由比？ゆい？YUI!!!

"So many things I dream about
When I look far away.
Things I know, things I wonder
Things I'd like to say"

Back on the road again after a mostly full night of sleep, we headed out of Fujinomiya at about 6AM heading south towards the ocean. Just early enough to get out of the city before rush hour, but not quite early enough to make it through Fuji City before getting stuck in some traffic, but overall, it wasn't long before we found ourselves riding along the Fuji river (Fujikawa) through the very nice little town of Kanbara and then the even nicer little town of Yui.

Inside joke alert: Yui is a Japanese singer/songwriter whose music I very much like. I was figuring we would just get a picture of the train station with her name on it and call it a day. But when we were biking through Yui, we came across several really cool things. First was Yui-shuku, an old, traditional inn that was used by traveling daimyo when heading to and from Edo(Tokyo) during the Shogun era. There are 53 posts along the Tõkaidõ, the East Sea Road, which is what we are following, and all of them contained at least one shuku, or inn . History lesson aside, the shuku themselves are quite fascinating for those who love old architecture and culture. Back to Yui-shuku, there was a small canal that circled the compound, which was normal. What wasn't normal was the large number of turtles who called that canal home.

"What are YOU looking at?"

 The shuku itself was renovated and, had we been there later in the day, offered guided tours of the compound. We weren't going to wait the two hours before they opened, but enjoyed looking at the structures themselves.

Guard towers were not unheard of in shuku to keep bandits and
rival families from attacking the visitors at night.

Yui-shuku was located on an old-fashioned street called Yuisakuraebidõri.

Gesundheit. 

Broken down, the name means Yui Sakura Shrimp Road. Sakura Shrimp are a smaller type of shrimp this area is known for.

Yuisakuraebidõri

I didn't think much of it until

O...K...then

Leaving the main part of town, our route guide had us avoiding the main, busy thoroughfare and taking a scenic mountain pass called the Satta Pass, which heads out the southern end of Yui. The first thing we had to do was climb a narrow road on a hill with a, no kidding, 15% grade.

Don't let go of the bike, or you'll be chasing it for a long way

There were several signs that must have dated back to the '60s with dire warnings

Even the rock looks scared. Look closely and you will notice
a mikan orange also falling.

As we were climbing, we noticed that we were surrounded by mikan trees! This road was apparently a traditional farming area for the local mikan farmers. There were many trees with individually hand-wrapped immature mikans that the farmers were nurturing. I'm sure come harvest time, this whole area must smell like oranges! When we finally reached the top (about 150 meters of steady climbing at that awful grade), we were treated to a wonderful view of the ocean from atop the ridge we were on.

Mikans? Ocean? Not impressed.

Also at the top were signs of the old farming tracts still in use

These stairs worked their way up the cliff to more and more trees

These "Mono-Carts", used to transport goods up the steep cliff faces date back
 to the '30's. Some of them are still used today.

Oh, yeah. We DID get a picture of the train station

After rejoining the main road, we worked our way through Okitsu and Shimizu to the Pacific coast. Along this particular coastline is a road called the Strawberry Beach Line. While Yui is known for its Mikan, the towns along the coast are known for their strawberries. We weren't quite in season yet, so there was little traffic. During harvest time, there are traffic jams all along the road for miles. 

As we approached the coastal highway, we noticed a few things. 

1) We were RIGHT on the coast

Wasn't planning on swimming today...

2) While we were checking out the coast and the water, I turned around to see

Fuji-san is watching...

It was amazing how far away we were, and yet how Fuji-san still dominated the landscape.

3) As we made our way along the coast, on a bike path literally built on the shore, all this talk of strawberries made Sumi decide she wanted strawberry ice cream. So we headed into the nearest town (which in this area meant heading one block north from the ocean) and the smell of strawberries was everywhere. This town, Negoya, was very quiet, as it was off-season, but large greenhouses lined the streets heading up the mountain and the strawberry theme was everywhere. We ordered two cones.

I liked the cone holder

They were awesome. Whole strawberries embedded in strawberry soft cream. An excellent way to fuel up for hungry cyclists!

After our short break, we headed back on the road through a number of small towns that seemed to blended into one another. As we neared the town of Fujieda, we came across another of the shuku inns along the Tõkaidõ, Mariko-shuku. This inn still had a traditional grass roof, which is, as one could guess, difficult to maintain and not at all common to see these days.

Mariko-shuku

These posts are outside each shuku, showing where you are along the
Tõkaidõ and the nearest shuku in either direction.

