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Spirit of Japan 2
Isolation, Gaijin Syndrome and Trucks
I read an interesting article about isolation today, and it made me wonder how I would cope with it. I would not dare to presume that I am isolated or lonely in my current state. I've interacted with friends online pretty much every single day of the trip, and I chat with my girlfriend every chance I get. In this way, this trip is the least isolated trip I've ever done.
But on the human level, the personal interaction level, Japan sometimes makes you feel as if all you do is give commands to machines. 99% of all social interactions in Japan as a foreigner (who speaks Japanese) is like that. It's always the same protocol: establish that you can speak Japanese by saying something a little longer than 'konnichiwa', wait for the other party to acknowledge, and place your request according to Japanese specifications. The response tends to be your desired response with an occasional 'ping' packet of "your Japanese is so good!" or "you can use chopsticks so well!" that you can discard right away. This is the pattern. If you stray from this pattern, the machines will get confused and can no longer serve you.
Sometimes you find a machine that suffers from the 'gaijin syndrome'. Today at the hotel, the receptionist pattern-matched my face to 'gaijin' and discarded any subsequent input, such as my perfectly phrased Japanese sentence: "Hello. Is it too soon to check in yet"? Instead, she ran away and fetched the protocol droid: some guy who was just like C3PO, but in human form. He went out of his way to show that he could speak English and made every effort to prove that he was extremely helpful and a man of his skill was up to the job of interacting with 'the foreigner'. Yeah, I know how cynical that sounds, but this is really the way the Japanese make first contact with a foreigner.
The guy mellowed out a lot after we spoke a bit more, and he helped me out with my luggage and laundry. I told him I was going to Hokkaido, and his response was "Uaaa, nanimo nai" - "Uaaa, there's nothing there". I asked him about Wakkanai: "nanimo nai"! Shibetsu: "nanimo nai"! Tomakomai: "nanimo nai"! ... So, Hokkaido is pretty empty. Yup, I think I knew that. Thanks, human C3PO.
All these interactions made me realize why I enjoyed talking to the bicycle master so much yesterday. There was no handshake necessary, no protocol negation. He just treated me like a human. Older people, they're good to talk to. They're all very wise in their own way. The younger generation is way too robot-like sometimes.
Back to today's events: according to the weather report it would rain all day, but the weather looked fine in the morning so I went out and cycled the 40-ish km to Akita, which is the second-last big city before I reach Hokkaido. I've got choice of hotels here and found a cheaper and nicer one than the one I stayed at yesterday. I managed to do laundry around noon and then wandered around the city. Too late though, because the bad weather hit and it got all windy and rainy. So I wandered up to the top floor of a department store, which was nearly empty except for 3 shops, one of which was a brilliant ramen restaurant. I really stuffed myself today.
I do feel isolated, but I have never disliked that feeling. I find it extremely comforting that when I'm in a restaurant I don't have to interact with a waiter every 2 fucking minutes to tell him that yes, the food really is good and that he should really stop bothering me now. I prefer having the 'standard ordering protocol' of Japan over the 'random banter and then some needless back and forth' of UK pubs. If I wanted human interaction I would talk to my friends, since those are actually people I like to interact with. Unlike you. Whoops, my cynicism came out again. Right, isolation. Isolation can be nice. It allows you to focus on other things. Keeps your head clean. Peace and shit.
Speaking of peace, I've somehow found myself in a peculiar routine with (dump) trucks. Every time they pass me I give them a rating by head and hand gestures. A normal pass will get you nothing. If you pass me too close or too slowly, you get the disapproving head shake. Really people, why do you have to pass me so incredibly slowly? That's just hugely unsafe since it takes you onto the wrong lane for a much longer time. It also makes me assume that you're a shit driver and puts me on guard. Big no-shake for you. If you pass me wide and fast, you get an approving head nod. But if you cut me off like an asshole then you get the finger and possibly a shout. I've only had to use the finger 3-4 times this trip.
