Matsuyama run

It's a very pleasant thing to jog in the evening, before dusk, when the day has been hot like a dagger. As the light blue of the sky eases into its glide toward indigo, you set off through lengthening shadows onto narrow streets. It's still hot and humid enough that you work up a good satisfying sweat, but not so much that you keel over and die. And then you get to enjoy the sunset during your leisurely, well-earned cool-down walk at the end, and think about the cool glass of nama you'll pair with dinner.

Tonight I set off first in the opposite direction from last week, to the west, away from Dōgō Park, running along the same narrow road with the daylighted stream next to it. I found myself passing the northern edge of the campus of Matsuyama University, which borders Ehime University, and suddenly I understood why so many students on bikes are always emerging from this small road onto the main street.

I was surprised to see, no more than a few hundred yards from my guesthouse, two small rice paddies right in the middle of the city.

At least, I assume this is rice. What else is planted in water this way?

Then I turned around, and ran back to the East, toward Dōgō Park. The land was completely flat and the running was easy. It was especially pleasant to run beside the water, with the bikes lazily easing past me, and the sound and feel of each heavy breath strong and even in my chest.

After crossing a street with a traffic light, the feel of this narrow road changed.  The sidewalk was wider, and paved with attractively shaped tiles.  The little bridges over the stream were more decorative.  I suspect that the street I crossed may have been the original boundary between Matsuyama and Dōgō, before the latter municipality was annexed to Matsuyama City. Dōgō is a famous hot springs resort, and it seems likely that a pleasant road like this might be prettified for tourists.

I ran again up to the top of the Dōgō Park hill—now the breaths come hard and ragged—and walked rapid circles around the top of the observation deck to keep my pulse elevated while taking in the view. But a young couple came up the stairs behind me soon after, and I decided to leave them some privacy—but not before getting a photo of the tram running below.

Near home, walking the last block after my final sprint, I came upon a disarmingly small kitten, it's hair fuzzed up, sitting in a bit of a daze dead center in the middle of the road. An enormous, menacing car was coming toward us, with the kitten pinned between us. Perhaps the car wasn't so large, but I was looking up at it from an empathetic kitten's-eye view, and it might as well have been a Transformer from another planet. The road was only as wide as a single vehicle, so there was no way the driver could go around the little creature, even if he happened to see it. I held up my hand, ran forward, scooped up the unresisting kitten, and set it gently at the side of the road. It mewled uncertainly. I saw now that it was probably a stray, and hungry, and not long for the world in the absence of help. But I didn't know what to do except leave it there. It would have to depend on the kindness of a Matsuyama native; I couldn't offer it anything.

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Incidentally, I opened my borrowed cell phone today, and this is what I saw:

Today is the official date of the Tanabata, for which the festival in Hiratsuka was held last weekend.