This year marked my third event for the TELL organisation, and their Step Up Challenge. For those not aware, TELL is a Japan based support group to help those with mental health issues via events and telephone line.
Each year, their Step Up challenge asks people to take a number steps (or other activities) to memorialise the number of people who took their own lives in Japan the previous year, perhaps raise some money to support TELL, or even more importantly, raise awareness about the issue and let people know that help is available. For this year then, it was 21,881.
Rather than make the steps a part of my normal day, I usually make an afternoon /early evening of it, and take a purposeful walk around the town and beach, and see and feel some of the energy and beauty of life.
As you can see from my Fitbit data… it took me a while.
I try to treat it as something of a photowalk too, but honestly I frequently forgot to take photos and just focussed on the looking around. That said, here’s a few shop fronts, tiny tram crossings, and the beach around sunset here if nothing else. Sadly it was a little cloudy, but it was still as busy as ever with local people enjoying themselves and just relaxing.
Mid October in the Shonan area is still fairly warm, in the 20sC, and there’s a lot of tourists both foreign and domestic milling around, trying the trendy franchised places to eat, and the even trendier local places. There’s a lot of activity, and yet, you can sit down on the steps to the beach and just relax and feel the breeze.
If you think you’d want to talk to someone, give TELL a call.