It's about 230km to Aomori, the last mainland city. There shouldn't be too many hills on my path. Perhaps I can make it in two days, if the weather is perfect and I find the perfect stopping place halfway. In the worst case I'll have to take another break day tomorrow and do the distance in three days. Also not a problem. Hokkaido, I'm coming!
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Spirit of Japan 2
Bodily status
Here's what happens to your body if you're an overweight unfit white 30-year-old who suddenly starts cycling a lot. Or at least it's what's happening to me right now. I don't feel like I've lost weight, but am unable to check since I haven't seen a scale in this country since this trip began. My lower legs seem thinner than they were before, and the muscles look about the same size as before the trip. Everywhere else I'm still fat :S. My hands have developed peculiar calluses between my thumb and index finger, with a little slit inside of them that looks like they've been cut, but the slit is not nearly deep enough for that. The finger-side of my thumb's joint but has gotten thicker and more callus-y as well. Lower palm area feels a bit sensitive and slightly harder than normal, but not much.
In terms of muscle aches, it's mainly the knees. My knees are in a state of constant pain, yet not quite pain. It's not as if I've sprained anything, nor does it feel like the times I seriously hurt my knee my climbing too much. Instead it appears to be a standard muscle fatigue that doesn't really inhibit my ability to cycle or walk. It's been fairly constant ever since the mountain stages. Sometimes my back hurts slightly from being in the cycling posture for too long, but I tend to take frequent breaks and stretches so it's usually gone by the evening.
The areas around my temples and of course my nose was completely covered in sunburn for the first week or so, but is finally, slowly, starting to normalize. It's still red and the skin is quite wrinkly, but I no longer seem to be as strongly affected by the sun as I was before. Probably thanks to the new SPF 50+ waterproof sunscreen as well. My arms are still flaking from the very first day during which I didn't put on any sunscreen on my arms. Every single day after that I've been wearing long sleeves..
Warning: butt part comes next! My butt has firmed up a lot and seems to have adapted to the saddle. I no longer lose sensation in my nether regions when I cycle, despite the saddle angle being shallower than I've previously had it set to. I can cycle for 30-50km without any discomfort depending on the road conditions and how much I've cycled the previous day. After that it still hurts :S. But at least I'm improving.
Things I would do different: try to use that softer gel saddle again and try out more positions. I'm sure there's some way that I can make that thing more comfortable than what I'm sitting in now. I'd also buy a better hat that offers shade around the entire area of my head. SPF 50+ right from the start was an absolute must, I should not have trusted the shitty SPF 30 one from Spain. Finally, thicker and more robust cycling gloves would have been nicer. My current ones are already falling apart and I've only been using them for 2 weeks. Bottom (har har) line: don't worry about your body too much, it can adapt to physical situations easily, but worry about the sun and adequate protection.
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Spirit of Japan 2
The trouble factor
Some days, everything is just a little bit harder. It's only natural. Not every day can be like yesterday with perfectly flat roads, perfect weather and a camp site right when you need it.
Camping is a lot of fun. Un-camping is not. It takes me between 30 minutes and an hour to pack up all my crap and get the bike ready to leave. It's energy and time that's essentially lost, and could have been used cycling. Then again, the evenings of camping usually more than make up for it, especially the sunset views. Still, every time I camp it feels like I'm building up a 'take proper care of yourself' debt. I'm not entirely sure it's a rational feeling given that usually when I camp there's an onsen nearby or at least a shower. I just feel comfortable being at a cheap hotel/hostel every few days. But the ratio could definitely use some tuning, in favour of camping.
Today cost even more energy though, because the tire I had pumped up yesterday was flat again in the morning. Not a great start. Replacing the inner tube is usually not too difficult, except for when you're in a hurry to get going and you find out too late that the spare tube your friend gave you actually has a puncture in it. FUUUUUU. That meant that I had to use my last spare tube for today's fix, making it highly necessary for me to find a bike shop to get some new spares. More delays..
