Steve - 5

49:10

This was another of my "Gaijin runs through busy narrow streets" runs. (Gaijin is the word Japanese call foreigners. Literally means "foreign person"). I was wearing a black shirt and black shorts and a white hat, so I stood out even more than usual. I am in Osaka for a few days, second biggest city of Japan. This run took place at 8 am, so the streets werent too bad. I tried to run along some small rivers I found but they didnt really have a walkway like some of the rivers near Tokyo I ran last week. So mostly I was running in the street around pedestrians, people on bikes, and cars. There are lights and stops so often its hard to really to get into a rythm. I almost ran into a guy on a bike. We were crossing an intersection at the same time (perpendicular to one another). We both veered the same direction to avoid each other and then veered the opposite direction, and finally both we both stopped. Close call, but no damage done. Later in the night we took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) back to Tokyo and I read a lot of Born to Run. Great book so far.