Back in a big city: Kyoto

After the heat of the last few days, we were up and out before 6AM to beat traffic and sun getting out of Iga. After a breakfast of corn flakes with makeshift spoons (the supermarket had chopsticks and two different sizes of toothpick, but no other utensils) and apple juice, we headed out of the city and to our last major climb of the trip, up Sasagadake, a smaller mountain than the ones we had scaled in the Fuji area. It was still a lot to start the day with! The section of 422 that we were on, however, was very quiet and narrow, just the was we like it! At one point, a bus was coming down, we were going up, and there was just enough room for the two of us without one going over the cliff.

Shaded narrow road with no cars, I love it!

The turns get very narrow, especially along the cliff face

1. There is no road anywhere near this school crossing sign
2. Who would send their kid walking up a 500m mountain every day to go to school?

After finally making it to the top (two hours later!), we started our descent into Shigaraki, also known as Tanuki Village. A Tanuki is a raccoon dog, an animal common to Japan and other areas of Asia.

Awww!

But most people know tanuki as Japanese lawn gnomes that are a caricature of the animal and are said to have certain mythical powers(the tanuki, not the lawn gnomes), such as shapeshifting. Shigaraki is a town known for its pottery and, more specifically, its tanuki

Oh dear...

Sumi playing with the tanuki and maneki-neko

How about a 20' tall tanuki statue?

In a tunnel leaving Shigaraki

As we worked our way through the countryside, we passed more tea farms and a nice little shop that sold a variety of local tea, as well as roasted tea ice cream, which is why Sumi made us stop.

It tasted kind of like barley tea, but in ice cream

For the last ten miles or so of the trip, we followed along the beautiful Uji-Tawara river. There was almost no safe place to stop and take a picture, as the roads hadn't widened much and the traffic had increased, but it was one stunning vista after another as we made our way into the valley that held Kyõto.

As we finally reached the city of Kyõto, we spent some time cooling off, getting lost in the subway and shopping before we could check in. We visited the Taiko Center, a large taiko school and store chain, where Sumi picked up some good looking instructional videos, hung out in a park until it became overrun with college kids (we are staying in an area with several international colleges) and checked out the used video game store across the street from our hotel, where they clean and polish your game disc before giving it to you. During our travels, we stumbled upon a Kyõto landmark, the Tohkasaikan, an old restaurant dating back to the Taisho era before WWII.

1924 Baroque-style building with a still-functioning manual elevator.

Getting back to our hotel, we cleaned up and checked out our loot

Mine were a LOT cheaper. Just sayin'

and decided to check out an Indian restaurant we passed on the way to the train station earlier.

Raji, authentic Indian cuisine

There was exactly one person working in the restaurant, cooking, doing dishes, busing tables, waiting on customers. Everything. We didn't wait very long, and the food...

Now THAT'S naan! 

was just great. I had the vegetable curry, Sumi had a chicken curry and we both had mango lhassi for dessert. It was not quite as divine as Rasoi in Tokyo, but the food was excellent and the sole employee was friendly and fast. Five samosa rating!

Tomorrow, we dismantle and pack our bikes and ship them back to Tokyo, ending the cycling segment of our trip with mixed feelings. At this point in every trip, we are both really enjoying getting up and cycling every day and ready to be done with getting up and cycling every day! But we have lots still planned for the rest of the week, this time traveling by train. Weather permitting, we'll be out at several temples and shrines in the Kyõto area tomorrow (we may actually get some rain!) and then hop on a Shinkansen and return to Tokyo as our base of operations.