Shinjuku History and Culture course

Got up early and ran the Shinjuku History and Culture course. I ran it in the official direction, although maybe I should have run it east to west, to avoid the sun, but I was more worried about avoiding crowds around Shinjuku Station, which was still busy, being the busiest station in the world, and I stand by that decision. There are markers along such routes, but you cannot count on them being easy to find, being correct (I've found ones that were mis-oriented, although not on this route), or even to exist. In my map, the routes are based on 2010 routes, which do not necessarily exactly match the routes shown on the markers, and neither of which necessarily matches where it's legal to cross the road. Today, I couldn't find the start or end marker or any markers west of Shinjuku Station (route 1, from Shinjuku Central Park to Shinjuku Station) except one north of the west entrance. I was under pressure from needing to get back and showered for a 10 am appointment, but no problem. Much of this is my old hill route, which I haven't been doing, so I'm somewhat out of practice on the steep hills, but it was not a big deal (I think: strange lump around my Achilles tendon). Total time from my original start was about 1 35' 17'', but I failed to mark my lap correctly (apparently, my watch lets you stop the chronometer even when displaying time of day, but you can't also advance the lap number). I'll estimate the Shinjuku History and Culture course time today as 53' based on at another 600+ meters my watch showing about 56'30''. I like this route, other going going by the station, but you have to cross somewhere and it shows you a lot of highlights: the center of Tokyo government, Shinjuku Station, Isetan, Meiji Gingu Gaien, Yotsuya Station, Akasaka Mitsuke Station, and various shrines and temples.

Made my appointment, but made the mistake of buying a snack at Doutor (a coffee shop chain store) without reading the ingredients. Margarine--what kind of monsters are they? Although, the butter shortage continues, based on the availability I see in the groceries. I do not know what the deal is. There is cheese, milk, and cream, no problem as far as I know, and yet the butter problems continue for more than a year. Some sort of market breakdown, I assume.

In the afternoon, I went to Lettre d'Amour [Closed], as planned. Rather than the usual course through Meiji Gingu Gaien, down Icho Avenue and through Aoyama Cemetery, I just took the Gaien West Road around just to check whether there was a marker I missed along there in the morning. Coming back, I had intended to taking my usual route, since I was running with cake, but I realized why my first route was smart: Icho Avenue was packed with people viewing the spectacle of leaves changing colors (which I don't really get), so I had to curve around the other way. The map shows the combined day's route, which was 29 km.

The cake is Myrtille for 600 yen, which is supposedly (and basically tastes like) a baked cheese-cake tart with blueberry mouse on top. The confusing part is "myrtille" is the French word for "bilberry", which is related to but different from blueberry. I guess since bilberries can be called "European blueberries", they decided not to make a distinction, so I'll assume the name is correct but the description is not precisely correct. Now I'm doubting whether other "blueberry" cakes are actually bilberry.

The cake is good. I didn't choose it because I thought it would be great, but because I intend to try everything and this was more or less next, working left to right and top to bottom (of course, they move things around) and perhaps skipping varieties I'm not that into and new things that might be temporary, although that's not a general policy of mine. I like cheese cake, but it is not a strong taste, so it is limited. The tart crust was good, the baked cheese cake inside was good, the macron on top was good, and even the slightly gelatinous "blueberry" mousse was good. I'm happy with still saying this is a great shop and was not disappointed by the cake.

Checking Joshi+ Sweet, looks like it got around to Mont-Blanc, so I added it to the map and should give it a try. Since I don't like the cake mont-blanc so much in general and there are many places in Jiyugaoka and I hadn't heard anything about this one, I hadn't visited or planned to visit before now, although I'll see it and looked inside (they are near the station and seem to do a good business).