While cycling through Fujieda, we hit the next shuku, Okabe, in Fujieda and the Kashibaya Museum. Long story short, this inn was owned and occupied up until about 20 years ago by an old woman whose family had owned it before her. After she passed, the city government purchased and renovated the magnificent building and turned it into a museum. The tour guide promised to give us an "easy Japanese" tour, and was wonderful.

Kashibaya

Hangin' with Yaji-san and Kita-san 

The guide put it on me before I could run away. Sumi is still laughing. 

A miniature recreation done entirely in paper. Even the rocks on the ground
are made of paper.

The Samurai room was spacious, airy and contained some amazing
pre-Meiji era artifacts

Being able to walk through and see the cleverness of the old-style architecture and tools was really a treat. But we spent so much time there, we barely had enough time to make it to our hotel in Shimada and get dinner before it got dark. I was hoping to see some castle ruins in Fujieda and Shimada, but that will have to wait until tomorrow...

A Rest in Fujinomiya

"Jack, relax..."

After diving in headlong with over 200km of hard riding over two days, we decided to catch our breath and do a little sightseeing in the Fuji-side town of Fujinomiya. Recharging our legs for the coming days seemed like a good idea, and there were two places we really wanted to see.

Clouds building around the base of Fuji-san.

The first was the impressively named Fujisan Honguu Sengen Taisha, a very old and important Shinto shrine that predates recorded Japanese history (which started ca. 800AD). Located in the middle of the city, this is where pilgrims traditionally start their climb, in the past purifying themselves in the Wakutame-ike, a pond that is fed by an underground spring that itself is fed by the snow melt from Fuji-san. The water that comes from the spring is some of the cleanest in Japan and visitors are encouraged to leave a 100 yen offering and fill a provided bottle with the spring water.

Wakutame-ike 

The source of the spring

for only 100¥ donation

In the late 12th century, the first shogun, Minamoto Yoritomo held hunting and war games parties at the base of Fuji-san, and began the tradition of yabusame, mounted archery during the festivals at the shrine.

The main shrine building itself is clean and well-maintained, indicating that it is a well-followed and worshipped shrine. Many shrines across Japan are minimally maintained, as followers dwindle. As we were walking around the grounds, we could see miko, the traditional shrine maidens, working in the courtyard and would hear the booming sounds of the oo-daiko, the large taiko drums used to mark the beginnings and endings of services. 

A miko setting up the offering box and sweeping

This beautiful gate dates back to the 13th century

Our second destination was the Shiraito Falls, a waterfall just north of Fujinomiya, fed by Fuji-san that is several hundred feet wide and falls in hundreds of "threads"

Shiraito no Taki

panoramic view

A short walk away is its sister falls, the Otodame Falls

Smaller, but still impressive

And another short walk away is an oddly-named monument "The Hiding Rock of the Soga Brothers

Yup, it's a rock

The legend says their father was killed by a rival family when they were young and they swore revenge on the man who ordered the kill. That man, Kudo, was a retainer of the first Shogun, Yoritomo. When Yoritomo held one of his hunting parties, the brothers plotted to kill Kudo and hid behind this rock while planning, and the noise of the nearby waterfall made it too difficult to hear. So the legend says.

After a morning of sightseeing, we grabbed some lunch and headed back to the hotel to do laundry, be lazy and pack up for tomorrow's ride to the coast and the city of Shimada. 

Fuji-san!

"Well, you know we're having good days
And we hope they're going to last
Our future still looks brighter than our past.
We feel no need to worry
No reason to be sad
Our memories remind us
Maybe road life's not so bad..."


When we last left our intrepid adventurers, they were careening down a mountain in the middle of the night with nothing but a mostly dead iPhone. Even MacGyver would have been concerned.

Well, as we continued our descent, streetlights began to appear at regular intervals and that slightly panicky feeling we had was slowly fading as it became obvious we really WERE going to make it into Lake Yamanaka, something that a few hours earlier seemed rather impossible. Consulting our terrible map once again, we arrived at the proper street....and couldn't find the place. I called the ryoukan once again to try and get directions. Now, trying to get directions over the phone in a foreign language after 16 hours of constant, strenuous activity in the middle of the night from a woman who speaks absolutely no English may have been almost as much of a challenge as the bike ride, but thanks to landmarks and a helpful neighbor business, we finally limped into Ryoukan Kajiyasou at almost 9PM.

