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Spirit of Japan

What a day

Posted on 2010-04-17 10:10 by rv

Man, where to begin. Today has been a classic. I made up for my laziness of the past couple of days and cycled 120 kilometers today, doing an average of 18.3 kph, although that's been pulled down because of the few uphill slopes. I was driving 25-26 kph on the straights today, something of which I was very proud of until I met another heavy cyclist who outraced me by far, but more on that later.

Today has been a day of pathfinding. When I woke up at 6AM in the youth hostel (which, although awesome by day, can be creepy as hell by night) it was still raining heavily. I packed my bicycle for riding in the rain and wore a full rain suit. Since my plan for today consisted entirely of "go south-west", I pointed my compass in the right direction and went off. 30 minutes later I took off the rain suit again because I was headed into the sunlight! A blue sky for the whole day! I consulted my road guide twice during the day, but it turns out it wasn't really necessary. Cycling towards the southwest provided great results, and I had a lot of choice on which roads to take. There were some tight roads where there was only one path, but mostly it was a countryside area with several different main roads (and later in the day a dedicated cycling path called the Pacific Ocean Cycling Road). Except for one or two hills the roads were flat, meaning I did those 120k's all by myself! Honest progress ^_^

About an hour from the hostel I came across an interesting sight: a river, shinkansen tracks, and mount Fuji in the background. Exactly like the place near Atsugi, but this time from the other side of mount Fuji! It made for some nice photos. At this time I was already in the strawberry area: strawberry fields everywhere! For the whole morning I rode the strawberry road, which even smelled strongly of sweet strawberries. Just about at the end of the strawberry road I reached Hattori Hanzo's ninja jinja, which turned out to be a bit of a deception. It wasn't on the ground floor: I had to climb about 20 stairs to get there, and when I got there I found it was way too touristy. So I went down again and had lunch instead. The nice old lady was very nice to me and give me a taiyaki to eat on the way. I seem to be good at making friends with old ladies, yet I haven't encountered a lot of hot Japanese schoolgirls. Hmm...

Next up was an awesome stretch of road right along the oceanside. It continued for very long. So long in fact that I started to wonder where I was going. I then noticed a sign that said 'Nagoya 200km'. In a previous post I said that Japan is pretty small, but I have to admit that I underestimated the distances a bit. I distinctly remember a stretch of this road several kilometers long where I first encountered about 5 or 6 unicyclists, and after that about 7 or 8 people who wore distinctly funny glasses and/or hats. Strange.

I'll post a picture of this later, but I found something weird along the way: vending machines that sell eggs! Just as I passed the place a guy was refilling them. I looked once, looked twice, already passed it and turned around to take a photo. I talked to the egg-refill-guy a bit, and he tried to make me believe that they put live chickens in the machines. I pretended to believe him and laughed out loud as I cycled onwards.

Cycling and cycling, during the day the weather improved and my pace increased from 20kph to 26kph. Then I found the Pacific Ocean cycling road and followed it for a while, but the road kind of sucked. Way too bumpy for my luggage. I spotted another heavily packed (well, packed) cyclist ahead of me and increased my speed a bit to catch up. It turned out to be a nice guy who was cycling towards Nagoya and had already booked a hostel about 12 kilometers ahead. Although I had already found a great camping spot near the beach, I decided to tag along and try my luck in finding a camping spot a bit further up ahead. When I first met other-bicycle-guy he was going way slower than me so I assumed he wouldn't go so fast. I'm pretty sure now that he was waiting for me to catch up to have a chat. As we went along he kept going faster and faster and I had trouble keeping up, although I managed, barely. That is, until the final hillclimb to get the hostel...

I considered staying at the hostel, but I figured that I really should just go with the flow and try my luck in finding a camping place. After getting a hostel membership, which this hostel owner did allow me to (unlike the previous hostel owner), I went back a bit and asked an old lady for a nearby place to camp. She was very kind, and they pointed me to a nearby park... right in front of the youth hostel! It's brilliant too, it has toilets, grass, and is out of sight of pretty much everything. Maybe I'll meet other-bicycle-guy again tomorrow, I look forward to telling him where I slept.