I rode about 15km north to a place called Sakata. I was about to ask someone where to find a bicycle shop when I saw one on a side street. It was run by an old(er) man and features mostly mama chari's, the ones with the basket in front, so I wasn't sure if he would have the right tubes for me. Turns out he had two left that fit my tire width exactly, whereas I had been stuffing slightly wider ones in there because I simply couldn't find the right width anywhere in the UK. Just as I was about to leave the man told me to wait and started tinkering with my brake levers. He then told me that the cables were all wrong and that he could fix it, so I let him have a go at it, and asked him to have a look at the gears as well.
Watching this guy work was amazing. He knew exactly what he was doing and what was wrong with my bicycle. I knew the London shop that I bought it from didn't do a perfect job, but damn, they just outright sucked compared to this guy. He set up the brake lever positions properly, fixed the cable length, adjusted and cut the gear cables, and even taught me how to do some of the simpler gear tuning myself while I'm on the road. He never once commented on my Japanese and just treated me like a normal person. That's actually kinda nice, cause it's been a while. Also, as far as I can recall, this is the only time where I've been 100% happy with the way my gear shifts work. Brilliant man!
The bicycle master also recommended me a road, which was beautiful and devoid of cars. As I was heading north the sky started getting darker and darker. During my lunch break I checked the weather and noticed a very big rainy area coming my way .I cycled on for another hour or so and then started considering roadside hotels. The first one I tried turned out to be 6800 yen, fairly steep. When I mentioned that to the receptionist he told me there was a cheaper hotel about 15 km's north. So I headed there instead, only to find that it was 7600 yen! So much for cheapness.. Then I turned to the internet, which told me of the whereabouts of another hotel in the center of the town I was at. I Skyped them up and their rate was 5600 yen. Still not brilliant, but I don't have a lot of choice here. As I headed there I passed another hotel, but it turned out to be more expensive, so I moved on. I cycled around town once, then headed to the hotel. Just as I pulled in at started to rain.
The weather report says there will be showers throughout the day tomorrow, but based on satellite imagery it looks like it'll pass sooner than that. Hopefully I can cycle in the dry tomorrow, or at least for the latter part of tomorrow. If it really does look like it'll rain all day then maybe I'll take a break day and do some laundry. Random towns always have some odd sights to see as well, so I can keep myself busy either way.
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Spirit of Japan 2
The long road North
Today began my long way North along the Japanese coast. This is the way to Hokkaido. All I have to do is keep the sea on my left and cycle onwards. Niigata was a pretty massive city and it took some time to clear the suburbs, but after that I was able to follow the seaside road all the way North. And when I say 'all the way' I really do mean all the way. I cycled 160km today. Another new personal record. I don't think I've ever had a day of cycling where the roads were so incredibly flat, except for the Netherlands of course.
Still, according to my Garmin, which I'm taking less and less seriously these days, I've climbed a total of 500m today. There were some very small hills and bridges, but nothing that could hurt me after three days of mountain stages. I am having problems with my gears though: out of the 8 rear ones, I can only select about 5 of them. Not too hurtful yet, but if I lose another one I will have to fix it (or get it fixed). On the front side, I have to be really careful to select the lowest gear, otherwise the chain falls off. Not brilliant, but I hardly need the lowest front gear anyway.
The roads were so flat that I managed to do 80km before lunchtime. The area just outside of Niigata city was quite interesting and offered a quaint fisherman's town on a dead-end road that I had to turn back from, and some nice cycleable forest paths, which are quite a rare thing in Japan. After that it was onto the seaside road. Things do get a bit monotonous after a while, although the nature of the road is such that there's always a new bay or inlet right around the corner. That said, most of those inlets consisted of a few fisherman's houses and no shops. I must have gone at least 40km without seeing a single conbini. It's just sea, road and vertical cliff.
I always have this experience in Japan where I wish for something and suddenly it appears. Today was no different: I wished for a place to eat and lo and behold, despite being in the middle of nowhere a roadside cafe appears: the Salt & Cafe. As I was parking my bicycle an old man walked out to meet me and gave me a big packet of salt. Then he showed me inside his salt factory where he separates the salt from the seawater. After that I was allowed to pass through to the restaurant area and have lunch.
