Alright, so we headed for a cache located in the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. This garden used to be the home of a feudal lord in the 1600's- 1800's. It eventually became Imperial Gardens for the royal family of Japan and then after that became a national garden open to the public for a small fee. It's about 140 acres, very wooded and well-landscaped.
 |
| taken on my iPhone, hence the quality |
 |
| we will refer back to this picture later |
So we went to the cache location and it turned out to be one of the best kind of geocaches in that it was located exactly where you thought it would be. It was in the edge of the woods near some old concrete rubble. It was big enough to hold items and we dropped off a trackable travelbug that we had picked up in a cache near the Tokyo SkyTree. We picked up a new travelbug to take to the US over the holidays.
And now....for the rest of the story. You didn't think this was just a nice, boring tale about a garden and a geocache, did you?
As I walked out of the woods after replacing the cache, I banged my knee hard on a piece of the concrete sticking up out of the ground. I hit it riiiight on the bone but it was a small gash with minimal bleeding. I came out onto the path and told Chad what I'd done. And then I tried really, really hard to walk it off. I'm a big fan of "walking it off"......in theory. I thought I was fine and over it.
And then.... I had this really good dream that I can't remember. I was very confused when I woke up on the ground with Chad holding me and yelling at me frantically. I was cold and wait....oh, yeah...I'm in this park. Fortunately Chad had caught me before I hit the pavement in a dead faint.
Now those of you who know me very well said "Uh-oh." two paragraphs ago. For the rest of you, well....I pass out easily. Blood, needles, childbirth, intense sharp pain of the funny-bone type or any combination thereof and I will keel over in a second. It's very annoying and seems to be getting worse as I get older. At this point I've had enough "episodes" that I know I'm supposed to lie down. But the park was chilly and there was no place to lie down (refer to the photo above) so I was just going to walk it off.
As Chad was trying to get me to wake up a nice man came by and tried to help. There was a language barrier but he was trying. I told him I was fine (in Japanese, no less!) and sent him on his way. Because clearly I was fine, right? I was just walking it off.
Chad left me kneeling on the ground and went to see to poor Cora who by this time was crying in her stroller. I was drinking some water and then....I had another great dream that I can't remember. This time when Chad woke me up I was much less confused and Chad was much more frantic. Let's stop here and appreciate his dilemma. He didn't want to leave me lying on the ground and go for help yet he couldn't move me and handle the stroller. And I'd sent away the only person who had offered to help.
At that point I managed to get it together and get up and walk out of the park. We took a taxi the half mile back to where we'd left the car and just went home. I'd like to say it ended there but apparently my digestive system had been compromised and I polished off the morning with some carsickness on the drive out of the city. And now Chad I both have bum knees because he wrenched his catching me as I fell.
But now we're home, safe and mostly sound with another geocache found and a (hopefully) entertaining story to tell.
The end! :D
No comments:
Post a Comment