From a Campground to a Luxury Resort

 Waking up this morning reminded us of exactly where practically every muscle in our legs, backs, and butts are located. This is what we get for not being in shape for our trip. In any case, getting up and seeing this out the back window kinda makes it worth it.

It was still very cloudy and chilly, but no rain in the forecast as we began our 40 mile trip to Ashinomaki, an Onsen resort area in the middle of...well...nowhere. We had a vague route planned that Sumi had done some work on to make sure we stayed on backroads as much as possible. This meant a few more miles and a lot more hills, but the biking was much more relaxed and the scenery was awesome.

Throughout the ride today, we saw all sorts of shinto shrines, more than we usually do. We also saw a lot of mascot signs.

We saw probably 50 different shrines today

Just a panda saying hello. No context, no other signage.

Tochimarukin, the mascot of Tochigi Prefecture. In a strawberry.

There was nothing open where we were last night, and the nearest convenience store was 10 miles away (practically unheard of in Japan), so we didn't have breakfast. We did happen upon a roadside marketplace though, that had a lot of fresh and dried foods, so "breakfast" was served!

Apples, dried fruit, and yuzu chestnut jellies

The yuzu chestnut treats were like mochi but not quite as sweet. They were absolutely delicious! Now that we weren't starving we hit the road again, on our way to the Okuaizu Museum, a small museum with lots of artifacts from prehistoric Japan (20,000 BC) as well as a preserved thatched-roof community, similar to that of the Ainu in Hokkaido. This particular people, the Aizu, were skilled in wood carving and indigo dyeing. Several of their buildings were on display for us to walk inside and look around. It was pretty cool and well worth the ¥300 entrance fee.

The rest of the ride was great. Aside from a few miles that we had to be on the main road, we were on some of our favorite kinds of roads in Japan. Between many of the rice paddies are public access roads that are flat, straight, and almost always empty and surrounded by the paddies and usually forest and mountains. 

Typical Japanese PSA. Note the pouting dog carrying his own poop and scooper.

When we left the cities, we ended up on twisting mountain roads. Most of the spectacular views were on bridges where we couldn't stop and take pictures. But we followed the Aga river for most of the day, crossing it numerous times.

Solar farm outside of Shimogo

There were also numerous small (and I mean SMALL) tunnels, often one lane, that we encountered. 

Being so far from any towns and very much off-season for many of the tourist areas we were passing through, our lunch again consisted of the finest cuisine that 7-11 had to offer

The Sesame Chicken Wrap was quite good. So was the Meiji Black!

We arrived in Ashinomaki at about 4 and pulled into the hotel parking lot. We knew instantly that we were going to stand out from their typical clientele.

We had a pretty young woman in full kimono gear greet us at the front door. We were sweaty and covered in grime from the road in our biking shorts and jackets. In typical Japanese fashion, they completely ignored our substandard couture and checked us in. The room was....OK....

Yeah, this'll do

For those that have not read our earlier blogs, during the off-season in Japan, most small resorts just shut down and only open during high season (late summer), while many of the larger resort hotels stay open, but offer spectacular deals. We have stayed at so many 4 and 5 star resorts for under $100 by coming to Japan in late spring. The down side is nothing else, and I mean NOTHING else is open. You either have to spent $120 on a (seafood) meal at the hotel restaurant or bring your own food. As we walked yet again to the local 7-11, we passed no fewer than six ramen shops, all closed. We also realized that our resort has its own shrine

Literally "Onsen Shrine"

Kagayaki Park. The pool on the left is fed by the hot ground water, rather sulfer-y as well.

This is why people pay $300 a night around here

Our "gochisou"

Tomorrow we're passing through a full-sized town (Aizu-Wakamatsu), so we may have to stop and eat some real food before heading back into the wilderness.