A special day

I know that some of you are interested in charity, so I'll tell you about a special day for some of my friends and me. Once a year, in June, we take part in a sponsored walk for charity along the Kamo River in Kyoto city. As some of you may know, a sponsored walk involves finding sponsors (people who agree to donate money if you do what you say you will do), and then taking part in the event (a 10km walk, in our case). My best friend, Kevin Ramsden, who lives in Kyoto, organizes the event. (The photo is of some of us taking a break at the halfway point).

We walk 5km from San-jo bridge up to Kitayama bridge, then turn around and walk back down the other side of the river. A mixture of Japanese and foreigners take part every year, and we all have lunch and drinks together in an Irish pub afterwards. As you can imagine, I gain more calories than I lose during the day. The purpose is to raise money for disadvantaged children (orphans in Zimbabwe and Nepal). Kevin has contacts in those countries. Last year we raised a little over 1,000,000 yen, and had fun at the same time. If any of you are interested in joining us next year, let me know sometime.