After lunch I continued cycling at a pleasant pace, either in highest gear or the one after that, but there's two gears missing between highest and second-highest so I'm not actually sure which one I'm selecting. Either way, cruising between 27 and 30kph on a flat road hardly costs any energy. As soon as the road starts going only slightly uphill though, that's when the luggage makes itself known, and I slow down pretty severely. Today's uphills were almost all short enough for me to race up them in high gear before running out of power.
Right around the 140km I decided that it was kind of enough for the day. As it so happened the road turned inward a bit towards a new area of civilization that I'd just unlocked. I passed by some cheesy resort hotels that seemed either too unaffordable or too icky. Eventually I decided to end it there and activated the Google, which told me that there happened to me a camp site only 4 kilometers away. Lucky! I was nearly there too when I failed to see a big bump in the road, and cycled right through it :(. My rear tire was pretty flat, but not completely flat, so I decided to chance it and go all the way to the camp site. Which happens to be right next to an airport.
The next bad news was that the nearest place to get food was the conbini I had passed 4km's earlier, where I first found out about the camp site. I had skipped it thinking there'd be another one closer to the campsite, but alas. I had to go back, and my tire looked rather useless. I pumped it up and the air seemed to stay in, so I left it on, packed a spare tire and some tools and headed for the conbini. The good news is: the tire was fine. The bad news is: I had forgotten my wallet.. So I had to climb back up the goddamn hill to the campsite to get my wallet, then back down again to the conbini, then going back on that same road to get back to the campsite. Ugh. That was another extra 10 kilometers on the odometer..
Finally done! I had dinner and then a shower. The shower wasn't free though: you have to insert a 100 yen coin for 3 minutes of water. I was expecting a shitty cold camping shower but it was of amazing quality with a really powerful beam, and the temperature was adjustable so it was perfect. What's even better is that people left a bunch of 100 yen coins in the coin slot, so in the end I used up 200 yen for the shower and got 400 yen back. Woohoo! A rather cheap stay tonight considering that the campsite only costs 400 yen per night.
It's completely dark now, and my body hurts all over. Time to get in the tent and get some rest. Still got a few days to go to reach the top of Japan.
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Spirit of Japan 2
The spirit of traveling
Whenever you're going on a long trip there are going to be good days and bad days, good places to stay and bad places to stay. The sum of all of these days always ends up being something positive; something you cannot possibly have regretted doing. No matter if a day turns out to be bad or if your hotel is overpriced or if you've had nothing but mishaps: tomorrow is going to be all different. Everything will change again.
Traveling is a state of mind. It's the feeling of "I have nothing better to do, so I might as well do it", or rather even "This is what I'm supposed to be doing right now", without having to worry about what else you could or should be doing with your time. It means that you don't get annoyed at long ferry waits because that's simply the way it is. It means that it's ok if your hostel has a millipede in your room because that's simply the way it is. You don't feel outraged or angry and you don't want to get compensated. You simply deal with it and accept things, without even consciously thinking those thoughts. Things are the way they are. If only we could always be in this state of mind, but the full-time job and the ownership/rentalship of property forces a different mindset upon us. We are the most free when we have the least amount of things to worry about it. If everything you need is what you are carrying with you then there is no need to worry about anything. Perfect control. Perfect serenity.
One does not need much to achieve the traveling mindset. Movement is vital: you must stay in each place only one night, and each next place must take you further away from your origin. Mode of transportation does not actually matter much; backpacking, cycling, train, bus, anything goes. As long as there is slow progress towards a distant goal, and a continuous change in the world around you every day. Continuity is important. Taking a plane and flying to random places in the world wouldn't feel right. It has to be continuous. And you have to stick to your own rules.
My rules are: don't take any transport other than cycling if you could go somewhere by cycling instead. That pretty much rules out all modes of transportation except ferries. You could consider ferries to be cheating, but I believe they provide an adequate sense of continuity to one's journey. Airplanes are bad because you have to bag your bike, destroying continuity. Buses are bad because they go by roads you could have cycled instead. Ferries.. ferries are the moment of peace between the long distances.
