A Day in Irago

"I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes and let my defenses down
All those wounds that I can't get unwound"

So, we decided an extra day in ocean paradise was warranted, so we took full advantage of it, "sleeping in" until 7 before heading down for their breakfast buffet.

I've heard of imitation shrimp, but...

I call them the "Brady Bunch Plates"

After which we went back up to our room, opened the patio door to let the ocean breeze in....and passed out until noon. Sometimes that's what vacation is for! In any case, after rousing ourselves we decided to go find a konbini to buy food for dinner and breakfast tomorrow, since we didn't pay for any additional meals through the hotel. We're so isolated here that the nearest konbini was 5 miles down the road. Contrast that to Tokyo, where more than four blocks is a surprise. On our way out, we saw signs for the ruins of the Tõdaiji kiln site (where the roof tiles for the famous Tõdaiji temple were made) and the Hatsudate dam, which, according to maps, had created a large lake in the center of the peninsula. So, we ventured in for a look.

Tõdaiji Kiln ruins. This is a stock photo, as there was a lot of construction going on,
and we couldn't get close to the ruins ourselves.

No swimming or fishing at the dam because....

...there's no water...

So, I know nothing about dams, other than they are used for power and water control. The entire lake was drained and they were hard at work doing...whatever it is you do to the bottom of a man-made lake. It was an enormous pit of sand and dirt, with construction cones and blocked roads everywhere. Usually, there's a nice jogging path around the lake (when there IS a lake), but it kinda looked like a wasteland to us. Not the most exciting sightseeing.

Anyway, we continued on in our search for a store, and came across an open air market that specializes in melons in the winter and strawberries in the summer!

Melons are a big deal in Japan. These were normally prices as you would see in the states.
Some can go for, no kidding, $100.

Free samples sucked us in

We couldn't fit actual melons in our bags, but melon chocolate? Sure!

Just next door was a little cafe, and as we hadn't eaten since early in the morning, we figured we could get some noodles or something. What we found was... authentic Italian pasta?

al dente spaghetti with tomato, basil, olive oil, parsley and parmesan cheese...out here?

Surprised, but pleasantly full, we grabbed more road food from the store across the street and headed back to the hotel for dinner on the beach.

The sand beach stretched for over a mile, with palm trees, coconuts and sea birds.

Enjoying the surf and a sunset

Perfect night on the ocean

Not very active, but a great, relaxing day. Tomorrow, we're back on the road to Tsu!

Are you SURE it's okay to stay here?

"I stood upon the mountaintop
And shouted at the sky
Walked above the pavement
With my senses amplified
I get this feeling..."

Up and out by 6 this morning. There was no one at the front desk and we passed out before figuring out how to pay last night, so we left a ¥10000 bill (the room was reserved for ¥8000, according to the website) and a thank you note for the owners and headed down the mountain to continue our journey.

The mountain mist was rising and as we coasted down the road we caught a glimpse of Lake Hamano. It was a rather vast lake teeming with wildlife. Fish were jumping out of the water, dining on the insects above, cormorants were diving below the surface for minutes at a time, hawks were flying overhead and sparrows zoomed back and forth across the lake, chirping loudly. Some lone fishermen were out on the lake, and it was a very quiet, relaxing way to start our day.

There is a cycling trail that circumnavigates most of the lake, sometimes joining with a road, other times a separate paved path. We stayed on that trail as long as we could, The lake is so big that it took us close to two hours to make it halfway around to where we turned back into the mountain foothills.

More bridges.
This one was barely wide enough for even small Japanese cars to fit,
yet there they were, driving across it

Eels are one of the popular fish in Lake Hamano and a local delicacy.

Friday morning traffic was heavy for most of our ride out of the area

I'm pretty sure they didn't pay for naming rights

After several hours of hard riding, including Sumi popping her rear tire on something on the sidewalk and having to change her inner tube, we found ourselves in the town of Tahara in the middle of the Irago peninsula with a few more hours to go before reaching Cape Irago, where our hotel awaited. Being around noon, it was sunny and warm, we were sticky, dirty and hungry and there was an inviting rest stop called Mekkun House.

It reads: Rest Stop Tahara Mekkun House

We found a shaded bench and ate some of our road food (yogurt, raisin bread, bananas, mixed fruit and juice) and washed up in the public restrooms (a rarity in Japan). There was a tell-tale large plastic ice cream cone outside one of the little food stands in the rest stop, so…

Melon and Strawberry, the two big crops of the area.

