JAPAN: Ride Day 8

We’re in Gujyohachiman (That’s a mouthful) Japan. Speaking of mouths full, we ate last night at the small restaurant in this small hotel.  All three couples ordered barbecued eel, by far the best Japanese dinner so far.

Today is an easy ride following the Nagara River (see photo) which eventually becomes the Kiso River downstream.  Downstream is the same as downhill! These two rivers along with the Ibi, are sometimes referred to as the Japanese Rhine because of similarities with the Rhine in Europe.

 

Since we crossed some small mountain yesterday the  rivers have been flowing to the Pacific.

Due to other commitments, five of the 20 riders (including the leaders!) have left the group.  The celebration dinner this evening will be for 15 riders and the 3 guides.

We have another total Japanese breakfast this morning. They’re elaborate; we each have 12 small bowls or dishes.  I eat a little out of 3 or 4 of them, mostly rice. A little soup. Then I come back to the room and eat a Power Bar.  For the rest of the trip we’ll be in larger cities and hopefully they’ll have some western dishes.  If not, I’m sure we can find a McDonalds and/or Starbucks.

We did make a great find about lunchtime: a bakery!  Mostly made from rice flower, they were REALLY GOOD.  And a nice garden patio to boot.

 

 

Check-in isn’t until 3:00 and we have plenty of time so we shop a little. Barb finds the lamp store (“Interior Light Pure”) interesting but they won’t ship to the US.  Lamps remind me of electricity.  The Japanese wall plugs look exactly like ours, except only two pronged.  We know that the Japanese system is 100 volts at 50 cycle instead of our 120 volts at 60 cycle. All of our appliances work w/o an adapter or converter.  I suspect if we had an old analog electric clock it would not keep proper time because of the frequency differences.

 

 

 

 

 

We have a Japanese bedroom tonight.  I’m writing this blog on the little table in front of the windows.

 

 

 

One window is open for the breeze and the hotel is right by the river. There are boats docked outside which remind me of the ones in Venice.  Our celebration dinner is on a boat tonight.

The ride is over and we’re relieved that there were no accidents or injuries. I don’t even know of a flat tire the entire trip! Although we were mostly on small roads without traffic today we did have a close call. Coming into a town a large truck came so close to us – within inches – that even the guide was scared.  We didn’t have room to move to the left so all we could do was hold on. Pretty scary; it’s easy to lose your balance in a situation like this.

We’re in Gifu, both a Prefecture and a town. It is in the center of Japan, the crossroads between the east and west.  There used to be a saying, “Control Gifu and you control Japan.”

The celebration dinner. You imagine a yacht – ok maybe a house boat. A Michelin Starred Chef cooking Kobe steaks on the beach. Well no. It’s a row boat and the food is in a bento box on the table.  Now I’ll have to admit this was one of the better Japanese dinners we’ve had. But not luxurious; we couldn’t even wear our shoes in the boat.  Oh yes, only 2 glasses of wine, whine only. 

And we spent way too much time watching “cormorant fishing”. A cormorant is a type of bird.

Because cormorant fishing is a daily activity for nearly five months of the year, the fishing masters begin each day by selecting ten to twelve healthy cormorants for the evening’s activities. When the birds are selected and the boats are prepared, the six fishing masters draw ropes to determine the order in which they will fish.

When the cormorants catch the fish, they are brought back to the boat using ropes attached to their bodies. When they are back in the boat, the fishing masters remove the fish from the birds’ throats. Each bird can hold up to six fish in its throat. The birds are prevented from swallowing the fish because of a ring tied around their necks. The cormorants, however, are still able to swallow smaller fish. Though the ropes are strong, the fishing masters are able to quickly break them if a bird’s rope gets caught beneath rocks, ensuring the bird will not drown.