At this point I was already quite content, and I started cycling towards a convenience store to get dinner. On the way I decided that I could push my luck a little farther, and I asked a nearby person if there was a restaurant nearby. So it was, and I just finished an awesome sashimi (raw fish) meal, and I'm enjoying a nice cool beer right now. It's weird because I don't usually enjoy beer so much, but this one tastes absolutely gorgeous.

I'm tired right now so I'll post photos later. Tomorrow I will start cycling the 120 kilometers to the ferry at Nagoya, which will take me to Mie-ken. After that I'll go all the way around Mie-ken, the other-ken-which-i-can't-remember-the-name-of and then reach Wakayama. From there I'll somehow discover a nice road that takes me via Nara to Kyoto. That's the plan! :D

Good night!

Posted in Spirit of Japan | Tagged

Winter?

Posted on 2010-04-16 07:10 by rv

It seems my GPS decided to give up after less than an hour of cold, and it seemed to be wonky for the first few minutes. Anyway, here's the log. Too bad that it didn't record the downhill, because it was quite a nice route.

I made a lot of photos today, so I shared them on Picasa:

I love this hostel! There's just so much to see and discover and take photos of. I quite enjoyed myself here, wandering around, discovering all kinds of things. This place will go in the records as the first awesome place I've discovered during this trip. Speaking of awesome places, there was another awesome building along the way which you can see in Picasa: an old museum of some kind, now it's abandoned and looking crappy, fenced off by barbed wire. I considered investigating it, but I was in the middle of a freezing downhill ride, and I didn't want to waste energy. I regret it a bit, but I'm sure I'll come across more awesome buildings along the way.

Today has been awesome! The snow was an unwelcome surprise at first, but once I got used to it I quite enjoyed cycling in the snow. The scenery was excellent all along the way. I also left some useless stuff at the last hostel, so I'm traveling lighter now, and probably with a better weight distribution as well. Climbing hills is noticeably easier today! The downhill was freezing, but the pace was high so I could see a lot of things along the way. Finding a hostel like this is great too, these kind of places are exactly the ones that I am looking for. Entertaining places with a lot of history, that almost nobody knows about or would look for. Forget the touristy places, hostels like these are the attraction for me.

All the good things come with a price tag though, and in this case it's distance. I underestimated my speed and  booked a hostel quite close to me, meaning I'd already reached it by early afternoon, wasting a couple of hours of cycling time. In return I got some awesome photos and a very nice time under the kotatsu (table with heating element), so I'm happy with this. Now the longest uphill climb is done, and it's safe to say that it will never be as cold again as today. From here on I can relax! :D

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Snow!

Posted on 2010-04-16 02:31 by rv
This is how my bicycle looked like in the morning.

I never expected this to happen. I woke up at 7, seeing a lot of light through the window of my icy cold room. I thought it was sunshine, but no. Everything is covered with snow, and when I left one hour later it was still snowing. I don't really have any clothes fit for this kind of weather. I asked at the local conbini if they sold scarves, but the conbini lady told me that they don't have them in this season. She said "this snow if kind of special". (kono yuki ha tokubetsu). Indeed. I didn't want my face to freeze off so I used a towel instead, and sunglasses against the snowflakes which kept hitting my eyes.

Criminal

Strangely enough this day has been the most fun on this trip so far. The roads are mostly flat, slightly uphill or slightly downhill, and cycling is easy. Besides that, the snow made the landscape very beautiful. It's colder here, so the sakura are still blossoming, and today I witnessed sakura trees covered in snow. Beautiful.

Winter Sakura

I'm at a roadside resting place right now, just finished eating curry udon, which was the best meal I've had in months. I'm getting used to my daily routine of getting up early and preparing the bicycle, then cycling all morning, finding a resting place for lunch, and then deciding where to stay for the night. I just booked a hostel that's even cheaper than the one I stayed at yesterday. I wonder how that will turn out. From here on I'll travel downhill all the way until the coastline. More later!

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Restaurant conversations

Posted on 2010-04-15 09:24 by rv

Yesterday at a ramen place, there was a young guy sitting at the counter, looking absolutely like a criminal, except for one detail: he was wearing a bluetooth headset connected to his phone. This made him seem like a businessman, at least until he started talking. In typical Japanese gangster style there was a lot of "NANDATO KORRRRA, TEMEEE!" etc. meaning "What the f*ck, asshole". I was doubly surprised by this because I asked him about the weather just a few minutes before he started shouting, and he was all polite and nice. I almost laughed when he started yelling to the restaurant's owner: "MOM! This guy is pissing me off. I'm going to beat him up!"... I should have recorded the conversation because it was really funny.