The owner of the large inn was quite friendly, and ushered us into her private dining room for tea. We had woken her up when we called earlier (she is 74 and runs the inn and an onsen across the lake with her "younger" sister). She and one of the other, apparently regular, guests spoke with us while we drank tea. It was a heroic effort to stay awake, let alone converse in Japanese, but we had a nice chat. They are always amazed when a white guy can understand them. They looked at me kind of funny when I asked if we'd be able to see Fuji-san tomorrow even though it was supposed to be cloudy, but said yes and pointed to where it should be. We finally were shown to our enormous room and told to take a "yukkuri" bath, meaning we were supposed to take our time and enjoy it. I literally nodded off in the bath, only waking up because my face was under water. I cannot remember a time I was more exhausted.

Despite all of this, we were awake at 5AM (thanks, jet-lag!) with a hazy glow of sunlight coming in through the large window and birds chirping away outside. Looking out the window, we saw a large lake with misty fog rising from it and not much else. The room was gorgeous.

Not bad for 80 bucks...

Before we knew it, we had passed out again and were woken up by the younger sister of the owner at 9AM. Getting up and looking out our window, we saw the fog had lifted, revealing

Not a bad view for....just, wow.

Fuji-san is as amazing as you would imagine, a giant summit in a mountain range full of majestic peaks. Being able to see it up close almost made yesterday worth it. Almost. What made it all worth it came later in the day.

It took us an amazingly long time to get moving. The younger sister had us in for coffee with another regular guest from Saitama, who had brought some gyoza from home (delicious!) and liked to talk as much as her sister did last night. She was also quite friendly, and was showing us pictures of previous foreign guests (kind of a rarity in more traditional places like this). She loves English and can read and write quite a bit, though she doesn't speak much, and has pen-pals across the US she corresponds with. Before we knew it, it was after 11, and we needed to get moving if we were to get to our next planned stop before dark.

Our ride around Lake Yamanaka was quiet and uneventful, with a nice bike path and trees surrounding the large lake that many sports clubs from the area use for summer "training camps". There were many resort-like campgrounds with modern facilities, especially tennis courts, which seem to be the popular sport in the area. For us, though, it was wonderful because it was flat.

That smile wasn't there yesterday.

On the outskirts of town, there was a large flower park, with a large variety of flowering plants on display. We didn't want to pay to go inside and see the greenhouse plants and such, but we loved the scenery

Sumi-san, Fuji-san and Flowers

There was also a shokudou, an informal restaurant where you sit at long, cafeteria-type tables. This one had a ticket vending machine that you used to order your meals. We mainly went in to get out of the wind, that had kicked up, but we were also treated to our first real hot meal since arriving.

Curry Udon with Beef

Once we left the city limits of Lake Yamanaka, our cycling guide had us riding on a very busy, urban road for a stretch. I felt like I was riding through downtown Milwaukee, with the bumpy roads, the loud, constant traffic and the lack of consistent sidewalks. It was the only way to get around Fuji-san at this point, though, so we suffered through it to get to the wonderful Route 71.

Route 71

Route 71 is a quiet, two-lane highway through a mountain forest. Even though we still had 400 meters to climb, it was so beautiful and so peaceful (and such a contrast to the urban riding we had just done for the last few hours), our tired legs didn't mind so much. One of the main reasons the route took us along 71, other than avoiding traffic, was to get closer to Fuji-san on the northeast side.

The other beautiful thing about Route 71 was the descent. After almost a day and a half of constant climbing, we finally hit the top. What followed was almost an hour of coasting for over 20 miles and speeds of up to 30 mph along the eastern side of Fuji-san. We barely pedaled for the rest of the day, arriving at our hotel in Fujinomiya around 5PM. Having Fuji-san as a backdrop all day and that hour flying down the mountain was what made the awfulness of yesterday worth all the pain.

What Were We Thinking?

"Pack up all those phantoms
Shoulder that invisible load
Keep on riding north and west
Haunting that wilderness road
Like a Ghost Rider"


Well, we successfully made it from Ueno to Lake Yamanaka...

Fueling up for the trip!

We were up and out of our hotel at a reasonable 5:00AM. The sun had risen and the streets were largely quiet as we set out on our twisting path through Toyko, aiming to leave via Route 3 out of Shibuya. Now, Tokyo was designed long ago to withstand invasion. As a result, the roads, even the major ones, snake through the city, turning at seemingly random points, sometimes stopping and starting again with no obvious plan. Add to that the fact that streets are often called several things, and signage is sporadic, and we were jet-lagged, it took us several hours to travel the 15 or so miles from Ueno to the outskirts of town, having to stop and check our route every few blocks, waiting on traffic lights timed for something other than bikes, making wrong turns, not knowing what road was on our map. Not the most auspicious way to start our trip. But it was OK, things were going to get much worse.

