Wednesday 28 July 2010

Order tracking

Order No. XXX-0064-3823754990 placed 24 Jul 2010 (04:24:32) on BookDepository.com Order status: dispatched

"Word Painting"
by (author) Rebecca McClanahan
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"Herzog on Herzog"
by (author) Werner Herzog
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$14.40
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"The Longest Walk"
by (author) George Meegan
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Total order value: $47.22


Distance walked since last post: 12km
Total distance walked since Koshu Kaido training began: 137.1km
Days left until departure: 49

Friday 23 July 2010

Amble to Ilam


Distance walked since last post: 17.2km
Total distance walked since Koshu Kaido training began: 125.1km
Days left until departure: 54

Monday 19 July 2010

The lost flight of Pantaleon Quiroga

The other week I decided to take a break from reading Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy and reread William Boyd's The Blue Afternoon. I was enjoying McCarthy, but at over 1000 pages, the three novels were a bit too much for me to get through in one go. And while the first book, All the Pretty Horses, is supposed to be McCarthy's least dark novel, it's far from uplifting, and after finishing the second, The Crossing, which starts off well with its description of the growing relationship between a young cowboy and a wolf he's supposed to kill but ends up escorting over the border to Mexico but drags a bit in the final hundred pages or so, I was definitely in the mood for something lighter.

I bought my copy of The Blue Afternoon last year in Wellington and finished reading it the day I had my nose job. It's a love story/murder mystery set mostly in the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century. This was during the U.S. occupation, which, as I've mentioned previously, sparked quite a bit of bloodshed. The male protagonist, Salvador Carriscant, is a progressive surgeon in Manila, who's disliked by his conservative peers but has the support of a young anesthetist named Pantaleon Quiroga. One of the subplots involves Quiroga's construction of a flying machine he calls the Aero-mobile, part of an effort to win the international Amberway-Richault Prize for the first powered flight of over 100 meters. Carrriscant reluctantly agrees to act as Quiroga's copilot on the Aero-mobile's maiden flight, but as the following passage indicates, thing don't exactly go to plan.
The time had come. As if in a dream Carriscant found himself climbing into the rear saddle in the nose of the Aero-mobile. The two warping handles jutted up in front of him and without thinking he grasped them firmly, pulling them this way and that and causing the tail to turn in response. A soft salvo of flash powder greeted this impulsive gesture. Behind him Pantaleon began to swing the propeller. Carriscant prayed earnestly for a fuel leak, a faulty connection, a blown gasket, anything, but on the third attempt the pistons fired and the shrill irate roar of the Flanquin filled his ears. He felt the vibrations travel up his spine and suddenly he wished he was wearing different clothes: he felt a complete fool in his white linen suit and his glossy English brogues. Pantaleon flapped round the wing in his leather coat as the second propeller began to turn. He climbed into the forward saddle and inserted his feet into the stirrup controls. He twisted round to face Carriscant, his eyes bright, two darker spots on his brown face where his blush glowed.
'Thank you, my friend,' he said emotionally. 'All that bad feeling is behind us now. Please tell me it's so.'
'Completely forgotten, Panta.' He paused. 'Now, you're quite sure this is safe.'
'You're more at risk in a carromato,' he said, with serene confidence. 'Now remember, only when I reach up for the air-catcher do you take over the warp controls. Otherwise, do nothing.'
'Right.'
Pantaleon reached up to the twin handles above his shoulder and pushed them, raising the long flap on the leading edge to its full extent. Then he turned up the throttle control to full and the Aero-mobile began to thrum and judder violently. He gave the signal to the boy to pull away the wooden chocks and released the brake on the bicycle wheels.
With a brutal jerk the Aero-mobile lurched forward. Carriscant was flung backwards and as the whip crack effect hurled him forward again his nose smashed heavily into Pantaleon's back between his shoulder blades. His vision dimmed as his eyes flooded with salty tears and he sensed, rather than saw, the hot plumes of blood jet from his nostrils.
He was aware of the tremendous noise of the engine and the hollow drumming sound of the wheels on the roadway planks as the machine began to pick up speed. As he blinked his eyes clear he saw the dark dripping splash of his blood on Pantaleon's coat back and, to his horror, he realised that his entire front was a sopping swathe of red, that pools had gathered in the creases in his lap and that more was still snorting from his nose.
'Stop!' he screamed. 'You've got to stop it!'
Pantaleon was sitting hunched forward over his controls, oblivious, like a racing cyclist in a sprint. Carriscant now felt the speed of their passage whip the ribbons of blood and snot away from his nose to sprinkle the rear section behind him, the heavy drops pattering on the stretched fabric. Then there was a sudden decrease in noise and he realised the drumming of the wheels had ceased. Beyond his left thigh he saw the cruciform shadow of the Aero-mobile begin to shrink slowly. To his absolute horror he realised that they had taken to the air.
Distance walked since last post: 3km
Total distance walked since Koshu Kaido training began: 107.9km
Days left until departure: 58

Sunday 18 July 2010

Japanese artist continues testing own plane

Hachiya Kazuhiko's plane, which was unpowered when I blogged about it late last year, now has a jet engine! This recent video shows him doing some taxiing.



Distance walked since last post: 3km
Total distance walked since Koshu Kaido training began: 104.9km
Days left until departure: 60

Saturday 17 July 2010

U.S. rules may bar Iroquois from lacrosse champs

The Iroquois people invented lacrosse, but their national team has missed the start of the world championships in England because the U.S. authorities no longer recognise their passports.

"Lacrosse is our game - we are the originators, we invented the game, there are 60 countries that play our game," said Denise Waterman, a member of the team's board of directors. "And now we can't go to a tournament that's honoring our game? It's almost unbelievable that this is happening."

You can read the full story here.

Distance walked since last post: 18km
Total distance walked since Koshu Kaido training began: 101.9km
Days left until departure: 61

Sunday 4 July 2010

The Sakura-michi International Nature Run

If you're a long-time reader, you may recall that I gave up running around eighteen months ago (just as I was starting to really enjoy it) after my knees started playing up. Every so often I get the urge to start running again. I got the urge again a couple of nights ago while watching a program on Japanese TV about the Sakura-michi International Nature Run.


The Sakura-michi International Nature Run is a 250km ultramarathon that follows a course from Nagoya on the Pacific Ocean side of the main Japanese island of Honshu to Kanazawa on the Japan Sea side. It was established to honor the memory of Sato Ryoji, a bus conductor who worked on this route and dreamed of planting cherry trees along its entire length. He managed to plant some 2000 trees in his spare time before dying at the age of 47.

The program focused on two runners, a man and a woman, both of whom only started running in their thirties. The woman, Kuwahara Akie, was also very sick in her teens, a good deal of which she spent in hospital. Both runners finished well within the cut off time of 36 hours. To put their achievements in perspective, they ran in under 36 hours further than the distance I intend to cover in ten days when I walk the Koshu Kaido.

Watching the program, one thing that struck me was that the event seemed less like a race and more like a social occasion for many of the runners, members of an elite club who get pleasure from putting their bodies through absolute hell, battling themselves to finish and improve on their previous times rather than their opponents.

Only 100 runners - 80 from Japan and 20 from overseas - are chosen to compete each year. The entry fee is 45,000 yen.

Distance walked since last post: 3km
Total distance walked since Koshu Kaido training began: 83.9km
Days left until departure: 74