Tochigi Prefectural Ekiden Road Race

Rina, my younger daughter took part in Tochigi prefectural Ekiden road race as a runner today. She ran over 3.08 km course, about 2 miles in 10 minutes 43 seconds.

Ekiden: it usually referred to as a marathon relay, is a long-distance relay road race.

Twenty-seven teams consisting ten runners each (junior high, high school, college students and workers both men and women) ran over 60 km, about 38 miles, from Utsunmiya city to Tochigi city, then came back from there to Utsunomiya city.

Utsunmiya city has two Ekiden teams. Utsunomiya-A team is stronger than Utsunomiya-B team. Rina always becomes a runner-up in municipal races, so she became a member of B team.

Her team finished the race 20th and Utsunomiya-A team finished the race 5th. Rina and spectators including my wife and mother-in-law really enjoyed the race.

New Year’s Holidays

Buildings in Shinjuku.

I went to the condominium of my parents-in-law with my family during the New Year’s holidays.

We did shopping on January 1st in Odaiba Tokyo Bay area. My wife and my daughters like buying New Year’s lucky bags; they are called Fukubukuro in Japan.
Shop owners make Fukubukuro filled with random contents and sell them for a substantial discount. People buy bags without knowing the exact contents.

I also went to Shinjyuku where the office of Tokyo metropolitan government is located. I like walking around Shinjyuku and taking pictures of high rise buildings.

Emi and Rina received Otoshidama or money in a small envelop from my brother-in-law. Japanese people have a custom of giving money to children. They were excited about thinking of what they wanted to buy.

From the Left: Emi, brother-in-law Masashi and Rina.

Emi and Rina are showing an enelop of Otoshidama.

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Happy Birthday To Rina!

Rina and Emi are posing before noodle soup.
Rina brought back lots of presents.
Rina, my younger daughter had a birthday on January 8th. She has become fourteen years old. I asked her if there was something special she wanted as a birthday present. But, so far, she hasn’t told me any. So, I haven’t bought her birthday present yet but just promised to buy one when she decides.

On the contrary, Emi, elder daughter never misses to ask me a present a few weeks before her birthday. Even Emi and Rina have grown up in the same family, their personalities are quite different.

Few days ago, Rina brought back lots of birthday presents from her school. She told me that the presents were from her classmates or friends of the same track and field club. She was very pleased to have gotten so much.

We went to a noodle soup shop “Kyushu Ichiban” yesterday to celebrate both her birthday and the silver medal she had gotten at Utsunomiya Marathon last year. I think that “Kyushu Ichiban” is one of the best noodle shops in Utsunomiya. The taste of the white soup is really excellent.
If you have chance to visit Utsunomiya, never miss eating at “Kyushu Ichiban.”
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Hakone Ekiden Road Race

I went to Tokyo to watch Hakone Ekiden, a long-distance relay or a road race, with my daughter Rina and mother-in-law Noriko yesterday and the day before yesterday.

Hakone Ekiden is one of the most popular Ekiden in Japan, which features teams of students from various Japanese universities.

Rina is a great fun of a long-distance road race and also a member of Utsunomiya municipal Ekiden team.

She was so excited to watch the race that even ran with the ekiden runners. I thought that it was good for her to feel the first class runners' running speed by herself.

We all enjoyed watching the live race very much.

I wish all visitors of this blog a happy new year.