I've been slightly out of the right mindset at times. When you're out of it, doing mundane things during your travel (such as checking in to a less-than-average hotel or having a chain restaurant meal) may make you feel as if you're not making the most of your time/trip. But if you're in the right spirit then it's exactly these moments that make your travel, travel.
I am worried that I will lose this feeling: the serenity of traveling. I'm turning 30 soon after this trip. My body is strong, but getting older. My life is changing according to my age. I have a life I desire which requires me to have a house and a car, which requires me to have a full-time job, which requires me to not do spontaneous trips that last well over a month. It's a feeling I can't shake during this trip. I keep thinking: "This is so wonderful, but it might be the last time I experience this". It's a tad bit overdramatic. I've thought the same thing before; that whatever trip at the time would be my last trip. But there's always a next one. Circumstances might change over time; I might cycle a bit less each day, or I might spend more time in hotels instead of camping. But in the end, as long as there is continuity, as long as there is a continuous day-to-day change while moving towards your goal, then the spirit of traveling will be with you.
I am fascinated by the fact that my mind is unable to think these thoughts when I'm at home. I need to be traveling to unlock a part of my brain that I wish was unlocked all the time. That is perhaps also the best reason to recommend people to travel. You might unlock a part of yourself that you never knew about, or at the very least meet a long lost friend :)
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Spirit of Japan 2
,
Thoughts
Sado is...
It's difficult, perhaps even rude, to make up your mind about a place in only one day, but it's just something that comes naturally to me. I know I'm heavily biased by the weather, bicycle mishaps and all kinds of other things that don't have anything to do with the place I'm in, but it all gets jumbled together in the end, leaving me with just the simple thought of 'place X was good' or 'place Y was bad'.
So yeah, Sado. I'm currently waiting for the ferry back, so I've got some time to type this. Sado has always been a place that I wanted to visit while I was living in Japan, but somehow never got around to it. There's nothing insanely famous around here so I never had a good excuse to go there (or a good reason to promote the destination to other people who might go on a trip with me). This time the ferries lined up almost perfectly, and Sado was simply a must visit.
The hostel was hilariously bad, really. When I went to the toilet in the morning, the doorknob broke off. It was a nice looking western toilet, but as I flushed it I realized it just dumps into a hole in the ground rather than a proper sewage. I didn't need the air conditioning, but if I did, I would have had to insert 100 yen coins to get 30 minutes worth of air conditioning. What a way to profit off of your guests. Definitely one of the worst hostels of the Japan Youth Hostel association I've ever been to. Note that even the worst Japan Youth Hostel is still in a completely different league from any filthy Eurotrash hostel in Europe.
After starting cycling I had a bit of a mental meltdown. Many things did not go as I expected. There was supposed to be a reasonable climb up to 100-ish meters and then a fairly flat road over a ridge that would take me to the center of the island. Instead, the climb was insanely steep and after reaching the 'ridge' the road kept going up and down. I made two mistakes that severely hurt my enjoyment: I put on moisturizing cream on my face for my poor skin, which currently looks like crumpled paper due to the sun, and after that I put on sunscreen. I usually only do sunscreen. The second mistake I made is that at one point I thought I was done climbing and put on my coat because I was getting cold, and then the road turned and started to climb even more, steeply. I sweated like hell, and all the sunscreen sweated into my eyes, causing severe irritation. It took over an hour until my eyes started becoming less painful, even after splashing them with water.
Another huge mistake I made: I did not wear my base layer. This was so stupid. I thought it was going to be a warm day so I wouldn't need it, but even on warm days wearing your base layer is a real comfort, especially when it's windy. Which leads me to my next complaint about Sado: it's a huge fucking wind tunnel! The island is basically two mountain ridges with an extremely flat part in the middle. The winds over the flat part are just insane. Fortunately for me I was heading in the right direction, but still had to face some nasty crosswinds. Very frustrating when you know you can go faster physically but can't because the next gust of wind would blow you off the road. Wind is definitely my new enemy this trip.
