Today was a good day. Today I remembered why I spent tons of money on cycling and camping gear, dedicated myself to three months of cycling across Japan in the dead of summer, and am generally doing these things I do. Today I remembered the joy of the sun on my skin while I bike past beautiful scenery, the joy of a little breeze, the satisfaction of reaching the top of a hill and the overall sense of completion that comes as you sit with your back to your set up tent and crack your first beer. Today was, a good day.

I woke up in Yakumo around 7am. For the last 5 odd years Ive always had a bad back that makes itself known in the early hours of the morning.  Usually the pain gets so bad I am forced up and out of bed sooner then I might normally choose.  And indeed it forced me out of bed this morning.  As such I went for a little walk around the campsite, finding a quiet spot on a boardwalk over a tiny lake on which to do a little morning stretching and yoga. After some time Christophe came and found me and we headed back to the tent for breakfast- a wonderful meal of last nights yakisoba with added scrambled eggs, a fried egg each and a piece of toast each. Full of good food and packed up we said goodbye to the nice campjo people, took one last look at the amazing playground (which I assume christophe mentioned in yesterdays post- if not I will make its own little post on it soon) and hit the road.

The ride was smooth, only gradual ups or downs, right along the ocean and sunny. Just perfect conditions. We had gone 30km in half the time of yesterday, ¼ the time of the day before that.  I don’t think this was because I am getting stronger from now being on the road for 3 days, but rather becase the conditions were so good.  Most of the way we could spy lovely Mount Komagotake, a nice addition to the ocean view.

We broke for lunch at the Mori Michi No Eki (review: michi no eki = japanese rest stops, way nicer then the American counterpart) where there was a great little festival going on. There we enjoyed some prune curry, fried scallops, grilled squid, and crab rice- all delicious and cheap. We also met a very nice Japanese man from Yokohama who invited us to visit him when we do our all Japan ride.  As he gave us his business card we realized we really need to make a set of cards to give to people who we meet riding.  The business card culture in Japan is huge, its very important her to offer up a card to someone you meet, and young workers are taught to take notes about the first encounter on the card so that they will better remeber the person in the future (I had a lesson on this as part of my oreintation at Kaisei).  We also met a guy from Canada, Donnie,  who is doing a Charity ride from Tokyo to Sapporo (scroll through and you’ll see a pic of christophe and I).  He had gotten as far as Mori in only 9 days!  He told us he started off with 10 other guys, but now it was only him, made me feel a little better as I thought to myself “there is no way I could do that”.

Refreshed and still full of energy we left for Lake Onuma. The ride had a good bit of uphill, but nothing compared to our first day. Unlike our first day, when I continually promised myself each hill would be the last, this time I kept telling myself there would only be another. So when I was tired at all, I would pause for a second and sip some water. When the ride would go down I would enjoy it, all the while expecting it to go back up but not afraid that it would. And when it didn’t and we were already at our destination, I was happy.

This lake is very beautiful, big and scenic. I cant say it is prettier then Lake Toya, but I would say it is better facilitated. The camp site we are at right now is on the lake and very spacious. We stopped at the little town on the lake to pick up supplies and enjoyed a delicious pasta of eggplant, spinach, maitake mushrooms (so so good) and garlic- along with several beers. Enjoying our beers after setting up the tent we chatted about how nice today was. We decided our biggest mistake on this trip was trying to plan everything. Today there was no goal point, just some general ideas. Lunch came when we were hungry- not when we got to a certain place. It was better like this. We stopped at some fun spots like the michi no eki, a giant melon and an amazing octopus shop (which I will let christophe tell you about tomorrow). And now we are at Onuma, where we hadnt even planned to stop in the beginning. All the places we have stayed at have been amazing, but our plans would never have taken us to them- so the new plan is no plan. Have an idea of what there is, and then see what happens (and never let a camp site be more the 50K away)

So life is good, my spirit is happy and my belly is full- time for bed. Tomorrow its down to Hakkodate for Hanami!! (Hanami = the traditional Japanese activity of eating and drinking under cherry blossom trees).

We woke up this morning just in time to get our included breakfast at the wonderful Oshamanbe Onsen Hotel. The fare was your usual Japanese breakfast which included tarako (cod roe), ikura (salmon roe), grilled salmon, miso soup and many other delicious, tiny treats. The breakfast room/party room at the Oshamanbe Onsen Hotel is just as kitschy/wonderful as the rest of the establishment, in case you were curious. It had this fabulous mural – a photo of a Japanese garden that looks like it might have been taken around the time that You Only Live Twice was released.

After breakfast, we took a final, quick bath in the “family bath” which had two, separate doors for men and women which both lead to the same changing room. As with the main bath, the family bath was still a scalding 49.5 degrees Celsius. For comparison, most baths are 40 to 43.

