PM, the printer stopped working. I need to do taxes for both the U.S. and Japan, and I need the printer for printing out forms and things. So, I found myself having to hand carry the printer to a PC repair shop 6 blocks away. I get to the shop, struggle to explain to the tech what the problem is, and he plugs the printer in and has it do a "print copy." The copy prints out more or less well (the colors are a little too faded, but the text is readable). It's an old printer and would cost more to fix than it's worth, so I guess it's time to start looking for a new printer. In any event, I carried the printer back home, plugged it into the PC, and prepared to go back outside again. One note: when I took the printer to the shop, it was drizzling a little. As I was getting ready to take the printer back home, the skies had opened up and the rain was coming down much harder. This pretty much took the question of "should I go to the park" out of my hands. No - the rain would make taking photos nearly impossible, and things would be wrapping up soon, anyway. Sigh.
The bottom line was that I never saw anything of the marathon. Instead, I walked to Amu Plaza to do some food shopping for the week. While I was there, I went up to the 6th floor to check the movie theater for interesting advertising displays. Nearby, I spotted 20-30 school girls all wearing the marathon volunteer jackets. So, either the marathon was cut short, or a lot of the volunteers had left the route when their part of the support was over. I'm not sure, either way.
On Saturday, one of the hosts interviewed a past marathon winner.
As I write this Sunday night, it's still raining outside. Stupid rain.
