Asukayama History and Culture course

Today's goal was to do the Asukayama History and Culture course, which is the Tabata Calligrapher & Artisan Village Walk, from Tabata Station to the NW corner of Asukayama Park next to Oji Station, and the Nikko-onari Road Walk, which starts at Asukayama Park and goes up through Akabane Station to the park area between Sumida River and Arakawa River.

I didn't take a very direct route to the starting point, less direct than I intended, and it was a slow (actually, I'm surprised it was that fast) 12 km. The H&C course is just over 9 km and mostly follows a single street. My map is not completely accurate as far as the side of the route was on, but it switched without warning, and you might be better off just picking the side that you like, depending on where the sun is, although certain crossings require you to get over to the appropriate side. Not a very exciting course, so I don't expect to get back there again.

I went back mostly following the same route, although I took a more direct (and crowded) route toward the end of doubling back, and Ueno Park to Akihabara was very crowded.

Just to extend the run far enough, I went to Tokyo Yogashi ("western confectionary") Club, for the last time, probably. I got their signature Mont Blanc, which I've never had before, for 400 yen. It has a kind of closed tulip shape, and the chestnut (I assume) outer petals are only a couple millimeters thick before you're down to the vanilla cream, so it's sort of a Mont Blanc for people who don't like Mont Blanc so much. The base is a fairly thick sponge disc. It seemed good at first, and I liked the vanilla flavor, but it wore out its welcome and the base somehow did not agree with me. Certainly the whole thing had a kind of homemade feeling that put me off. I have to average my feelings and call it "okay". Recalling, the other things I've had from there were not much better, so I'm just going to change its icon on my map to a square, which means, I can ignore it.

Stopped at Cuoca to price a couple cooking supplies, but did not buy anything and ended the run at the 100 yen Lawson shop.

Total run was 43 km, all very slow (or slower) except for the first 12 km of slow running. With 12.8 km Thursday, 10.8 km Tuesday, and 25.4 km last Sunday, I've got 91.2 km, which is fine. I can repeat last Sunday's run to Yu Sasage (I hope) and Tuesday's run to Frédéric Cassel, and still have a few kilometers for Wednesday to stay within the 95 km running budget. Next Saturday shouldn't be such a big increase (just a few kilometers), so I'll have more distance for weekday running after that, even if I keep making about 25 km runs on Sundays.