The colorful wolf

Today was one of those days that starts out simple, and then gradually changes into something unexpected. My plan for today was to fix my bicycle's gears, which have been behaving wonky for about a week. I can't use my highest gear at the front. I decided to fix it myself, so armed with a bunch of tools and a positive attitude I walked towards my bicycle. Thirty minutes later I gave up. I went to the bicycle shop at the other end of Atsugi, and a boy no older than 14 fixed the problem in less than 10 minutes. And charged me 1500 yen for it. Well, serves me right for not trying harder, I guess.

Since I was at the other end of town anyway I decided to take the scenic route back with my now-fixed bicycle. A long time ago, when I still cycling regularly for exercising purposes, I used to have two favorite routes. One of them was the flat straight road towards the seaside, and the other route would take me towards the mountains, going over a fairly large hill (twice)  and then back to Atsugi alongside a small river. The second route is way shorter but much harder because of the differences in height. It's also much more scenic. And, as I found out today, also a lot of fun to drive in winter.

This image shows my favorite hill in Atsugi. It's a nice long downhill, starting from an industrial and residential area suddenly opening up into a small countryside valley that suddenly comes into view right after the downhill starts. After you reach the bottom you still have enough speed left to turn left and follow the road, which zigzags and goes down a bit more right after that. It's quite refreshing, but don't take my word for it, watch the video instead.

Since I was feeling exploratory today I decided not to take the normal route back after crossing the first mountain. Instead I explored the area for a way towards OoYama, the really big mountain, which I knew was possible by looking at Google Earth. Eventually, after cycling uphill for a ghastly long time, I reached the highest point, and proceeded downhill through a very tiny tunnel, finally passing the second mountain that I wanted to cross.

The tunnel exit was quite steep, and my speed was high, so when I suddenly noticed a monkey crossing the road a mere 50 meters in front of me I hastily tried to brake as hard as I could. I didn't hit the monkey of course, but I did manage to follow it up a hill and shot a couple of pictures before it disappeared. As I was standing on the hill I noticed another monkey running across a field at the opposite end of the road. I never knew monkeys were this close to Atsugi, only 20 minutes away by bicycle. Brilliant!

Monkey bugger walking away from me!

monkey monkey monkey

Field monkey watch out!

I walked around the area a bit, and shot some more photos. Somehow I don't feel like it's winter at all. Seems more like autumn to me. The trees might agree with me, cause a lot of them still have their leaves, or are only starting to lose them.

Middle of nowhere.

The monkey scene

Hidden mist village

I have to admit I was annoyed at my S90 today for not being fast enough. Taking it out of my pocket and waiting for it to start up takes too long. Waiting for focus takes too long. Adjusting the ISO takes way way way too long! It's so frustrating when you see the monkey disappear around a corner and your camera is still trying to focus.. Guess I should've brought my 50D. I also got a chance to try out the iContrast mode on the S90. It seems to work well in exactly the kind of situation as shown below. I can't speak for other situations though, and I still suspect it might make the image worse if there's not a lot of dynamic range in the picture.

Just imagine, all of this wouldn't have happened if I was able to fix my bicycle myself! :D