Running at Shakuji Koen
Last Sunday, at around 10 in the morning, was the first time I “voluntarily ran” in Japan. Heck, this is the first time I ran outside the Philippines. “Koen” in Japanese actually means “park,” a word which I only found out last Friday, a good 5 days after I first arrived here.
I found this terribly funny since my place in Tokyo is near Shakuji Koen station (the o in Koen is supposed to have an umlaut but I am too darn lazy to look for the proper character to input, so it should be pronounced as ‘Shakuji Kowen’) and I always assumed Shakuji Koen was a name of a famous Japanese person.
Anyway, Shakuji Koen is a great place. I was ale to run my weekly 10kms (not that I need it since I walk around 45 minutes going to Shakuji Koen train station and back (yes, that’s each way) daily. Hence, I am uber confident I will be able to make a personal record should I be lucky enough to be included in the Tokyo Marathon 2013 lottery.
As for Shakuji Koen, it’s no La Mesa Dam Ecopark or UP Diliman, honestly, which are two places I usually go to every weekend when I was still in the Philippines for my weekend runs. However, as expected, it has that Japanese magnificence & serenity that I know I will surely love. The place is still very hot now though, but I am pretty sure things will get more ‘fun’ as soon as autumn kicks in or something.