More Sado oddness: with the sole exception of the one big road on the island, I could not find a single conbini or even chain restaurant. That is just incredibly un-Japanese and unexpected. What is this, fucking North Korea? Anyway, I eventually made it to the one big road across the island and it was similarly average to other average roads in Japan. Still no chain restaurants though. I'm now always a big fan of chain restaurants, but at least give me the choice so I can feel better about myself for not going to them.
Sado is not nearly as nice as what I'd expected it to be. The built-up areas are less nice than built-up areas in mainland Japan, and there's actually way less non-built-up areas than I imagined a small island like this to have. I have to conclude that Sado might be a damn nice place to live in, but I can' get enthusiastic about it as a tourist. Maybe that's a good thing. Let the locals have their island pure and uncorrupted.
Odd body note: my body is still changing. It seems to have given up burning the high energy fuel, instead just consuming my fat to make me lighter. Much lack of energy.. Also, the places that I sweat have changed from my back and my forehead to my underbelly and my eyelids. WTF. Now whenever I sweat it immediately goes into my eyes and it looks like I wet myself. THANKS, BODY.
Meh. Off to Niigata. Get on with it!
Made it to Sado island!
.. but damn, that could've been smoother. My plan had been to set up my tent at the park right next to the ferry port. As it turns out, this park is not really a park but just a tiny patch of grass in a wide open area where everyone can see you. So much for inconspicuous camping. Not that I would have done it anyway, because by the time I arrived at Sado it was already dark and pouring down with rain. I had asked at the ferry terminal for cheap places to stay, so I knew where the youth hostel was, and when I departed the ferry a nice guy on a scooter offered to show me to the nearest supermarket and phoned ahead to the hostel to let them know I was coming. Nice people, Japan! Thank you!
This is from before the weather turned to shit
And, as always, the bloody youth hostel is on top of a hill. Just like during the last trip, many many times. It's quite an amazing place though, in the middle of nowhere on an already quiet island and surrounded by farmland, which is full of frogs. The noise the frogs make is astounding, so loud. The hostel is run by an old lady who is so bent over that she can hardly look up to see me. There's only 3 rooms, all upstairs via a very steep and narrow staircase. The old lady admitted she can't climb it, so I wonder how she keeps it clean up here. Maybe she doesn't, because the first thing I saw when I entered my room was a giant millipede.
Despite all of its quirks it's really quite a nice place. It actually has wifi, which is more than any of the business hotels I stayed in offer. That, a roof and a warm shower is all I need.
Bike maintenance note: didn't have time in the previous post to mention that I actually had a misaligned front wheel! It was slightly off, which made the front right brake hit the wheel just that bit sooner than the left one. It still needed adjusting after I re-centered the wheel, but the wheel was a large part of the problem. I did notice a bit of wobbliness while going fast downhill, but I attributed it to the front panniers bouncing up and down, and the road being not flat. Hopefully I'll notice some improvement tomorrow.
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Spirit of Japan 2
Coming down
It was inevitable that the day after the best day ever would have to be worse. It started out absolutely brilliant though. The downhills were not too steep, the sun was shining and the roads I had chosen were devoid of traffic. My fascinations along the way included a literal fuckton of caterpillars that all decided to cross every single road I came across this morning, wonderful sprinklers that sprayed water (at least I hope it's water) all over the roads and my face, a mountain road where everyone was old and decrepit and used those little invalid cars to move around (I saw lots of them at the side of the road or with old people on them), and lastly, a lot of roads that were for some reason very red-brown coloured, looking almost scorched. I thought of asking a local person about it but then that would probably have been silly.
There was, of course, yet another final hurdle I had not quite yet overlooked but at least downplayed the importance of in my mind. There was still one more mountain range to cross before I would reach the sea. I had gone down to 280 meters and, according to the map, had to climb back up to 600 meters to cross it. The good part was that it was only 500 meters, the bad part is that it was every bit as steep if not steeper as those mountain roads I did yesterday, with inclines between 11 and 14%. Insanity. That's supposed to be the main through road but it was a bloody pain.
After clearing the last mountain stage I looked forward to some more easy downhills, but my stomach didn't agree with me. I got some serious stomach ache and it took ages to find a conbini where I could go to the restroom. I suspect it's the water from the hostel I drank this morning. That hostel was really pretty dodgy, in an unmaintained kind of way. I've been having stomach aches right up until the moment that I type this. I hope it passes soon.
