JAPAN: Ride Day 5

We’re  bussed to a village in the mountains.  It’s Shirakawago Village at the foot of Mt. Haku-san. It looks like a ski town but I don’t see lifts.  It’s definitely a tourist town with most of the tourists Japanese.  We arrive at noon and check-in is 2:00 or 3:00 so we walk around. It’s an interesting village.  Although at altitude it’s much hotter than last week on the coast.  Last week was overcast or cloudy; today we have full sun.  There are limited accommodations and we’re split in two groups.

 The thatched roofs are thick and steep, both because of the snowfall.

 

 

Our room tonight is miniscule.  We have no running water in the room.  I’m really fed up, but not properly fed, with Japanese food.  I’m tired of sitting and sleeping on the floor.  The  next two weeks may be difficult.

JAPAN: Ride Day 4

I was awake way before our 6:00 alarm, listening to the rain.  Today is our longest day and has the most complex set of instructions.  Because of the weather, the ride time is deferred for 1.5 hours.  Most leave at 9:30 in spite of the rain.  We opt to ride in the van until the grocery stop, and then until lunch and then the rest of the way. What the hell!

Some Japanese customs are easy to adapt to; e.g. when putting on the the “robe”, or whatever it is called, you place the right side across your left breast and then cover with the left side.  But slippers are totally baffling. When we checked into the Ryokan his evening we were given a sheet of paper which began with “There are no slippers  in inside of the building.  Please have time by a barefoot or tabi socks.”  Even more confusing is the toilet area.  No matter where, in your hotel/ryokan room of a public rest room, there are slippers inside.  Usually these have a wooden foot platform.  IK guess you can’t pee barefoot.

 

Last night’s Robyn was luxurious as shown above.  Also the Onsen shown below facing the ocean (sea). And the food was fancy, if not entirely satisfying.  Then came breakfast.  Very little was eaten by the Americans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s plan included going to a shopping center where everyone purchases his/her our own lunch. The van would transport the meals for a later meeting point.  It was a very large shopping center, maybe associated with Costco since there were Kirkland potato chips.  There was a large health fare at the shop.  Of course everyone was looking for something tasty after the inedible breakfast.  Later at the lunch stop I observed a couple of fishermen.

 

 

 

We’re again in a fancy Ryokan, see below.  You can see the open window and the next photo  show’s what’s in the window. We’re about the check out onsen and can’t wait for dinner.

 

Tomorrow is not a ride day; we’re transported to another location, in the mountains.

JAPAN: Ride Day 3

I haven’t mentioned that riding on the left side of the road is easy.  It would be a little more difficult if we had traffic circles, but we don’t. We’ve been riding around this peninsula for three days now on what looks like the major road.  But there’s not much traffic.  We’re not sure why but we’ll take it.

First thing this morning is a lesson in decorating chop sticks.  We get a lesson from a master then each get to create our own version.  It looked so easy when the instructor demonstrated.  But it wasn’t and most of us are not proud of our creations.  To get to the class, we had to walk through  the extensive farmer’s market.

 

 

Remember yesterday I mentioned there is a hill with 1,000 rice patties?  Actually, it’s 1004; I counted them.  Past the rice patties, we came upon a decorated river; we have no idea what this is about. (It’s an annual “Boys Day”.) There were hundreds of fish banners strung across the river.  It was much more colorful than the picture shows.

 

 

 

Cycling along the road you undoubtedly miss a lot. Probably not as much as whizzing  by in a car, but still a lot. Not missed below was a man drying seaweed.  The last  photo was when we were at a rest/water stop.  We were sitting at a table, chatting when this Japanese man in a suit walked up and asked “Anyone got a camera?”  I fished mine out of the handlebar bag, we posed and he said “cheeseburger”,  took the photo, gave me back the  camera and disappeared in a nearby bus.

 

Tomorrow is the longest day of the tour.  I’m not looking forward to it; the previous three days have been tough enough. But on Sunday is sort of a rest day.  We take a train to the northwest portion of Gifu to begin more cycling on Monday

JAPAN: Ride Day 2

We woke to winds howling through the open patio door, left open in an unsuccessful attempt to dry  hand-washed cycling  kits.  Breakfast was fairly decent once the coffee arrived.

For a variety of reasons, navigating the route was much easier today.  Brenda and I navigated by ourselves after lunch.  Our guides showed us several things, as the  photos will attest. 

• First was the Tatebe Shrine.  The difference between  shrine and a temple is that the shrine has a gate (not shown in the photo).
• Then we stopped off at the largest bench in the world, a part of which is shown in the photo.  The bench will accommodate 1,000 Japanese – or maybe 350 Americans!
• Next on the tour was an old house which originally belonged to a sea merchant.  Modest by  appearance from the front, the house was many rooms on three levels.  The guide at  the house had to show us everything; he was very proud.

 

 

 

Today’s scenery was much improved over yesterdays. The cycling was difficult; Brenda and I even walked one hill.

Yesterday I went to an Onsen and promised to describe it.  The advertisements look good: naked men standing in a room of chest high water looking at the ocean thru an open wall.  Well that’s a far cry from what we had yesterday.  It much more resembled a hot tub in the YMCA.  No standing; no ocean view.  I was reminded of the hot-springs we visited in Budapest last year.  You could at least stand here and most were in the open air but I was not impressed. So I don’t like hot springs and I don’t like Onsen.  But I don’t like massages either.  Maybe I’m just weird.

Tonight we’re in Wajima, a town of 32,000 on the coast.  The town is known for it’s lacquer ware and tomorrow we’ll have an opportunity to design our own decorated chopsticks.  By the way, at lunch today I made some progress on my chopstick “skills”.

