Video | Good Fishies

This Sunday was the annual Healthy Marathon (ヘルシ　マラソン) in the nearby town of Biei. Biei is about 120km away from Takikawa, and is known for its annual marathon as well as its beautiful flower gardens spread over vast rolling hillsides. The Biei marathon attracts thousands of competitors and spectators every year during the June 8th weekend.

Kevin registered online for the 10k quarter-marathon back in early May along with our good friend, Matthew Caesar. Kevin spent a solid month doing a rigorous training routine of 3 day-a-week 6:00am runs down the Sorachi River to prepare for the event. (No, Cathy didn’t go running with.)

On the wednesday before the marathon, we both fell sick with sore throats, and major chest congestion. We ended the week by cancelling a few classes, in hopes that we could rest up and feel better for the weekend, but come marathon day, we were both still very under the weather.

We left Takikawa at 7:00am on Sunday, June 8th with 2 runners - Kevin & Matt and 3 cheerleaders - Cathy, Kaori & David. We headed towards Biei to make the 9:00am registration time. Kevin popped a decongestant, an advil, a tylenol and a general cold pill and started stretching for the race.

Cathy, Kaori and David relaxed in the grass and enjoyed yummy yaki-tori and beer (yes, at 10:00 in the morning) and cheered on Kevin and Matt as the firing gun sounded and the race started.

An hour and twenty minutes later (1hr18min for Matt) Kevin came bouncing down the finish line and had successfully completed his first marathon EVER!

Celebration was in order, so we all headed up the road to Fukiage Onsen to enjoy a traditional Japanese public bath, naked. Gender separated.

It was a huge success.

Here’s a video of Kevin finishing the marathon. A glorious (although painful) moment.

Our trip around Taiwan started on Wednesday. We were fortunate enough to get our hands on a car from Cathy’s dad’s company. It’s a Corolla just like Cathy’s old car, but much cooler equipped with a GPS system. (and automatic side mirror closing device)

We started driving from Taipei down the number 5 highway (commonly known as the “Snow Mountain Express Highway” - 雪山隧道). We started our trip with couple LOOOOONG tunnels and a slightly confusing GPS-miscommunication-induced detour at PingLing (坪林). It took us about an hour to get from Taipei to Suao (蘇澳) where we stopped and shared a NT$ 75 (around two canadian dollars) bento box & bubble tea.

From there on, we switched to the number 9 highway (蘇花公路) which traitorously winds its way across the east coast on a sheer cliff overlooking the pacific ocean. This highway was full of people passing on TOTALLY blind corners and speeding through sharp turns in the heavy rain. Our average speed on the highway was about 30km/hr. The rain was pouring from the sky in a tropical rain shower and at several points, the highway was washed out by landslides. It was foggy and the visibility was horrible. (But we could still see the beautiful mountains scaling up the cliffs through the fog)

The GPS system guided us to HuaLian to our homestay (民宿 -translates into “people housing” or “civilian housing), it’s much like a B&B that’s run by locals. Some of them are fancier (& pricier) than 5-star hotels; some of them offer only bunk beds. Homestays offer a great alternative from hotels as lots of them are beautifully designed like mini boutique hotels and others are great in price for budget travelers. We were very lucky to find a good one called the Moonlight ocean (月光海洋). It’s very beautiful, clean and well priced (We paid $1800 NT for one night - less than $60 CDN). The hostess at the front desk is very helpful and friendly. We had a very wonderful stay here.

Tomorrow we wake up early to enjoy a complimentary breakfast and we’ll head into the Taroko Gorge. It’ll be a full day ahead.

Including videos of us on the highway.