As an aside, it was quite interesting biking through the Diet area, where all the governmental and diplomatic buildings resided. As we, two very lost gaijin on funny-looking bikes with big trailers, were weaving our way through the streets, we kept coming across government police standing guard at various posts. Like, a lot of them. One guy was, no kidding, polishing riot shields on the sidewalk as we pedaled by. It was obvious some big government thing was going on later in the day (Sunday) and everyone was preparing, and it was a sharp reminder at how paranoid the US has become. I'm sure there were about ten people monitoring us as we zig-zagged in a confused fashion through the area, but no one stopped us, there were no roads closed off, no weapons of any kind were visible. If we were trying to bike through D.C. and had this happen, the capitol police would have fallen all over themselves knocking us off our bikes at gunpoint and ripping them and our trailers looking for anything nefarious all in the name of "security". What was it Frank Herbert wrote? "Fear is the mind-killer, fear is the little death that brings total obliteration"

In any case, we finally made it out of Tokyo and were way behind schedule, so there wasn't much time for sight-seeing and pictures, but we did manage to make a few stops along the way. Just west of Tokyo, in Setagaya, was the Okura Daibutsu, a large Buddha statue that, I've read, rotates 180 degrees at sunrise and again at sunset. It was standing pretty still when we saw it.

Okura Daibutsu

A little further along, we saw the first of several Fox Shrines (specific meaning unknown to this blogger), small Shinto shrines set up in various places along the route.

Maybe they are just having a staring contest?

Once we realized just how far behind we had gotten, we started pedaling in earnest to try and make up some time. The next leg of our trip was a very beautiful ride along the Tamagawa, an east-west river that flows through many of the outer suburbs of Tokyo. There was a large bike path that ran most of the length of the river that was full of joggers, walkers and cyclists, most of them far more serious that us.

flowers in bloom along the path

Why a rhino?

A fairy riding a beetle?!!?

All along the river there were soccer fields, baseball diamonds and many other kinds of outdoor sporting settings with kids as well as adults just out playing on a Sunday morning. We were so confused by the lack of signs and our bad map that it took us quite a while to figure out when and how to get on the bike path, and wasted even more time when we came across the bridge at which we were supposed to turn off, only to find a marathon being run and the turn-around point was our on ramp. Of course, we were so lost it took us a few miles to figure out that was to bridge we wanted...

As it began to approach noon, we had been on the road for seven hours and were not nearly halfway to our destination, we pulled into a park that served as a rest stop along the shores of Lake Tsukui, about 30 miles outside of Tokyo for some rest and Japanese "soft serve" ice cream, which is nothing like American soft serve and is quite delicious. The park was beautiful, and about a hundred people were out enjoying the beautiful weather.

Various flower gardens in a "Roman Garden" setting, according to the signs

And we spotted our first real Engrish of the trip

Are those like sweet brussel sprouts?

At this point, we began the long climb up towards Fuji-san (Mt. Fuji). We've ridden up large mountains before, but this was something else. A total vertical ascent of 1750 meters (that's over a mile for you metric-haters out there) along about 50km (30 miles), all of this AFTER nine hours of biking, dragging our heavy trailers. The scenery was fantastic,

Pay no attention to the "phantom" cars. They ruined my panoramic shot.

or at least it was until it started getting dark. After about 13 hours on the road, we were exhausted and it was getting dark. Our new, rechargeable lights were very bright and did a good job lighting the road as we walked our bikes up 9-10% grades, too tired to even think about pedaling up them. After nearly six hours of continuous climbing, Sumi's bike light had run out of power, it was pitch black and we were still miles away from our destination and could barely keep pushing our bikes up the seemingly endless slope. We had turned off the rental cell phone, which we had been using to help pinpoint where we were, because it was nearly out of power, as well, but turned it on to call our ryoukan and let them know we were still coming, but not there yet. 

We were quite literally about to lock up our bikes and call a taxi to come get us when we, against all odds, came across a road construction crew directing traffic in the middle of a forest on top of a mountain. At this point, we were both completely spent. The thin mountain air made it hard for us to catch our breath, we had been on the road for almost 15 hours after a nearly 24 hour day flying from Chicago into Tokyo, we had one bike light and I can't imagine what was going through the construction worker's head as we stumbled towards him and a white guy gasped at him, in Japanese, how much further it was to Lake Yamanaka. He answered "About thirty minutes, riding fast.", at which point the look on my face must have been priceless, because he added "you just finished the worst part. It's all winding downhill after this". 

Downhill. We could still do downhill.

After a few more excruciating minutes of pushing our bikes, we came across a tunnel at the top of the mountain. Sumi had wedged her iPhone in her handlebar bag and turned on the flashlight for a makeshift, and quite bright, bike light. Mine had gone out, by this time, and there was very little moonlight that made it through the trees. We looked at each other, then started coasting down the mountain by iPhone light. 

