← Newer posts

Spirit of Japan

Older posts →

On the move again!

Posted on 2010-06-16 02:19 by rv

Yesterday I went drinking (again) with my ex-co-workers. Hanging out with them is a lot of fun, and it's very easy to get back in the rhythm of relaxing during the day and drinking in the evening and night. The situation is worsened by the world cup football because I am going to great lengths to find places to watch Holland's matches. As such I am kind of making myself stay near populated areas, so that there's always a bar or sports pub around where I can watch the match.

My bicycle is back! I picked it up from the bicycle shop today, where it's been since yesterday. I've decided to pay up and let the shop give the gears and the brakes a serious overhaul. It took about a week for the parts to arrive, but yesterday they could finally start working on my bike. When I arrived in the afternoon bikeshopguy was putting the finishing touch to the handlebar, covering it with nice soft gum tape. Pretty much everything gear-related has been replaces, except for the sprockets and chain, which were replaced two months ago before I left. The brakes have been fixed as well. I've got two brake levers for the front brakes, and two brake levers for the rear brakes, two levers close to the center and two levers at the front, in 'race' position. The race-position levers stopped functioning properly a long time ago and lost their strength completely. Now, with new brake wires installed, the brake levers are at equal strength again. Total cost: 20.000+ yen. For all the money that I spent on maintenance on this bicycle, I could easily have bought another (probably better) bicycle. I considered that during the trip: abandoning or selling my bicycle and then buying another one back in Holland, or not buying another touring bicycle again. At the time I thought that this would be my last touring trip, but after sitting still for a while I find that I can't quite abandon my precious bicycle yet. :D

New tape, new gear lever
This gear lever actually displays which gear I'm in.

Now that my bicycle's been upgraded I'm ready to go again, and my stay in Atsugi is pretty much finished. I'm heading north towards Tokyo, a sad sad place to be for a camping cyclist. But if I want to go further north then I have to pass Tokyo somehow, so I might as well do it now, in a straight line (more or less). I got a new map-book of the Tokyo area so I'm pretty sure I won't get lost. So far I've gotten by pretty well just by using my compass and the road signs, so the maps are just a bonus. A slightly heavy bonus.

New derailleur
More derailleurery

It feels like a new bicycle! Gears actually shift properly, and I don't have to coax the lever to select the right gear anymore, nor do I need to change gears three times to change up one gear. Everything is smooth and perfect. I am very happy. Also, the new tape on the handlebars feels mushy mushy and makes me smile every time I touch it.

My bicycle is now hyperdrive-equipped

The rainy season is approaching (as you can see from the photos), which is worrying me a bit. It rained a little bit today, but it was nothing serious. The weather's been great the past few weeks, and it doesn't seem like the weather'll turn (too) sour any time soon. Well, if the situation gets too dire I can always spend a couple of days in the same place and wait for the rain to pass. Back to the simple life!

Posted in Cycling , Spirit of Japan

Rainy season? I don't think so

Posted on 2010-06-15 08:31 by rv

Once again 2010 proves to be an unpredictable year in terms of weather. It's been strange for weeks when I started my trip, shifting from warm to cold many times, with a lot more rain than expected. Now that it's finally supposed to be rainy season the weather's never been better, and there's no sign of rain at all. Which is great, because I can continue my cycling for a bit longer. ^_^

Although in the past I applied the term 'cyclographer' to myself, recently there's a lot more cyclo-ing going on and a lot less graphing. As such I only took 7 photographs during this cycling trip. Once I'm in the right flow it's hard to stop at the side of the road, take out my camera and take a picture. Also, sending my DSLR home has left me a tad uninspired. I'll have to work on that.

(Japan wouldn't be Japan if there weren't at least a couple of power lines messing up the photo ;) )

Right after this short trip I went to the bicycle shop: the parts that they ordered for me finally arrived! My bicycle is at the shop right now, seems like it'll take about a day to replace the parts..

