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!