Arrival Day

Race flags all over town and along the course

The mayor of Ibigawa.  Takao Sōmiya

After arriving in Ibigawa, we went to the town hall for the welcome meeting.  The mayor of Ibigawa and others spoke to us, then we met our families.  We are staying with Yoko and Eddie Iwama.  That is whom we stayed with last year.  They were able to come to the St George Marathon this year.  Eddie was even at the mile 7 mark and was in the Spectrum newspaper.  Breakfast was good, as always, at Yoko and Eddie's.  Yoko is a great cook.  We had some breads, juice, omelet, toast, and persimmons.  Eddie was the same funny character that he was when we were here last year.  When we say “Ohayo Gozaimasu”, he likes to say “Buenos Dias”.  I got out for a short run before breakfast.  The temperature felt great.  The signs are all out as the city gets ready for race day.

 After breakfast, we took a bus to Kyoto.  We started at Nijo Castle.  That was impressive.  We weren’t allowed to take photos inside.

Kent Perkins (the St George Marathon race director)
and our tour guide with hats traded

Lunch was amazing!  Adam was blown away by how good the food was.  I think he would have come on the trip just for that one meal.  Fortunately, we get to do a whole lot more.  I’m hoping we will all be happy after we finish the race.  I decided to try just about everything.  I even had some octopus.  Aaron like the smoked salmon, but struggled to swallow it.  He eventually got it down and did enjoy eating it.  We loved the ice cream.  The caramel and vanilla were really good.  The breaded pork (tonkatsu) was one of our favorites.  There was some really good curry too.  Everybody ate more food than they probably would have somewhere else.

My first go at the lunch buffet

After lunch, we went to Toji-Temple.  The insides of the buildings had some great statues, but we were not allowed to take photos there either.  We ended up at the Kyoto Tower.  We did some shopping there before heading back to Ibigawa.

Now, we are just about to have dinner.  Yoko is preparing some shrimp tempura among other things.

Adam enjoying the noodle soup.  The more you slurp,
the more appreciation you are showing.

Aaron is pretty good with chopsticks.
His favorite part of the lunch was the ice cream.
 He struggled using chopsticks with that.

The koi were huge.  This one had one white eye and one orange.

Bryant and Lisa Jensen at Toji Temple.  Bryant ran
for Weber State University as a 10k runner and has
done 12 marathons since graduating in 2009.  He set
the overall course record in St George this year.   Lisa
ran for BYU.  They got married 2 weeks before this
year's St George Marathon.

The boys at Nijo Castle

Our marathon group including the interpreters and guides.