Posted in Photography , Spirit of Japan

Yabitsu Pass

Posted on 2010-06-14 08:59 by rv

I finally found time to do a full-day cycling trip while still in Atsugi. Staying in a hotel offers me the benefit of leaving my heavy luggage behind, so I can attack some roads that I otherwise would not dare to travel on. The Yabitsu pass is one such road. It goes from lake Miyagase, where I started my trip from two months ago, all the way south until Hadano, a city on the far side of OoYama, a mountain I climbed frequently while I lived here. The total distance is about 70 kilometers, which is quite doable, but it involves a climb of 700 meters, which is something I'd prefer to avoid if I was fully loaded with luggage. This time though, I want to test my strength and see if my knees have recovered, so I've decided to challenge myself a little bit.

This is where the big trip started from

The ride towards the lake was fairly uneventful, and I enjoyed the beautiful weather. Since I've driven this road a lot of times before, I can use it to see if I've improved my hillclimbing speed. Sadly, not much..

I zoomed past the lake, crossed the bridge in the middle of the lake and turned back south again at the other side, entering Route 70, also known as Yabitsu Touge. Immediately the road narrowed and all signs of civilization disappeared. I was back in nature again! Had I known that such a beautiful road was this close to Atsugi I would have come this way more often. The road roughly followed the path of a small river all the way until high up in the mountains . There were a lot of zigzags, but the uphills were not too tough, and after a while I got into a nice rhythm. After I got into the flow I started to notice the effect of not carrying luggage, and I realized that this road would be a near-death experience had I brought all my stuff. Fortunately I didn't, and I enjoyed the climb and the natural sights a lot.

Narrow roads, nice river

I reached the top in the early afternoon, which I reocgnized because I had hiked there before. My altimeter read 700+ meters and I got ready for an awesome downhill ride. Zigzaggy roads, beautiful scenery and great weather. Couldn't have been better. I'm really glad I installed the new brake blocks before this trip, because I had to use them a couple of times today in situations where the worn-out blocks would have failed. In the past I have cycled down mountains faster than this, but this downhill was in overall the longest downhill at the highest average speed. I went down so fast my ears popped :D

There was an observatory on the way down, and I stopped to take some photos. It was quite an impressive sight in reality, but the photos turned out quite hazy. I'll have to fix that later.

Slight bummer: the last bit of uphill was quite an effort, and as I was hoisting myself up the mountain, my knees started to hurt again. I don't feel anything in daily life situations, and even climbing long stairs is not an issue. Cycling is no problem except for situations like this where I really have to put a lot of force on the pedals. I really need to take it easy for a couple more days..

So I say, but after returning to the flat roads my knees felt fine again, and since it was still quite early I cycled a bit farther south and ended up at the seaside.

Ocean lookout
rvVision(tm)

I hung around there for a while and then cycled back to Atsugi, just in time to catch some sun rays on my former working place.

My previous working place

Pretty much everyone I know doesn't really like to see their working place's building in their free time, but I don't really mind. Even when I was employed, it was always interesting to see the lights on each floor go out every night at a different time.

What to do? Being back in the city without a clear goal kind of sucks! I want to go back to Kyushu again...

Posted in Spirit of Japan

An unfortunate surprise

Posted on 2010-06-13 06:50 by rv

Am I never free of Atsugi?!? It seems that the longer I stay here, the more things I need to do. Can't wait to be back on my bicycle again..

I finally organized my heavy luggage, threw away a lot of old clothes and went to the post office to send my stuff back to Holland. Note for people in similar situations: if you send by SAL it takes 2-3 weeks (but probably less) and is fairly cheap, but EMS takes one week and is more expensive. Here's the nag: SAL only accepts luggage up two 20kg, whereas EMS accepts up to 30kg for one piece of luggage. If you have a suitcase heavier than 20kg you're stuck with the expensive option. Fortunately my suitcase was exactly 21kg, and after removing a heavy coat I was able to send it by SAL for 10.000 yen less. That's nice savings!

Feeling happy about saving some money I skipped and whistled towards the city hall to ask if there was anything else to finish up. As usual, I have done no research on this topic whatsoever, and I kind of forgot to let the city know that I hadn't been living in Atsugi for the past two months. I explained my situation to a friendly person there, who told me there was nothing for me to do, just at the moment of leaving the country to mention at the immigration at the airport that I won't be coming back. Fairly easy, right? Then the nice friendly person told me to go to the second floor and ask at the tax counter if there was anything else for me to finalize. The tax counter was a very friendly pretty lady, who kindly presented me with a smile and a request to pay two hundred fifty thousand yen.