Random snippets overheard today:

  • One middle-aged woman complaining to another middle-aged woman that her friend is acting like a bitch even though they earn the same salary.
  • School girls making fun of their friend. They did funny voices too.
And maybe more later.

Posted in Daily Life , Spirit of Japan

Rain

Posted on 2010-04-15 06:04 by rv

The dry bag came in handy! All the tech stuff safe and dry. I haven't repackaged my stuff yet, because I used my morning time for something else: I found a 'cheap' (3800 yen) hostel for tonight. If the rain was heavy I was planning to take a break, and if it was light then I could look around the area without my luggage. It turned out to be light, so I cycled around lake Kawaguchiko. After mounting my bicycle for the first time after removing the luggage I was really surprised! It's so much easier without the luggage. I really need to reorganize my stuff tonight.

On the way to the hostel
The youth hostel

The inside is similar to the outside. The building has on old traditional feeling, which is another way of saying that everything makes noise as you touch it or walk over it and there's no heating whatsoever. I intended to stay inside my room (well, 8 beds, although no one was there when I left)  for a bit longer, but it was just too bloody cold. 'Cold' seems to be this area's expertise.

You can get a 600 yen discount if you're a member of the Japanese hostel association (or whatever it's called). I asked the owner if I could register for that, but he told me it was 'Japanese-only'. I showed him my alien registration card, told him (in Japanese) that I had an address and lived in Japan, but he told me it was Japanese-only. I see.

After dumping all of my luggage I went out to cycle around the lake.

Did I mention that it's cold?
The clear sky never reached here
Lonely fisherman

After cycling around the lake I figured I might as well go to an onsen (hot spring/bath) instead. There was exactly one onsen on the tourist map I was given, and after some searching it turned out to be closed. Just like everything else around here by the way. I guess in the tourist season this place is busy as hell, but on weekdays like this there's absolutely nothing. The only thing that server as a reminder that a lot of tourists come here is the people's attitude: uncaring. Anyway, I found another onsen on the way back, but when the automatic doors let me in nobody was there. I yelled a bit, walked around a bit, but in the end nobody came. Finally, just as I was leaving, an old guy teleported in from out of nowhere and told me that the bath was closed for today. He did point me to another onsen close by, which was in business, thank god. Early in the afternoon is a strange time to take a bath, and as such nobody was taking a bath when I entered. I couldn't resist the opportunity to take a few snapshots.

The, locker room, I guess
Indoor bath

There was also an outdoor bath, but I didn't want to bring my camera that far in. There was even a second floor with a jacuzzi, which was awesome, and a direct view on the road next to the building, which was less awesome, as people could see me naked.

Some of my Japanese friends reacted surprised when I told them where I am right now. They thought it would take more time. In reality though, Japan is not that big. Tomorrow will be a lot of downhill slopes, so I'm quite confident that I can go down 1100 meters in a short amount of time. Without dying. It's too bad, but I'm going to skip camping in the suicide forest, as it's just too bloody cold, and I would have to delay my trip for another day if I did that. I'll definitely pay it a visit on the way though.

I'm not sure what to do yet in terms of where to stay when I reach the coast, but I'm sure that things will fall into place somehow. Until next time.

Posted in Photography , Spirit of Japan | Tagged

Yesterday's hillclimb

Posted on 2010-04-15 05:32 by rv
Many tiny fish!
Beautiful landscape
My first glimpse of mount Fuji!
CAN YOU SEE IT NOW?
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Forgot

Posted on 2010-04-14 11:19 by rv

Random thoughts that I wanted to post here:

  • Lost my mobile phone charger. I'll be turning it off until I get a chance to buy a new cable.
  • I'm carrying way too much stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to throw away a lot of stuff and repackage.
  • The clothes that I brought by chance have proven to be the best: very old raincoat for cold weather but not heavy rain, very old sweater with hood for cold nights. So far I'm neutral about the 'pro' cycling clothes. At least they got long sleeves so I'm protected against the sun.
  • I'm carrying way too much gadgets. I don't know where to put them.
  • My bicycle's handlebar is full: camera bag, compass, bicycle computer, light. I don't have room for my iPod.
  • Putting the バカ in バカンス --> バカ(baka) means idiot, バカンス (bakansu) means 'vacation'. Pardon me for explaining.
  • I really like being in a hot warm nice comfortable room.
I keep on thinking of weird stuff while I'm cycling, but I forget to write it down. I should have a voice recorder or something.

later!