...to be continued

Reaching the Alien Shore

"For you and me,
race is not a competition
For you and me,
race is not a definition"

Well, after a very long journey (28 hours of continuous sunlight!) we find ourselves in Tokyo, once again. We stumbled our way through the back streets of Ueno to find our hotel for this brief visit, the Hotel New Touhoko, a small business hotel with a very nice little parking lot that was perfect for bicycle assembly. Landing at 3:30, arriving in Ueno at 5:15, we managed to have everything assembled just as it was getting dark at around 6:45.

After cleaning up from the flight and the bikes, we took a walk across Ueno to Oushou Gyoza for some good old fashioned grease and salt, erm, I mean wonderful ethnic cuisine. Sorry there are no pictures as of yet. Everything was back in the room and charging for the trip. Anyway, once we got back, I think Sumi managed to stay awake for about three minutes before crashing while I finished up the final grading for my MATC class and am now blogging. Tomorrow the real adventure starts! We'll see if we were overly ambitious with our planning, but even if we were, 14 hours should really be enough to bike 60 miles, even with trailers and going partway up the tallest mountain in Japan. I think even us tortoises can manage a 4.25 mph average!

We'd better, or we'll be sleeping on the side of the road....

Fly By Mid-Morning

"Airport scurry, a flurry of faces

parade of passers-by

People going many places

with a smile or just a sigh"

And we're off! After a hellacious week of finishing up school and work, giving and grading exams and getting the house in shape after a semester of neglect, waging a holy war on an ant infestation, organizing everything for the trip, testing our bikes and trailers, dealing with a last minute plumbing emergency and, oh yeah, packing, we're finally on our way. The bikes packed up very easily, this time. There was only about 25 minutes of swearing before they were comfortably in their travel cases, ready to go

All ready to confuse the TSA!

Speaking of testing the bikes and trailers, it's a good thing we did. On a quick ride with everything connected, my right trailer wheel just kinda fell off. The whole axle came separated from the rest of the housing. No cracks, no damage, nothing. One piece used to fit inside the tubing of another and didn't move. Now it moves (like Jagger). Interesting, and a bit concerning. We limped our way to a nearby hardware store and bought some amazing goop that bonded the two pieces together in quite literally two minutes. After letting it set for about half an hour, I could pick up the whole trailer by the wheel. Very impressive stuff.

Amazing Goop™

So, by this time tomorrow, we'll be in Ueno, two jet-lagged zombies assembling our bikes and trailers in preparation for a 4am departure (gotta beat rush hour and get out of Tokyo before everyone wakes up). Let the "rest and relaxation" begin!

It's that time again....

Here we go again!

After an unbelievably busy year, we are about to take a much-needed break from our daily routine to do another cycling trip  across the beautiful country of Japan. With perhaps the least amount of training and preparation yet, we'll be pedaling our way from the capital city of Tokyo down and around Mt. Fuji, then along the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the historic city of Kyoto.

We think.

Two days ago that sentence read "we'll be pedaling our way from the capital city of Tokyo up to the beautiful mountains of Nikko, then across the Japan Alps to the olympic city of Nagano". It looks like traveling down towards Kansai would fit in better with the end of our trip, where we'll be visiting an old friend for a few days in the Kobe area before heading back to Tokyo. We've also never seen Mt. Fuji up close and only had a day in Kyoto the last time we were down there a number of years ago, and have several things we'd like to see, including Fushimi Inari-taisha, a famous shrine that dates back to the 8th century and was used in the filming of Memoirs of a Geisha.

We have done very little riding, mostly because of my terrible school schedule this year and are basically not ready for a long trip. I brought our bikes in to the shop last week Monday to get them tuned up. While the technician was looking over our well-used Bike Fridays, he asked where we were going and for how long. When I told him Japan for two weeks of mountain cycling, he said "not on these, your not."....hm.

Turns out all the gears on our bikes looked less like shark's teeth and more like sine waves. Apparently riding a few thousand miles through mountains with 50 lb. trailers can wear down gears. Who knew? Anyway, the good news is, once he replaces the gears, rear cassette and the brake and shifter cables, our bikes will be like new again and my wallet will be light enough to float like a 1¥ coin. They will be ready Wednesday afternoon. We leave Thursday. This will be interesting. Now, we will be doing some riding over the next few days on our full-sized bikes, to desperately get in some sort of cycling shape, but we'll be pretty green when we start next Saturday. In the immortal words of the legendary adventurer, Mario:

"Here we go!"