Uh, what? Did I miss something here? Here I thought I was being nice and all, formally finalizing my stay in Japan by deregistering myself from the city hall, and they present me with a bill of 250.000 yen (~2000 euro btw)? That's not very nice. When I asked about the how and why, the nice happy lady turned evil and started spouting many long and complicated Japanese words that I didn't at all understand. Finally I managed to get the gist of it, and it seems that usually the company pays the tax, but since I quit my job now I have to pay it myself. And not just the tax since I quit my job, all the tax from this year and last year as well. Argh. Feeling doubtful about paying such a large amount of money I asked an acquaintance to confirm it, but haven't received a reply yet. I'm going to gather a bit more information before settling this..

Right now I'm wishing that my Japanese skill was higher. Then I would be able to read Japanese websites much faster, and I would be able to read the pamphlets that I got from the city hall about taxes. With my current skill I'm just lacking information and running into surprises like this is not helping my morale a lot. I'm guessing it'll take at least 2 more years before I'm able to read and understand tax-related legalese in kanji, though...

Posted in Japan , Spirit of Japan

The right path

Posted on 2010-06-10 11:36 by rv

How do you know that what you're doing is right? And how do you decide which way is right and which way is wrong? Do you base it on logic, feeling or both? These questions have been the main motivation for my cycling trip, and I've met a lot of people on the way who are, like me, traveling to find the answer (an answer?) to these questions.

There's two people: Frank and Harry. Frank is a young guy, fairly energetic, intelligent and he likes to travel. He makes his decisions based mostly on logic. His underlying purpose is to save money, so he will go wherever the winds of fortune take him, accepting anything that comes in his way. His lifestyle may seem erratic at first glance, but if you consider his underlying reasons it makes a lot of sense. Then there's Harry. Harry is always in a hurry. He travels with a bit more luxury but still manages to maintain the 'traveling spirit' of adventure and going where other people usually don't go by means that other people don't use. His traveling style is eccentric. He doesn't usually take the time to stand still and enjoy the moment. There's always another goal ahead. If there is no more goal ahead he will create a goal immediately, right there on the spot. He avoids those empty moments where his life has no meaning, no goal to work towards. Harry is very different from Frank. Frank takes his time and cherishes the moments of having no goal. He's waiting for his compass to recenter so that he can proceed in the right direction. Harry does not wait for those moments, he just picks a direction and goes for it, for better or worse. So what happens when Frank and Harry meet?

Well, surprisingly, the two get along quite well. Initially the goal-centeredness of Harry overwhelms Frank, but eventually Frank's compass resets and he realizes whether he's going in the right direction or not. Until his compass resets he's just tagging along for the ride. Eventually things settle down, moments of clarity and logic appear, and the right direction becomes clear to both of them. Things that they might never have realized if they were alone can become clear in an instant when they are together. It's a great help to view things from a different perspective. What will eventually happen to Harry and Frank, I don't know. They're still waiting for their compasses to resettle.

As for me, I'm kind of a mix of both, but probably more of a Frank-type. I like to take my time to decide my direction, but sometimes I get impatient and just barge off in a random direction, hoping it'll turn out alright. It usually turns out alright. When I decide things, I ultimately use logic to make my decisions, but I do take my feelings into account when making my decisions. If something decided on pure logic alone will seem like it will make me unhappy, then I will take that into account and try to make a different decision. It's all a matter of putting the right weight on your feelings. Some feelings are best left ignored, while others should get a high priority even if it doesn't make immediate logical sense. I guess for me, I place weights on my feelings based on instinct or my gut feeling, so I'm really quite in the middle between logic and feelings, between Harry and Frank.

During the course of my trip I created many hypothetical situations for myself, and asked myself "Is this the path that I should take?". My gut feeling always said no. Eventually I decided on a path that seems logically the 'best' path, but still, when I ask my gut feeling it doesn't reply. Maybe I've reached a point where deciding my life based on a gut feeling is no longer feasible, or maybe I haven't reached the right path yet. My gut feeling tells me it's the latter :D Although the trip did not provide me with the answer that I was looking for, at least I am confident now that I will recognize the right path when I see it. I am happy with that.