Posted in Spirit of Japan

GPS route

Posted on 2010-04-14 10:25 by rv

Here's the GPS route, split up into 4 parts because I turned off the device during each break, except for the last breaks, when I was too tired to care.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 --> can't find part 3!

Part 4

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tsukareta

Posted on 2010-04-14 10:05 by rv

I found my limits yesterday, today I surpassed them. And died.

It's amazing how driving in the mountains changes your perspective. At first I was cycling up an incline, then that incline became the new horizontal for me. Then another incline appeared, and I got used to that too. Then another one appeared and I started to wonder why it was suddenly so hard for me to cycle on a flat road. Then I looked back and realized what I was doing.

I was standing on this slope, exhausted, out of breath, and decided to take a break. I started to wonder if it was just my stamina that sucked, and then I saw a squad(?) of cyclists pass me by, suffering and barely making progress. That cheered me up a little. But not for long.

I finally reached a point where I was completely and utterly empty. The slope became so high that no matter if I cycled or pushed the (really heavy) bicycle, I would reach the end of my energy in less than a minute. And there was no end to it! After every corner another even steeper incline appeared. I couldn't go on and just parked my bicycle at the side of the road and sat down. I didn't want to go back, but I couldn't go any further. My legs were ok, but my arms were slightly trembling. I didn't train my arms at all before the trip. I walked the bike uphill a bit, which I could carry on for maybe 3 minutes at a time, but even stopping the heavy bicycle from falling when on an incline takes a lot of effort. To top it all off it was getting colder and colder, and starting to get cloudy.

I kept on going, sometimes walking, sometimes cycling, about 40% moving, 60% catching my breath and waiting for my muscles to recover. I really failed here, because every time I heard the sound of a car in the distance I was hoping that it would be a small van with a nice grandpa inside who would carry me up to the top. That never happened. The last bit was horrible, but somehow I made it to the top. 1100km's high according to my watch, but I forgot to reset it during the night so it's probably wrong (it uses barometric pressure to calculate the altidue, but the pressure changes with the weather so you can't use it for long). At the top I met some cyclists that drove past me earlier. They wanted to take a photo of me, and I gave them my blog address.

After that everything is a bit of a blur. The downhill to lake Yamanaka was just about the right slope for me, so I never had to pedal and I never went too fast. Reaching the lake, I found a ramen shop and had my first warm meal in two days. It was less delicious than I expected somehow. Some people in the restaurant told me it would get cloudy and very cold tonight, and it might even snow. Not exactly ideal weather to camp. I decided to cycle towards Fujiyoshida city 9km's from the lake, thinking there'll be some hotels along the way. There weren't any cheap ones. I made a small detour to see Fujinohakkai, but I kind of went past it in a blur, not even stopping to take photos. I guess I was too tired.

I'm in a hotel right now, almost falling asleep. Depending on the weather I may or may not leave tomorrow. If it's cold, then camping would not be very enjoyable. If it rains, then going downhill would be very dangerous. I may have to wait for the weather to improve in that case. Knowing me, I'll probably end up halfway down already before realizing that it's too dangerous though..

Here's some tips for killer uphill courses:

  • Keep your head down. Never look up. Follow the white line or the cracks in the road with your eyes. Concentrate on that. That should be the only thing on your mind.
  • Listening to music, especially loud, fast-paced music, calms me down. I get the feeling it regulates my heartbeat, like an aural pacemaker.
  • Never look at your watch.
  • Never look at your bicycle computer's distance. (speed is ok, you can try to keep it constant and concentrate on that)
  • If you have an altimeter, don't look at it. You'll become depressed, I assure you.
Basically, it means: concentrate!

Sorry, no photos today. I'm tired and going to bed!

(my face and ears are red from the sun. it took only two days...)