Once again, Japanese ice cream is just amazing. Real fruit, real milk. And especially after a long, hot ride, they taste awesome.

Back on the road, we were searching for a bike route that supposedly runs along the coast. After a few miles, we found it.

I've seen less obstacles in Takeshi's Castle

Or we thought we did. What we found was the END of the route. Of course, we didn't bother looking at that very helpful sign that indicated that and so we didn't find out until we had brought our bikes AND trailers most of the way down that 25% grade WITH STAIRS. When smart people do dumb things…

After much internal cursing, I carried my bike and both trailers back up the STAIRS and 25% grade and we limped off again, at a slower pace. Nearing the cape, we started seeing the Pacific coast and began feeling that cool ocean breeze on our faces as we pushed up the hills leading to our hotel.

Nothing beats the ocean.

Arriving at the hotel, I realized that this may be the nicest place I've stayed at in many years. We usually don't spend a lot of money on lodging, preferring the cheaper, more traditional ryoukan and minshuku places partially out of cultural preference and partially out of stinginess (it costs a lot to fly out here!). We prefer to spend our money on the actual traveling and experiences rather than expensive meals and five-star hotels. Sumi found a "too-good-to-be-true" deal on Booking.com, the favorite method of last minute booking on this trip, despite the mix-up yesterday. Imagine a resort and spa with a private beach on the Pacific Ocean, spacious rooms, private balconies, every room overlooking the ocean and NOT in a third world country staffed by virtual slave labor. Now imagine the price tag and your credit card catching fire as they swipe it. Well, let's just say we paid less per night here than at the Hyatt in Rosemont where we parked our car.

This is larger than many apartments in Japan. Our trailers usually take up nearly all the open floor space in a typical hotel room. Maybe 800 square feet, and this is the "standard" room.

Stone art on the private beach in honor of Japan in the World Cup

So, needless to say, the hotel is absolutely amazing. We decided on the spot to spend an extra day here and do some exploring and enjoy the beach for a day before hopping on the ferry and continuing our cycling.

We chose to eat dinner at the hotel (an all-you-can-eat buffet, but done Japanese, so imagine bottomless sushi, sashimi and lots of other dishes) mostly to try different types of food. Sumi was trapped by the sashimi chef as she was looking at what they had to order. She asked, in Japanese, what he recommended, and he rattled off a bunch of things, all way too fast for her to understand. It took a while before he understood that she wasn't Japanese. He ended up giving her this

Wow!

She did her best, and ate over half of it, but that was a LOT of sashimi. I think he was assuming that she was going to get help eating all of it. The sky was a little cloudy, so we didn't get to see a full sunset over the ocean, but I think it was all right

A ship, a palm tree, a lighthouse, the ocean and a sunset. Ahh.

Itadakimasu!

Last of the Mountains

"Wind, in my hair
Shifting and drifting
Mechanical music
Adrenaline surge..."

This morning Sumi insisted we stay at the hotel until their breakfast buffet opened up, at 6:45, so we tried to fill up on tiny rolls, muffins and juice before finally leaving at 7:30. This means we catch traffic, so the going was a little slow until we started climbing the "highlands" above the town, where only the tea farmers or people passing through would go.

Terraced tea farms above Shimada

After starting our day with several rather intense climbs, we stopped at a small rest stop for some juice and I saw something that took me almost 8 years to notice. Near every juice/soda/coffee/beer vending machine in Japan is a recycling bin. The idea its that you buy the beverage from the machine and drink it right there, then deposit the empty can or bottle into the recycling bin, like below:

Genus: Common Japanese Recycling Bin.
Habitat: Japan.
Coloring: White to gray, sometimes blue.
Mating Habits: Unknown, though they are quite numerous.

Notice the two separate holes, one for akikan (aluminum cans) and one for Petto Botoru (PET, or plastic, Bottles). Now, it may be difficult to see in the picture, but it's just one bin. Whichever hole you use, it goes to exactly the same place. Why label the holes? I've been carefully putting cans in the can hole and bottles in the bottle hole for eight years and never noticed. Needless to say, I quite rebelliously put my bottle in the can hole.