Posted in Spirit of Japan , Thoughts

Reflection

Posted on 2010-06-08 07:05 by rv

Now that I'm back in Atsugi I'm suddenly quite busy. All the things that I needed or wanted to do before leaving Japan I have to do now, in the timespan of one week. I can't leave things half-finished because I won't be coming back to this place. To have some fun while I'm here I arranged routes for four different day trips, but it looks like I might not have time to finish even one of them. It's quite a different feeling from being on the road with an unlimited amount of time to cycle anywhere you like. I'm time-restricted now, and every appointment I make with my friends eliminates another stress-relieving cycling trip. There's just no time. I find myself longing back to the days where the only things to worry about were the weather and where to sleep tomorrow. But at some point I have to resume my normal life.

I sent back some of my belongings today. The fee was astounding: 32.000 yen for two boxes, and that's via one of the cheaper methods of transportation. I still have a huge suitcase in my hotel room which will cost even more to ship back. I'm lightening my cycling load again, getting rid of stuff I don't need, like superfluous clothes that I never use and my DSLR, which is finally going back to Holland. Cycling will be a lot easier after I get rid of that. I'm really wondering why I have all this stuff with me. I don't think I really need it.

People here are rude and unhappy. I've seen a lot of people in the countryside who were smiling, or  focusing on something in a positive way. Here in the Tokyo area the people are sad. I have not seen a single businessman/salaryman who looked happy. They all look annoyed or pissed off. They're probably so used to being unhappy that they think it's normal. Maybe it's the same for myself.

Before I started my trip I waited for about two weeks for the weather to improve (which it never really did). I wandered around in the city having nothing to do, and felt really unsatisfied. That particular feeling is a feeling I really didn't like, and I'm starting to feel the same way again just hanging around in the same city right now. As much as I used to like it here, I'll be glad to get out of here. Sitting on my bicycle driving to a destination feels a hundred times better than sitting in a hotel room feeling lazy.

Departure status: I changed brake blocks today, and the new ones feel very strong! I'm ready for mountains again. I also did my laundry so luggage-wise I'm ready to depart. One big issue right now: the bicycle. I went to my usual bike shop to get the gears overhauled, but it will take a while for the parts to arrive. Should be done this week though.

Lastly, this is what the wheel-mounted magnet for the bicycle computer looks like after 3000 kilometers.

Metal attracting device
Posted in Spirit of Japan | Tagged

Be wary of daily life

Posted on 2010-06-07 08:18 by rv

I'm back in Atsugi, and normality is flowing back into my life, despite my best efforts to resist it. Talking to friends and making plans to meet up have basically bound me to this place for at least a week, and I am slowly coming to terms with that. My instinct is telling me to get the hell out of here and go camping in the mountains, but then I realize that I really should take a short break, give my leg some rest and take care of all the loose ends that I have left here. The next time I leave Atsugi, I won't come back.

I went shopping today. During the journey some of my clothes got very dirty and I threw them away, so I needed some replacements. I also went to Yodobashi camera, expecting to enjoy myself in the presence of so much cool technology, but I found that there was nothing there that I really needed, so I quickly left again.

Later that day I contemplated camping under a bridge, but decided to take it easy for a couple of days. I found an even cheaper hotel and went there to check in. It's usually the policy in Japan (and in the rest of the world I guess) to make a reservation before you arrive at a hotel, but I've rarely been rejected without a reservation. There were some cases where the hotel was fully booked, but that only happens on festival days and weekends. This time was no different, and there were rooms available. When I asked about the rates, the receptionist presented me with a price that was about 2000 yen higher than was advertised on the website!

The receptionist explain to me that the cheaper price is only for online bookings, and that I had to pay more because I came to the reception in person. I told her that I had a laptop in my backpack and could take it out and book it online right there at the spot, hoping that she would see the insanity, but no. She told me to please book it online, so I took out my laptop, stood at the reception, and made a reservation online. She then proceeded to check her computer, printed out my reservation, and let me pay for the room. How retarded is that?