The downhill turned sour pretty soon after the toilet break. The clouds became thicker and the gusts of wind became a lot stronger. It seems that I'm a lot more susceptible to winds on my new bike, possibly because my seating position is a lot higher and maybe the lack of suspension is a factor too. I really got blown to the side a couple of times today, which felt pretty dangerous on a busy road. That's the other beh about today: the entire road down was a busy standard Japanese road.
Last bummer before typing this post: I missed a ferry by 20 minutes or so and am now waiting for the next one. It's been about a 3 hour wait. I tried to amuse myself by cycling around the area but it's really boring here, although I always say that when it's overcast. I'm sure I'd like this place better if it was sunny. I further amused myself by checking out a coin laundry, but it was too expensive and I didn't know if I'd have enough time. Also, there was no place I could take my pants off.
The remaining time I spent replacing my front brakes, and doing some serious brake alignment and adjustment. The front right brake kept hitting the wheel slightly, so I adjusted it to be a bit looser than I normally prefer. I tried to fix this myself, failed, looked up a youtube video on how to fix it and then succeeded. New brake blocks, perfect alignment, tight brake line. And most importantly: no more squeaks! The old ones were so incredibly loud, it really got on my nerves. So far the new ones have been silent, let's hope it stays that way.
Alright, time to hop on the ferry. I'm heading to Sado island. I don't have a hotel yet and there's a storm coming, but apparently there's a youth hostel not too far from the ferry port. The tourist info person told me that the youth hostel would be the only place I could possibly stay for cheap, as anything else costs over 7000 yen per night. Let's see..
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Spirit of Japan 2
Best ride ever
Today I had exactly one goal: to prove myself right in choosing the road via Kusatsu by making it to the 'other' side of Japan, past the Japanese alps. I could have gone to Nagano from Karuizawa, which would have been easier, but I chose the scenic route. I had to suffer for it, but damn, it was absolutely worth it. I have never in my life cycled on such a scenic route, nor have I ever cycled this high up. What a great day. Going this way was the best decision I've ever made.
The start.
There's so much to tell. I woke up at 6:30 ish, not too cold thanks to the down sleeping bag I'm using (best invention ever!). It takes me about an hour to pack everything up and get ready to cycle. Luckily for me the day started and ended without a cloud in the sky, so I was able to dry my tent and sleeping bag in the sun before packing it. The sleeping bag does get a bit moist overnight, but it's quite manageable.
I stopped off at a conbini to buy some breads, as all of the bloody onsen tourists had bought all the onigiri already. I also bought a frozen drink; one of my absolute favorite things in Japan. You buy a frozen sports drinks or green tea and let it thaw out slowly, providing you with a constant refreshment of coolness. You can mix in another drink for extra great effect. Turns out that frozen drinks aren't a brilliant idea if you're heading out into the cold though, since it takes forever to thaw out..
I'd just gotten 500 meters away from the conbini and started climbing when some random guy in a car started shouting hello at me. He even pulled over and got out of the car to stop me. Turns out he just wanted to have a chat since he was also interested in cycling and had cycled before in Europe. He then gave me 500 yen to buy drinks with which I failed to refuse (I tried!). Good start!
Another thing I did differently from yesterday is that I put my music on. I can't remember my reasoning for not listening to music while going uphill, but having music on definitely makes it a lot easier. It's easier to grab on to something to keep your pace while you're listening to music, whereas if there's nothing then you're just looking for the next point where you can give up. Or maybe that's just me.
I made really great progress and managed to climb significantly faster (at least for my own personal standards) than yesterday. Surprisingly, there's snow! Snowy patches first started showing in the shade under trees and bushes but eventually there was snow everywhere. I didn't realize there'd be this much snow in May. It wasn't even that cold, fortunately.
The scenery on the way to the top was just amazing and impossible to describe in words. I had plenty of time to take it all in while out of breath at the side of the road, which provided the perfect opportunity to take photos. It's really nice doing a road like this on a bicycle. If you're in a car then you can only stop at certain points to take photos, and if you're walking it'll take you forever.