Upon reaching the top of the mountain, we saw a sign for the Suwahara Castle Ruins. We always enjoy checking out the castles, and across this area of Japan, most of the castles were destroyed during the Meiji Restoration, only to be restored after WWII. Suwahara Castle was not one of those. The ruins are almost completely grown over. Only some of the foundation, a well and two very impressive dry moats remained and a reminder of what was once here. Oh, and a shrine. Of course.

Obligatory Shinto Shrine

Inner moat. Man-made, about 30 feet deep with a narrow walkway (so the horses could be brought in and out).

Outside the town of Kikugawa, there was one of those shrines that on a normal visit, we'd climb up just to see where it went, but with all the biking, we decided to take a pass.

Lessee, five gates, each gate has about 40 steps…..ah, no.

Arriving in the city of Kakegawa, the guide we've been following suggested stopping at Kakegawa Castle, one of the more restored ones. As we approached, it already looked more impressive than poor, forgotten Suwahara Castle

One of two tall yagura (towers) remaining from the castle

We paid the entrance fee to take a walk up the tower, and were rewarded with a fantastic 360 degree view of the entire river valley we were in, as well as all the outlying mountain peaks, including on a clear day, Fuji-san. One thing we've noticed, after visiting a number of these castles, is that the old architects were at once brilliant and confused. They erected amazing structures and clever water systems using nothing but hand tools and rope, but couldn't decide whether to use ladders or stairs for their towers.

Stadders? Lairs? Almost, but not quite, vertical and almost 2 feet per step

Castle living quarters. Spacious, airy and full of artwork.

Leaving Kakegawa, we entered a valley between peaks full of rice paddies and small villages.

Herons combing the paddies for slugs and small fish.

Totomi-Ichinomiya train station. A single car train comes every so often.

As we approached Lake Hamana, we were crossing more and more rivers. Many of the bridges had separate bike/pedestrian lanes.

The sign above reads "Papa, stop looking around, cell phone, going too fast"

Most rivers in this area are very wide, with many sandbars

We had to leave our route and climb yet another mountain (Nemoto-san) to reach our lodging for the evening, Nemoto-san-sou.

We gotta go up THAT?

Very cozy, mountain minshuku...

…and Karaoke lounge?

The place was empty, as in there was literally no one there. Not even staff. We rang a bell and looked around, until a woman came scampering from the adjoining house to see what we wanted. Apparently, Booking.com, the website we used, forgot to contact them about our staying there. No fax, no phone message, nothing. Well, they apologized and scrambled to get things ready for us. We found it amusing, but I'm sure they were frantic. The place was beautiful and our room was once again huge.

You could sleep a family of five in here

Our own private porch and garden

Once we were bathed and fed, we decided to unravel a mystery. All the 7-11 konbini's had a little raffle drawing every time you spent more than ¥500 (5 bucks). You grab a ticket from a box and see if you win anything. They all have small coupons and stuff, but occasionally you win a small prize. Earlier today, Sumi won a small bottle of….something.

You find a bottle of murky liquid. What do you do?
a) cast an Identify spell on it to discover its powers
b) pour it on a torch and try and light it
 c) hold your nose, drink it, and wait.

Well, some of the kanji are so obscure they don't even show up in our dictionaries, but the katakana made it clear than it was 55,000mg of placenta. Mango-flavored. Why? Just…why? She could have won some dental floss, or band-aids, but no, she got the placenta. Anyone thirsty?

由比？ゆい？YUI!!!

"So many things I dream about
When I look far away.
Things I know, things I wonder
Things I'd like to say"

Back on the road again after a mostly full night of sleep, we headed out of Fujinomiya at about 6AM heading south towards the ocean. Just early enough to get out of the city before rush hour, but not quite early enough to make it through Fuji City before getting stuck in some traffic, but overall, it wasn't long before we found ourselves riding along the Fuji river (Fujikawa) through the very nice little town of Kanbara and then the even nicer little town of Yui.

Inside joke alert: Yui is a Japanese singer/songwriter whose music I very much like. I was figuring we would just get a picture of the train station with her name on it and call it a day. But when we were biking through Yui, we came across several really cool things. First was Yui-shuku, an old, traditional inn that was used by traveling daimyo when heading to and from Edo(Tokyo) during the Shogun era. There are 53 posts along the Tõkaidõ, the East Sea Road, which is what we are following, and all of them contained at least one shuku, or inn . History lesson aside, the shuku themselves are quite fascinating for those who love old architecture and culture. Back to Yui-shuku, there was a small canal that circled the compound, which was normal. What wasn't normal was the large number of turtles who called that canal home.