Anyway, from here on out I'm turning things down a notch. To prevent myself from becoming utterly bored (and fat) I'm going to do day trips with my bicycle, so I'll keep on blogging about that. There might be another surprise this month, but you'll find out about that later.  ;)

Posted in Spirit of Japan

Home but not home

Posted on 2010-06-06 08:10 by rv

The route from Yokohama to Kamakura turned out to be an interesting one. It was much more mountainous than I expected, and without a map, many bending roads and no point of reference I soon began to wonder if I was going in the right direction. I climbed up a huge hill and descended into a densely populated but deadly quiet valley and was suddenly surrounded by mountains. A quick ask-for-directions at a nearby gas station helped me out though, and I managed to find my way onto a big road.

Kamakura is a great place to cycle! There's a lot of temples, shrines and other old buildings everywhere, and there's a lot of green at the side of the road. It's hard to believe that such a beautiful place is right next to big ugly cities like Yokohama and Tokyo. I was a little disappointed at Yokohama actually. I used to think it was a very beautiful city, but as soon as you leave the area between Yokohama station and Minato Mirai it quickly becomes just an ordinary, slightly dirty Japanese city, with a lot of homeless people.

My beach

I'd never cycled between Kamakura and Enoshima before, but I knew I was back home. One left-right, one uphill-downhill and I was at Enoshima. This was the road that I've traveled so many times I've lost count. Sometimes for training, sometimes to take photos, sometimes to go on a trip with friends. It definitely felt like home. I cycled to Hiratsuka, took a break at the beach at my usual place, cursed my leg which still hurts when walking on the soft sand, and then continued onward to Atsugi. Returning to my home base.

Who could possibly forget this street?
Or this one?

But it isn't really my home base any more, and there is really nothing binding me to this city right now, besides wanting to see my friends. As I got closer and closer to Atsugi I felt more and more as if I was not returning home, but just visiting another city, a city where my old friends just happened to live in, but nothing more than that. I realized that I could just as easily stay at a neighboring town instead, or camp in the somewhat-nearby mountains. I might do that later on, but not today. I need to give my knee some rest, so I checked into the cheapest business hotel I could find and am now in a hotel room near Hon Atsugi station. Returning to this place made me realize for the first time that I no longer belong here, and that I am free to go wherever I please. I will never again cycle the same route from my apartment to work every morning, and I will never cycle back and forth between my apartment and the station in various states of drunkenness. I feel less sad about that than I thought I would.

I'm traveling onwards! Atsugi is not my final destination. It's just a temporary resting place until I find the next challenge. As for how long I will stay here, who knows? I might keep that a secret for a little while ;)

Home

(Side note: the bloody coin laundry here costs 700 yen!?!?! Looks like I'll be visiting the youth heim once more before I leave..)

Posted in Spirit of Japan

Escape from Tokyo

Posted on 2010-06-05 13:41 by rv

Great, I'm in Tokyo. Now how the hell do I get out of here?!

That's how I felt a couple of hours ago. I just got off the ferry at Odaiba and had to make my way out of there. I tried to get on the rainbow bridge but when I arrived at the entrance there was a big sign saying BICYCLES NOT ALLOWED. The security guy there was very friendly and explained to me why bicycles are not allowed: it seems that the walkway is only 1.5 meters wide, so it's dangerous. I tried to persuade him by looking very tired, very foreign, very confused, but even begging didn't help. I had to go the long way round, which took over an hour. Even before the hour had passed I was already fed up with cycling in Tokyo. I have to admit that this unexpected event could easily have been avoided if I had checked the internet before getting on my bicycle..

Since the ferry only arrived one hour late instead of the expected four hours late, I still had some daylight left, but I wasted it by waiting for traffic lights in Tokyo. Since I didn't have any maps of the area I followed my compass+common sense again, which turned out quite well. Avoiding small roads and following big roads in a generally south-west-ish direction got me on the right road to Yokohama, and after I got out of the center of Tokyo things sped up quite a bit. I zoofed past Kawasaki and soon made my way into Yokohama, where the Landmark Tower server as my lighthouse and guided me to my destination. Cycling at night is definitely the way to go when you're in the city: less traffic and less daylight wasted on ugly boring roads.

