Through the Mountains To Kusatsu

After a very refreshing night at Rakuzensou, we headed out around 7:00am, prepared for a long day. We were to be cycling straight through the mountains, past the city of Nakanojo, and up into the town of Kusatsu, another famous onsen village. We had three scheduled mountains to climb, so we needed to get moving.

We started the day with our usual konbini fare

A typical morning view, eating in the parking lot.

then headed into the nearby city of Numata. The area is known for, among other things, it's honey.

There were many of these roadside stands, all closed this early in the season.

and, apparently, teaching cats to play the piano

. . .

The morning was relatively uneventful, though we started seeing a good amount of road construction, all with images of Gunma-chan helping out in various ways.

The climb into central Gunma was pretty tough. Close to 1000m above where we started, we got a kick out of the name of the town

Takayama means "Tall Mountain". Yeah, no @$#%

There was also a bit of an oddity up here. Right at the crest of the mountain, we came across a castle. A miniature European castle.

Lockheart Castle theme park

We made our way into Nakanojo around noon. I wanted some real food for lunch, so we headed to the train station and looked around.

A small town square with plenty of food options.

We chose the one that looked a) open, b) had Curry Udon and c) had other customers in it. The one place that fit the bill was a tiny shop on the corner, right next to the station

Still don't know the name. It's the messy script on the hanging cloth.

 We squeezed in and sat at the only table (there was an older couple at a small bar, as well). I barely fit, and I couldn't stand up without hitting my head on stuff hanging from the ceiling.

That's the bar

The man running the shop asked us what we wanted. When I said curry udon, he said "Are you sure? It's hot!". He didn't mean spicy, he meant hot outside. He went in the back, muttering about curry udon. About fifteen minutes later, he emerged from the kitchen with

Gyoza Teishoku. Notice the real vegetables in the salad. That's hard to find.

Oh yeah. I'd been craving curry udon since we arrived.

They were both really good. I downed the entire bowl, broth and all. Near the end of the meal, he returned with a small plate of fresh scallions and miso paste. He told us to dip them into the paste and Sumi's miso soup and eat the bulbs.

Absolutely delicious.

All in all, a great dining experience, all for about $15. I love finding these little places.

Refreshed and full, we headed back out to climb another mountain. As we started down a road that took us into the Atsutsuma Valley, we ran into a detour. There is nothing less welcome when traveling in a foreign country with only a few bad maps and an iPhone than a detour. And, of course, the detour took us...up. We had to basically climb another small mountain to get around the construction and return to our original route.

See that valley down there? That's where we were supposed to be

As we followed the detour, we came upon a brand new village. Every building was new, and it looked deserted. We stopped at a vending machine, and saw the strangest thing. The last thing we imagined we'd see cycling half-lost in the mountains of Gunma. A robot run information center. And not just any robot, but Pepper!

International Robot star, Pepper

A little background. I teach Cyberethics at UWM. The last lecture, I take some time to talk about upcoming tech and some of the ethical issues that we'll need to be thinking about. Well, robotics is one of those upcoming tech, and Pepper had been making the rounds at CES and SXSW. He's truly an impressive and flexible robot. He can be programmed for various levels of interaction with all kinds of data. Anyway, I had done some research on him for class. I never expected, even in Tokyo, to run into Pepper "in the wild", let alone a deserted town on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

This Pepper was only programmed to answer specific questions in Japanese related to the dam that was being built, so I couldn't do much with him. This dam, by the way, was the cause of the town, the detour and this information station. It's a massive project, along the scope of the Hoover Dam. Pepper knew a lot about it. I knew nothing about Japanese dams (or American ones, for that matter), so we couldn't have much of a conversation, outside of me choosing some options from his touchscreen. Oh, and he was the only staff in the information center. No humans.

After that surreal moment, we headed back out and rejoined our original route. There was really only one road in and out of this area, so it was pretty crowded, and there wasn't much, if any, shoulder much of the time. As we were climbing the mountain, we were very slow, so we basically were holding up traffic if we stayed on the road. We were forced to ride on the "sidewalk". Sidewalks in Japan are either spacious and wide or, more often, wide enough for a single person, created by putting cement tiles over open drainpipes. We had the latter. For miles.

About 2.5 feet wide and they wobble as you ride over them

As we neared Kusatsu, we came across a nice little waterfall and shrine, just off the very busy, narrow road. It was a perfect excuse to take a break

At the edge of town, we came across one of the Melody Roads of Japan. The Melody Roads have tuned and spaced rumble strips, so when you drive across them, you hear a song. They're pretty cool. Here's a YouTube link of some people driving across one.

Finally, heading into Kusatsu, we arrived at probably the nicest of the hotels we'd stayed at, in terms of fanciness, Kiyoshigekan. Large, with private outdoor baths, it was still relaxed enough for us to enjoy.

OK, so the floor really is pool table felt

They had an electric chair lift built into the stairs, because an elevator is so 20th century.

Tomorrow we head to a ski resort outside of Nagano for our last long, uphill ride!