Miyazaki to...

Leaving Miyazaki this morning, we timed it perfectly to get stuck in rush hour. We were leaving the downtime area right when half the city was attempting to get in, which resulted in a rather slow crawl north through the city. Not difficult cycling, but slow. By the time we started seeing the end of the urban sprawl, it was close to 10:30, and we were hot! High of 80, which isn't bad, but direct sunlight with no clouds and high humidity, we were melting.

Most of the trip up the coast was through city streets, highway 10, in particular. Imagine an urban state highway in America, lined with businesses. Now imagine one with sporadic sidewalks, little to no curbs, constant high volume traffic, and going on for about 50 miles. That's highway 10. Unpleasant, to say the least. We were able to get off the main roads a few times, but most of the day was spent head down, sucking in exhaust fumes, trying to not get burned to a crisp.

One of the few times we made it off 10 for a good while was a long stretch of road along the coast. Well, following the coast, anyway. We took a short detour to see the coast, hoping for some shade to have some lunch in:

Nice view. No shade.

By this point, it was nearly noon, we had no shade yet, we had to get back on the main road soon, and we hadn't eaten. We finally gave up and squatted on the edge of a side road by some trees. Luckily all the vehicles turning down the street saw the stupid foreigners eating in the middle of the road and didn't hit us.

Back on the main road for a while, we came upon a bridge that had a walking path...that ended 3/4 of the way across the bridge. Okay, it didn't completely end, but it stopped following the bridge and went down into a small fishing town. It also provided some shade, so we stopped under the bridge and tried to figure out where to go next.

A crane ornament on top of a house roof next to the bridge

We decided to stay off the busy road for a bit and head up into the hills for some peace and quiet, which we got. We also found another one of those old amusement parks, only this time, it wasn't completely abandoned, just repurposed.

Anything sadder than an abandoned love hotel?

Hotel Ann apparently didn't have enough love...

Apparently this was a medieval theme park-type place...

Now it's a bunch of love hotels...

that rent out small cabins

It was very weird biking into the forest and seeing a cluster of love hotels. Seriously, though, if you're ever low on cash and need a place for the night, $45 and the rooms even come with themes! Anyway, back on the main road for a bit, and we came to the Hyuga area. Hyuga has some beautiful beaches and coastal attractions

Several miles of this

We've been compiling a list of places we have to come back and visit when we're not on bikes. This is one of them. As we entered the town of Hyuga, we saw how not much there was here. Storms were certainly coming in tonight and tomorrow, so we were going to be stuck wherever we stopped. Sumi, who was so surely going to die from heat exhaustion if she had to bike one more mile and had already written her will was suddenly willing and able to ride another 12 miles into Nobeoka, the next city up the coast. So, on we went.

I will take this moment to register my dissatisfaction with the Miyazaki-ken government for a seriously missed tourism opportunity. Along the Nippon Main Line ( JR train line) between Hyuga and Nobeoka is a stop in the small town of Totoro. That THIS

is their official image of a station called TOTORO in MIYAZAKI-ken, and not some form of THIS

is a real dereliction of duty on the part of their PR team. They are missing out on serious tourism dollars. Just some food for thought.

Anyway, Nobeoka is a medium-sized city with a pretty lively downtown area and a ton of places to eat. We checked into Hotel AreaOne (not Area 51, though that would have been cooler), cleaned up (it takes a very long time to scrap seven applications of sunscreen from one's skin, by the way), and decided to limit our eating to whatever was within two blocks of us. The result was a small Italian restaurant with the very Italian-sounding name, Takishouten.

Takishouten (which translates roughly to Waterfall Shop, which makes perfect sense to someone), is a small restaurant with four tables, two very bright orange couches with a coffee table in between, and a small dining counter. The couple that ran the restaurant were very busy, as there was a heavy drinking four top that somehow managed to arrive before us (they opened at 6, we got there at 6:10, and they were already well into bottle one), an elderly couple, and us to start, and three more groups came in while we were eating. The food was quite good. Not authentic Italian, but tasty, and a nice diversion from curry and ramen.

Caesar Salad...with a raw egg, because Japan

Garlic Toast

Sumi's Margarita Pizza. Served with Tabasco sauce because this place suddenly became cajun...

Pasta with meat sauce. Japanese meat, so fattier, but good

Yuzu Sorbet. Not Italian and I don't care. It was delicious!

Due to the number of customers, it was a slow meal, but that was fine. When we left close to two hours later, the place was full, the foursome were on their fourth or fifth bottle of wine, plus some beers, and the woman serving us was supremely relieved we spoke some Japanese. We got back to the hotel and hunkered down in preparation for the storm.