Posted in Spirit of Japan | Tagged

Stumbling my way towards Fuji

Posted on 2010-04-13 11:04 by rv

What a day. I am in pain (muscle ache).

Let's see, where to begin. I am blogging from my tent (yay!) on a side area of national road 413 towards Fuji. I'm staying at a riverside and there is nobody around me. There's a camp area nearby but it's closed. I went and trespassed to check if the vending machines were working, but alas, only water and bread for me, as there are no restaurants nearby either. But let's flash backward a bit to this morning.

No wheel!

Right, so after the room check was complete I was ready to leave, only to find a weird noise coming from my front wheel: there was a huge bulge sticking out of the tire that was hitting the fender. Not good. I went to the bicycle shop to get it fixed and was ready to leave around noon.

Lessons learned the first few hours: steering with two heavy bags on the front wheels takes some getting used to and my luggage is way heavier than I thought. Nevertheless I managed to reach Miyagase lake before 2PM, which amazed me a bit. I contemplated resting for the remainder of the day, but  I decided to continue towards Fuji. I was entering unknown territory for the first time today, as a narrow road took me first steeply uphill, and then steeply downhill for about twice as long, negating all my progress that I gained from climbing towards lake Miyagase. The downhill thrill is great, but it really sucks if you know that you're going to have to go uphill again later to reach your goal.

Fount the road to Fuji!

During a conbini break two Japanese people were interested in my awkward appearance and approached me. I chatted with them a bit in Japanese, slightly surprised that they didn't gaijin me out by trying to talk in English. Interestingly all the people I met today talked to me in Japanese, even though it's quite countryside-y here.

It was around this time that my muscle fatigue set in. Road 413 is a horrible road, going up and up and up all the time, only going downhill for a tiny moment before changing to go up again. I reached my limits way faster than I expected, but I expected that. It was around 4PM that I saw a sign saying 'camp site' with a big arrow, and I decided to follow it. I switched roads and rode about 2 km's away from the main road, steeply downhill, zigzagging a lot, until finally an even steeper road took me towards a campsite near a river. Two Japanese hippies greeted me. Realizing that I went down a very nasty amount I didn't want to cycle back up again, so I was about ready to collapse when I arrived. When the hippies told me the price for a one-night stay (in my own tent!) I became genki again though: 1500 yen for one night, and the restaurant wasn't even open. I got back on my bicycle and walked back uphill, because the incline was way too steep for me to cycle. Those 2 km's uphill was perhaps the worst cycling time of my life. (Well, that and route 70 on Okinawa island :S).

I started to tire more and more, and around 3:00 I was sleepcycling my way uphill, stopping and going, stopping and going. I took a good break and went looking for another campsite. I found a local town (well, 6 buildings at a fork in the road) and asked around for a campsite. An old woman told me I only had to go a bit back to where I came from and there would be a beautiful campsite at the bottom of a valley. Ya no thanks, just came from there. She also told me it was so close you could even walk there easily. I decided to continue and find my own way instead.

Several km's later I found another big sign that said 'campsite' with an arrow to the right. I guess I was quite tired, because I didn't see the '1km ahead' part of the sign, and I also didn't see the 'this is a dead end with no possibility of turning' sign on the road that I took after turning right. It was a weird experience. I went downhill quite fast, and suddenly the road become narrow, I was surrounded by bamboo trees, and abandoned Japanese houses appeared out of nowhere. Stopping was impossible so I went on. The road now resembled a narrow walking path. And then it suddenly changed into stairs. Which was really too bad, because at the end of those stairs was the perfect camp site.

Bad stairs!

I contemplated carrying the bicycle down, but after trying 3 steps I realized that it would kill me. I had to carry the bicycle back up the steep uphill AGAIN, dying a little bit more in the process. Eventually I found a road a bit further ahead that took me the area where I decided to camp, and where I'm blogging this from. Here's some more photos.

In retrospect I did a lot of things wrong, especially with decisions about changing course which cost me a lot of time and energy. I didn't realize that the mountains do not forgive, and I will try to be more careful tomorrow. My current altitude is 350m, so I expect tomorrow to be about 3 times as bad as today. Well, at least I can get up early and take my time. Oh, and I forgot to use my GPS today, so I'll try to use it tomorrow instead. I would post more photos but I'm really tired!

Good night! :D

Posted in Spirit of Japan
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