"What are YOU looking at?"

 The shuku itself was renovated and, had we been there later in the day, offered guided tours of the compound. We weren't going to wait the two hours before they opened, but enjoyed looking at the structures themselves.

Guard towers were not unheard of in shuku to keep bandits and
rival families from attacking the visitors at night.

Yui-shuku was located on an old-fashioned street called Yuisakuraebidõri.

Gesundheit. 

Broken down, the name means Yui Sakura Shrimp Road. Sakura Shrimp are a smaller type of shrimp this area is known for.

Yuisakuraebidõri

I didn't think much of it until

O...K...then

Leaving the main part of town, our route guide had us avoiding the main, busy thoroughfare and taking a scenic mountain pass called the Satta Pass, which heads out the southern end of Yui. The first thing we had to do was climb a narrow road on a hill with a, no kidding, 15% grade.

Don't let go of the bike, or you'll be chasing it for a long way

There were several signs that must have dated back to the '60s with dire warnings

Even the rock looks scared. Look closely and you will notice
a mikan orange also falling.

As we were climbing, we noticed that we were surrounded by mikan trees! This road was apparently a traditional farming area for the local mikan farmers. There were many trees with individually hand-wrapped immature mikans that the farmers were nurturing. I'm sure come harvest time, this whole area must smell like oranges! When we finally reached the top (about 150 meters of steady climbing at that awful grade), we were treated to a wonderful view of the ocean from atop the ridge we were on.

Mikans? Ocean? Not impressed.

Also at the top were signs of the old farming tracts still in use

These stairs worked their way up the cliff to more and more trees

These "Mono-Carts", used to transport goods up the steep cliff faces date back
 to the '30's. Some of them are still used today.

Oh, yeah. We DID get a picture of the train station

After rejoining the main road, we worked our way through Okitsu and Shimizu to the Pacific coast. Along this particular coastline is a road called the Strawberry Beach Line. While Yui is known for its Mikan, the towns along the coast are known for their strawberries. We weren't quite in season yet, so there was little traffic. During harvest time, there are traffic jams all along the road for miles. 

As we approached the coastal highway, we noticed a few things. 

1) We were RIGHT on the coast

Wasn't planning on swimming today...

2) While we were checking out the coast and the water, I turned around to see

Fuji-san is watching...

It was amazing how far away we were, and yet how Fuji-san still dominated the landscape.

3) As we made our way along the coast, on a bike path literally built on the shore, all this talk of strawberries made Sumi decide she wanted strawberry ice cream. So we headed into the nearest town (which in this area meant heading one block north from the ocean) and the smell of strawberries was everywhere. This town, Negoya, was very quiet, as it was off-season, but large greenhouses lined the streets heading up the mountain and the strawberry theme was everywhere. We ordered two cones.

I liked the cone holder

They were awesome. Whole strawberries embedded in strawberry soft cream. An excellent way to fuel up for hungry cyclists!

After our short break, we headed back on the road through a number of small towns that seemed to blended into one another. As we neared the town of Fujieda, we came across another of the shuku inns along the Tõkaidõ, Mariko-shuku. This inn still had a traditional grass roof, which is, as one could guess, difficult to maintain and not at all common to see these days.

Mariko-shuku

These posts are outside each shuku, showing where you are along the
Tõkaidõ and the nearest shuku in either direction.

While cycling through Fujieda, we hit the next shuku, Okabe, in Fujieda and the Kashibaya Museum. Long story short, this inn was owned and occupied up until about 20 years ago by an old woman whose family had owned it before her. After she passed, the city government purchased and renovated the magnificent building and turned it into a museum. The tour guide promised to give us an "easy Japanese" tour, and was wonderful.

Kashibaya

Hangin' with Yaji-san and Kita-san 

The guide put it on me before I could run away. Sumi is still laughing. 

A miniature recreation done entirely in paper. Even the rocks on the ground
are made of paper.

The Samurai room was spacious, airy and contained some amazing
pre-Meiji era artifacts

Being able to walk through and see the cleverness of the old-style architecture and tools was really a treat. But we spent so much time there, we barely had enough time to make it to our hotel in Shimada and get dinner before it got dark. I was hoping to see some castle ruins in Fujieda and Shimada, but that will have to wait until tomorrow...