Eventually I made it to what I thought was the top. A volcanic crater lake that was unfortunately off-limits, and a beautiful frozen-over lake on the other side of the road. I posed for photos with some silly people who were flabbergasted at the amount of luggage I was carrying, and then went in for a lovely warm meal in the ski restaurant. Before setting off again I adjusted my brakes to be a lot tighter, since it was only downhill from there.
..or so I thought. I had to climb nearly 200 meters more to get to the actual top. It was steep and very slow going, but I made it somehow. I've been trying to keep my cadence around 48-50rpm while climbing. I used to prefer a lower cadence but that was before the inclines increased beyond 10%.. It's still doable in low cadence, but I've got very little leeway to go even lower since it'll halt my bike and sway me in front of a car. Higher cadence is possible, but tends to wear me out too quickly, so around 50 seems to be perfect. Then all I have to do is set the gear to whichever gear just barely doesn't wear my muscles out. It's very tricky business, this sustainable climbing stuff..
The downhill was a lot less enjoyable than I had imagined it would be. Instead of a free coast all the way down I had to press the brakes constantly to prevent myself from overspeeding. It really hurt my hands, and my ears, because my front brakes squeaked insanely loudly all the way down. There was nothing I could do to stop it either, short of completely replacing them with the spares I was carrying, but the braking power was still fine, so I kept them on.
Just after beginning the downhill I put my hat away and put on my cycling glasses to prevent bugs from splashing in my eyes. They always seek out my eyes, those bastards. But I had to take the glasses off 5 minutes later as I suddenly became quite nauseous. They seem to distort everything and somehow made me feel as if I was way taller than I actually was. Continuing with glasses would have been dangerous because it seriously fucked up my depth perception. Not too bad because I couldn't go fast anyway, due to the squeaky brakes and general safety.
About halfway down the road suddenly turned into a brief steep uphill again, and when I shifted down to a suitable gear, my chain fell off. Sigh. I couldn't flip it on easily either so had to pull over and do it manually. Also on the way down the speed sensor kept malfunctioning, and I had to adjust it 3 times to get the right distance between magnet and sensor. The right distance seems to be 1mm, since anything more than that and it won't register, anything less than that and it'll hit the wheel and force you to adjust it again. Not a brilliant system. I'd happily just disable it and rely on gps measurements for speed, if I could. Thanks, Garmin.
Some of today's bits were little connection-y roads between two mountains, with steep cliffs on either side of the road. Those bits, and also the incredibly steep bits of road that seem to go off into the sky can give you a real sense of vertigo. Good thing I'm only slightly afraid of heights, because I've seen some things today that could be seriously scary. The road bits between two mountains were doubly scary because of the strong crosswinds and low guardrails. The guardrails are fine for cars but if you're on a tall bicycle it's easy to imagine yourself falling over it and down the cliff. All very good reasons to keep your speed down.
On the way down I passed many ski slopes, some of which were still in service and had people skiing on them, but eventually the snow started to disappear again and I made it down. As I got lower and lower the temperature shot up and the wind started to feel like a blow dryer blowing on my face. Back to summer! I reached Yudanaka without any troubles, inquired at the tourist info for cheap hotels and then had to cycle back up a bit to find a rather decent hostel. It's quirky, which I think is the norm for cheap hotels around here. But it's also very nice and very cozy. I like it. They also have an onsen :D.
I made it. Three days that I knew were going to be incredibly tough on me. Pre-discovering camp sites before setting off helped ease my anxiety of being in the middle of nowhere without a place to stay. It's all fun and games if you haven't got a hotel but can cycle 10km in any direction to find some place to camp, but you can't do that if you're in the mountains, since it would wear you down horribly and simply because there's no space left. I'm in the right mood now. I can set off without worry, knowing that I've done this. I am capable of doing ridiculous things on a bicycle while looking extremely uncool. That is my special skill. With that as a given, there is no place I cannot go.
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Spirit of Japan 2