Another thing  in the area, which I hope to see tomorrow, are 1,000 rice fields on the side of one hill.

JAPAN: Ride Day1

 

Although rain was forecast, the morning was overcast but not threatening.  Temperature was probably around 60.

We left in two groups following one of the guides until the “tea break”, about 30 km.  The sun came out briefly and I put in my sun glasses.  But as we approached the sea, threatening clouds developed.  Throughout the day all we got were a few sprinkles.

We have no route sheets; they would be useless because out in the country all signs are in Japanese.  All we have is a useless general map and GPS computers.  In the US, our GPS computers tell us when to turn and which way.  Not so here.  There is a map on the screen, the route is purple and there is an arrow to show where you are.  Not a lot of help, especially if you’re color-blind.  But John Hailey is an excellent navigator so we tried to keep up with him.

Unfortunately, Brenda and I got caught at some stop lights and lost the group, even sight of the group.  Brenda saw a small sign on the road that the guides chalked in so we made that left turn.  But then what?  What if we are or become lost?  We won’t even know what town we’re in if we call the guide. It’s a pretty hopeless feeling. Eventually we come across a couple of the faster riders who had to stop for a minor mechanical problem. We follow them to the  beach and the directions here are “Keep the Sea of Japan” on your left.  And that works until lunch, at about 50 km.

From here on a lot of the riding is on bike paths and we’re able to keep up with John.  The ride seems longer and longer.  In fact it was 10km longer than the advertised 80 km.  And the last miles had LOTS of BIG hills.  We were pretty tired when we finally arrived.  We went to an Onsen (a community bath, both male and female is most hotels and ryokans) to relax; I’ll describe that later.  It’s almost time for “happy hour” and I really need a drink.

Remember yesterday when I told you we went to the wrong hotel in Kanazawa.  Well we weren’t the only ones.  It turns out that sometime in the past year, the first night’s hotel was changed.  Some of us missed the notice.  So I don’t feel so bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Near the end of the ride we passed through quaint fishing villages.  Otherwise, I wasn’t impressed with the scenery today. The azaleas are in full bloom and magnificent.  Also, many of the homes have tidy vegetables gardens.  They grow lots of onions!

 

 

 

Last night our food was 100% fried,   Tonight’s was gourmet – excellent.  Did you know that Tokyo has more Michelin starred restaurants than any city in the world.  Our post dinner entertainment was music on a Japanese harp.

JAPAN: Travel Day 2

 

Here is today’s plan:

• Go to the train station and purchase tickets to Kanazawa.
• Find something to eat. Of course there is a Starbucks in the station.
• It’s a 3-hour ride on the Shinkansen (photo below) or Bullet train.
• Purchase tickets for the remaining train rides later in the trip.
• Take a taxi to the hotel.

Meet the bike group at 5:00. We will have:

• Introductions.
• Fitting to the renal bikes
• Dinner

Tomorrow is the first cycling day, 84 km to Togi where we will stay in a Ryokan with shared bath and an Onsen Spa.  It looks like there is no wi-fi so tomorrow’s BLOG will be delayed.

Probably because of jet lag, we were both awake early so we got up and had most of our chores completed by 8:00.  The Tokyo train station, busiest in the world, was a mad house on multiple levels. Our train arrived early so it could be cleaned. When the cleaning crew was finished they exited the train, lined up by one of the cars and in unison bowed to the customers. Now that’s class.

          BULLET TRAIN TO THE RIGHT

 

I finally screwed up. There are two Kanazawa Hotels and we went to the wrong one.  This took some sorting out but with the assistance of Cycle Japan, it was sorted.  We spent a couple of spare hours walking the Kenrokuen Garden and Kanazawa Castle Park. Brenda asked about tours and the agent shut her window and gave us a private tour. See photo of Brenda and her on the walk.

 

 

   

JAPAN: Travel Day 1

 

I’ve traveled many places in my life but none have intimidated me more than the thought of travel in Japan. For instance I got many street maps of Tokyo and can’t find street names.  Then someone tells me that many streets aren’t unnamed!  How the hell am I going to find my hotel?  The travel is also intimidating. I’ve lost a lot of sleep worrying about this trip.

And the 13.5 hour flight from DFW to Tokyo’s Narita airport was worrisome because the only seats we could get were two in the middle, one behind the other.  We’ve never had seats this bad. But talking to the agents in both Denver and Dallas helped.  We ended up with two aisle bulkhead seats on the same row WITH NO ONE BETWEEN US. We had 4 seats!

When we finally got to Tokyo (Was it only 13.5 hours?) we witnessed Japanese efficiency.  Upon entering Japan everyone is fingerprinted, personally photographed and their passport is photographed.   The line was long but it moved fast. There were 10 fingerprint/photo stations and 16 customs agents.  We were through in no time.

We wanted (1) a train ticket to the downtown train station (72 miles from the airport), (2) a ticket to Kanazawa tomorrow, (3) exchange our certificates for Japan Rail for boarding passes and (4) make reservations for later trips to Kyoto, Hiroshima and Tokyo.  Well we got numbers 1 and 3 done fairly easily. The others  can be done later.

You can set your watch by train arrival, two minutes before published departure times. Another efficiency I’ve never seen before is  markings on the pavement telling you where your car will stop. We were on car 8 and the door stopped directly in front of the #8 marking.  The baggage racks in the front and back of the cars are equipped with chains and locks so you can lock your luggage.  But I’ve heard that thievery is rare in Japan.

It took a little searching to find our hotel, but we didn’t have to get to street level.

So, at the end of day one, I feel much better!  But my two attempts at chop-sticks have been pretty poor.