Yokohama pissed me off quite a bit. I had decided to sleep at a manga cafe tonight, and the highest probability of finding one of those is near Yokohama station. Since the area is quite crowded, especially on a Saturday night, I wanted to park my bicycle someplace safe. I cycled around the station for about an hour trying to find, but there wasn't any. When I was in Hiroshima there was a beautiful underground bicycle parking area that was secured by surveillance cameras, but in Yokohama there is nothing? That's just shit. I was considering giving up and cycling another 30km's to the seaside to plant my tent when I found a manga cafe and a bicycle parking place along the roadside. I'm taking a chance here because the parking place does not seem very safe at all to me. I'll find out tomorrow if all of my luggage is still there.

Tomorrow I'll be back in Atsugi! I'm planning to take it easy for a couple of days and take care of some business, but I'm not really intent on sitting still. Now that I've decided not to stay in Japan for too long, I want to go around more, and it's likely that I'll be going around by bicycle a bit to maybe find some interesting places to camp. That way I'll save some money too. Anyway, first I'd better get some rest, then tomorrow morning I can escape from Yokohama. Good night!

Posted in Spirit of Japan | Tagged , ,

The true spirit of Japan

Posted on 2010-06-03 23:19 by rv

Good morning :) I have some catching up to do.

It's 7AM right now. I'm at a family restaurant downloading stuff to watch while on the ferry to Tokyo. I found out that the Docomo USB dongle has a bandwidth cap that lies around 150kilobyte/second. If you download more than that, the speed will drop instantly and will only get back to normal by reconnecting. Rather evil if you consider that they advertise with speeds of up to 7.2mbps.

Yesterday morning I woke up and I could hardly move my legs, left and right. It seems that during the hike I tried to use my left leg less because it hurt a lot, so my right leg took the hit. Result: nasty muscle pain in both legs. Yay me. I've been trying to move as little as possible ever since returning from the hike two days ago, but some things are hard to avoid. Things like getting to the ferry terminal to catch the ferry to Tokyo, for example. You can imagine my happiness when I stepped on my bicycle, cycled around a bit, and felt no pain at all! It seems that I'm not using the muscles that I hurt during hiking while on my bicycle, making small circular movements that don't stress the legs a lot.

I was planning to return, but my other three buddies were planning to rent a car and travel around the island together. I did a lot of verbal translating while hanging out with them because Miro did not understand Japanese, and my Japanese buddies' English was not that great either, so communication was a bit of a problem. Renting a car turned out to be more expensive than they thought, so eventually they gave up and each went their own way. We split up and I got on the ferry back to Kagoshima, but not after getting a flat tire. The pump that I'm carrying with me and used to praise so much failed today, and couldn't get enough pressure in. Fortunately there was a bicycle rental shop nearby with a proper pump that I could use. At least I didn't puncture it this time.

Yakushima port side youth hostel

Yakushima is one hell of a weird island! Did I mention that before? Even if I did, I really should emphasize this again. I have to admit that I was biased against Yakushima when I first arrived, for two reasons. The first reason is that everyone I met on my trip recommended Yakushima and said it was great. From past experience I generally know that I will be disappointed in such places. The second reason is that I've been to Yoron island, south of Yakushima. Yoron was a true tropical island with beautiful blue oceans and white beaches, and I had a great time there. It would be hard for Yakushima to live up to that experience, and when I first laid eyes on the coastline of Yakushima I was disappointed even more. It's just an island. It's just Japan. There's nothing special about it. There's the same towns, the same mountains in the background, the same ocean in the foreground. Plain. Boring.

Well, until you get to know it. Yakushima has a lot of character, and it's definitely worth it to dig a little bit deeper to bring out its personality. For one thing, all the people on the island are crazy. Crazy, but not in a bad way. There's a lot of strange people wandering around, and the impression they gave off made me reluctant to talk to them. Like suspicious old weird guy who gave us a ride two days ago: his manner of speaking when you first meet him immediately makes you want to get as far away from him as possible, but after you get to know him better he turns out to be a nice guy, and quite easy to get along with. The same goes for the old guy we met in the park who didn't stop talking for two hours, but also offered us to stay at his place and drink some sake with him. I guess it's the way things are done in Yakushima. If you're used to cold-hearted Tokyo people who are always in a hurry then the island lifestyle is quite a change, and a welcome change it is too. The people are great, the nature is great, the experience is great. But the outside of the island is just like anywhere else in Japan.