Today, this is practiced primarily for tourists, and primarily in Gifu, Japan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Japan: Ride Day 7

It’s the penultimate riding day and it looks like a good one. The temperature is in the 60’s, the sun is shining and there’s not much wind.  The ride is 74 km and the profile shows two hills.  The map says “Nice road in the forest.”  Yes, it is.  We have a tea stop at 28 km.  The first peak looks like it’s at 29 km but I’m still climbing, very slowly, at 32 km.  Lunch is at a store/deli at  44 km.  Brenda and I choose a beef curry, not much beef but plenty of noodles.  The profile shows another peak after lunch but we never see it and don’t miss it.  We’re warned of a 1.3 km tunnel.  Based on previous dark tunnels we’re concerned and arrange for the luggage vehicle to follow us, lighting the way and blocking traffic.  It turns out that this tunnel was well lit and downhill; we probably wouldn’t have a problem doing it on our own.

The guides have promised a great gelato shop at 60 km but it is closed on Tuesday.

 

 

Our club has outsourced the operation of this tour to Cycle Japan.  We have three very competent, friendly and hard working guides Saori, Ken and Kevin.  Saori and Ken, both Japanese, are shown below. The third guide Kevin is an American who speaks fluent Japanese.  He and his family have lived in Japan for about 10 years.  This is Kevin’s first bike trip as a guide.  He is a writer and teacher.

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Until now the rice we’ve seen has been recently planted; the shoots are barely above the water.  Today we saw some much more mature.  Incidentally Ken told me that Japanese grown rice is 10 times more expensive that rice imported from Texas.  Can this lead to Japanese with a Texas drawl?

JAPAN: Ride Day 6

 

When we check into the hotel this afternoon, Takayama – a town on 60,000 in the mountains, I look for the shoe locker and am informed this is a Western style hotel. I can wear my shoes in the lobby!  We  have 2 beds that are not on the floor and a private bathroom complete with tub, shower, toilet and lavatory, a small table and two chairs.  A far cry from yesterday when there was nothing in the room other than a coffee table and straw mats – no way to live if  you ask me.

I forgot to tell you what happened yesterday.  The previous evening I spent more time than usual in the onsen, even shaving.  Then yesterday morning I went back.  But things didn’t look right. Is this where I was yesterday? Maybe I’ve been in too many of these.  And then Brenda informed me that during the night the hotel management switched the female and male onsens  I’m confused enough over here people. Don’t play with my mind.

‘Don’t  think I’ve reported that most public bathrooms have both eastern/Asian (squat) toilets and European/American tank types.  And almost all of the euro/American toilets have heated bidet toilet seats. Wow. Disclaimer: We have these bidet seats in the master baths in both Texas and Colorado.

As of 4:00 pm I have only 2 photos:

 

The photo on the left is on the Miboro dam.

The second photo requires explanation.  We could not take the originally planned route because the road through the mountains was closed due to snow. The alternate route was 20 km longer than the original and had all sorts of problems.  There was a lot of construction.  There were a lot of dark and dangerous tunnels. There were steep detours. In some sections there was a lot of traffic.  And there was rain.  In the photo on the right, we’ve bypassed a long tunnel and Brenda is riding beside it.

From the onsen on the 9th floor I see a 7-11.  Did I tell you that there are three places in Japan that you can get cash from an international debit card: banks, post offices and 7-11’s.  I suspect there are a lot more 7-11’s than the others combined.  I’m hoping I can get something nutritious there: like peanut M&M’s and a Starbucks latte.  Well I found a Bens & Roasters Café Latte.  I also found they sell wine and whiskey.  Our happy hour wine to date has been out of a box that looks like a juice box and has been worse to poor.

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant. OMG.  Food that was recognizable to us. Mushroom and bacon pizza.  Risotto with shrimp and clams. Sangiovese wine.

Tomorrow’s breakfast is supposed to ne “western style”.  Does that mean scrambled eggs? Coffee? Bacon? Toast? Hash browns? Tune into tomorrow’s blog to find out.

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.