On Saturday morning (yesterday), we packed ourselves and all our accouterments into the car and headed off to
Lake Kawaguchi for the night. We have all been busy recently and the thought of escaping Tokyo for a while was very appealing. The next two weeks will also prove to be hectic, but I am hoping all the positive energy accrued over this weekend will push me over the finish line.
Lake Kawaguchi is about 2 hours drive from Tokyo - well within my patience threshold. We were excited about leaving the rat race and the heat of Tokyo behind. Temperatures in Tokyo have hovered around 30C for the past week and the commute to and from work is not becoming any easier. Because of varying factors, Lake Kawaguchi is considerably cooler than Tokyo. Temperatures hovered around a very comfortable 22C.
We booked in to the
Fit Resort Club at about 3pm on Saturday and got settled into our room. Clara was badgering me to go swimming so we went down to the pool soon after our arrival and had a pleasant swim. In the evening, we all headed to a nearby yakiniku restaurant where I ate the equivalent of two cows and drank the equivalent of two Olympic sized swimming pools of beer. Upon returning to our room, Clara was dispatched off to bed, while we all stayed up and chatted.
Clara woke me up this morning at about 7am and made me get organised for breakfast. By 9am, I was sufficiently fortified to be coerced back into the swimming pool by Clara. We were really lucky to have the whole pool to ourselves as all the other guests at the resort seemed to have disappeared. Clara and I really enjoyed our swim and were in the pool for nearly two hours. We had also brought our tennis racquets but did not have enough time to play on this visit. Next time.
After out departure from the resort, we drove around Lake Kawaguchi. We had a local speciality called Hoto for lunch and then Clara selected me to take the helm of a pink pedalo for 15 minutes.
Clara started to cry when I started showing her my repertoire of pedalo tricks but I eventually managed to stem the flow of tears by reverting to conventional navigation and propulsion techniques. After I had regained Clara's trust and respect, she started calling me Captain.
I was hoping to get some pictures of Mount Fuji standing over Lake Kawaguchi but the weather did not cooperate. Despite that minor disappointment, we all had an excellent weekend which should give me a good boost for the coming week.
It has been a very busy and hectic couple of weeks. Work, work, and more work. Fortunately, Monday is a national holiday in Japan (Marine Day) which means I'll spend an extra day sitting around the house doing nothing. The reason that I will be sitting in the house is that typhoon Man-Yi is expected to hit Tokyo tonight and bring high winds and heavy rain.
The weather in Tokyo has been strangely cool so far and I am hoping that this will continue. Clara has now started swimming lessons at the local gym and Yuki and I will join at the end of the month. I can't wait to do some exercise again. The last exercise I did was in Shimogo in March so I will probably take it easy to begin with. I have also applied to do the 2008 Tokyo Marathon but I have only a 25% chance of being accepted as it is always oversubscribed. I am secretly hoping that my application will be rejected as I don't have any time to train for it.