The pink ferry

Thanks to the people I met and traveled with on Yakushima it turned out to be an experience that I will not soon forget. I will always remember Yakushima as a place where I met great people and did crazy things, a true place of adventure. When I think of Yakushima my mind immediately flashes back to the second day of our hiking trip. Early in the morning, it was very cold, and we were hiking towards the highest point. Walking through small streams, soaking our feet wet and using ropes to climb the huge rocks on our way, we didn't say a word for almost an hour. Silently walking in the rain. A moment I will remember for a long time. I didn't expect such an event to happen, and to be able to hike Yakushima with my three buddies was simply amazing. When I got on the ferry back to Kagoshima I sat on the back deck, listening to music while Yakushima faded away in the distance. At that moment I realized that I had finally found the Spirit of Japan that I was looking for.

WHARGARBL

Approaching Kagoshima I had another surprise waiting for me: Sakurajima was erupting again! And this time the ashes were going towards the city. Everything, literally everything was covered in a thick layer of dark volcanic dust. I can imagine nobody ever bothers to wash their car any more in Kagoshima, because there's really no point. How can people live in a city like that? It's so hard to breathe that  you basically can't be outside when the volcano erupts. I'm sure that if nobody cleaned the city it would look like Pompeii within a month. I cycled a bit southward and caught another ferry to take me across the bay, cutting 20 kilometers off my journey. Cycling Sakurajima would have been a painful experience with such a huge ash cloud everywhere.

Ash cloud on Sakurajima
A city covered in dust

At the ferry port I had to wait and took some photos of the ashyness.

This car is white. Really.
That's not carbon fiber

The ferry arrived at a city called Tarumizu at around 6PM, and I started cycling. Usually I stop cycling well before this time. It turned out to be a pleasant change. I saw a great sunset while on the road, and enjoyed the cooldown that the evening brings. I had nearly two hours until it got dark, and I stopped at a random sushi restaurant which turned out to be delicious. Everything on the conveyor belt was fresh and awesome. It was dark when I went out again. For a moment I considered finding a place to stay for the night, but I thought it would be better to make a final race to the finish line. Well, it wasn't really a race, as I went slower than usual, but it felt like it.

Cycling at night is interesting! It's the first time during this trip that I've cycled at night, and it's quite an experience. Countryside roads in Japan have no lighting at all and my front light is rather weak, so at times when there are no cars near me I can't really see the road. All I can see is the white line, which was my marker for the whole way. At times the road would suddenly become bright and a car would appear behind me. I can use the car's headlights to go back to the sidewalk at times like that, but when the car disappears I'm riding blind and can't see anything, so I usually just stay on the road, slightly to the right of the white line. That's where I belong.

I arrived at Shibushi, where the ferry to Tokyo leaves from, at about 10PM, much earlier than I thought. I passed through here about a week before, on my way to Cape Sata, so I knew my way around. It was very dark though, but I managed to return to a park that I had spotted earlier, in the middle of an industrial area near the ferry port. With no one around it wasn't difficult to find a good spot for my tent, and I set up camp there. I slept better than expected, and woke up just in time to see the sunrise.

Good morning again
Nobody home

Perhaps I didn't mention this before, but I'm way too early! The ferry leaves 6 hours later, so I didn't really have to cycle at night. But I wanted to. It's the one thing I hadn't done yet on this trip, so I'm satisfied now. My knees are starting to feel better, and I think that after two days of rest they'll be okay. When I get back to Tokyo I'm planning to cycle to Yokohama, and from there along the seaside back to Atsugi, along the road that I used to train myself on. Taking that road as my 'victory road' is just something that I have to do. It's the only way to go back for me. Any other road would feel less good.

Posted in Photography , Spirit of Japan | Tagged , ,
← Newer posts

Spirit of Japan

Older posts →