After the bath, we paid, collected our complimentary lighter/flashlight and started to pack our bags. One of the onsen workers (who I am assuming is the son of the owner – a family business) came hoe from what I’m assuming was a jog. A very large, most likely obese yellow lab waddled beside him. We got into a very nice conversation with him about all sorts of things, he invited us to stay with him on our way back through, and we finally headed off.

The ride from Oshamanbe bay was a world better than our previous days torture. The headwind was still there, although it either was little weaker or we were a bit stronger or in higher spirits. We chugged along until we got to Harvester at Yakumo, our lunch destination, a little after 1:30. The final hill up to Harvester (a restaurant I’m sure I’ve written about before) was tough – not so much because of the grade but because the chicken couldn’t come soon enough. We did, eventually, make it. We did order chickens of many kinds, a delicious seafood pizza and some (real) salads. We were satisfied. The icing on the cake was that it was turning out to be a completely beautiful day that showed no signs of going rainy as weather prediction sites had told us. We decided that 40km was enough for a day, pedaled over to the nearby campsite (Yakumo Autocamp – which is a really nice, although slightly overpriced camp site), setup camp and made a delicious dinner of yakisoba and sausages.

Oh, I forgot to mention, since we got to camp pretty early, we had some time to walk around the grounds (which turned out to include a park golf course and a playground). The playground there was absolutely, shockingly awesome. Pictures don’t do it justice. I know this is a running theme in a lot of my posts (to our other blog) but America, you need to relax with the lawsuits and let kids have fun. A playground like this would most likely not be passable in the US. It’s really a shame because I don’t legitimately giggle like a schoolgirl about of sheer enjoyment very often, but I did here. And as I did so, I instantly thought about all the poor, American kids who were missing out on this fun because some kids with a scraped knee’s over protective parent who just NEEDS to sue someone.

We enjoyed some dinner, also enjoyed a Choco-Pie, and called it a night – falling asleep on our machine flattened, evenly sodded camp site.

We’ve had a hell of a time finding internet access in this very blustery part of southwest hokkaido but we are keeping our journal on our tiny, green Eeepc and will post them as soon as possible.

We are currently camping at a very nice although mildly overpriced camp ground in Yakumo – about 70km from Hakodate. We’re going a good deal slower than planned but that’s fine. We’re learning. Hopefully we’ll find some interwebs tomorrow. -cr

The first day of the trip is drawing to a close and I am now writing this post while sitting comfortably in an onsen hotel in Oshamanbe. Not exactly where I’m supposed to be- the plan was for me to be sitting in my tent in Yakumo (around 30km from where I am now), but allow me to recount today.

It started off alright. We left the house about an hour after planned- leaving at 10am. But mostly unconcerned we jumped on our bikes to enjoy what looked like a beautiful day. It was a bit weird getting used to the weight on the bike which was intensified by the crazy winds that we get in Muroran. When a truck would pass you would have to fight the tail winds that came after it, while simultaneously fighting the wind blowing you in toward the road. But we made it to Sakimori Wharf in only about 10 minutes longer then it normally takes us (30 min), and we set up next to the ocean for our morning stretch.

The next part of the ride, through Date, is something we have done often and it was uneventful. The sun was shining, the wind down, perfect for riding. After Date comes Abuta, which is preceded by a bit of a hill, but we both took it with surprising ease and were unperturbed by the second unexpected hill before Aputa (the town next to Abuta… Japanese people love to be confusing). At Aputa we stopped at the michi no eki- which is basically a rest stop but way better. The michi no ekis are beautiful buildings, sometimes with parks, that usually have local produce for sale and a restaurant that does local specialties. We decided to take a break and enjoy some guru-maki sausage and some hotate (scallops) kushiyaki (grilled on a skewer)- both delicious.

We were a bit behind schedule, it was almost 12:45 when we had imagined we would be approaching Oshamanbe (still 50ish km away) so we enjoyed the food and then got underway. Again we were met by an unexpected hill, but we fought our way up it. This is where things took a turn for the worse. After that hill came another, then another, then a slow and steady climb through a mountain range. I kid you not when I say we went uphill almost non-stop for near around 20km. I was exhausted; there were no rest stops/convenience stores. Nothing. And the hills just kept growing in front of us. Not crazy steep hills, long unending winding upwards slopes (with the odd downhill christophe is reminding me of now, but it felt like all uphill). We got off and walked at multiple points when we were just too tired. We biked through tunnels. We stopped talking to each other because we were each beginning to fall into private states of insanity. Then finally, around 5pm, we reached the end of the hills. We had been biking uphill for 4 hours and with great joy we raced down the other side, pausing to snap a picture as we entered the Oshamanbe area.

To our joy at the end of the downhill we reached a sign that read “Oshamanbe center 15 km” and we looked ahead at a long flat ride. Assuming we would be there well within the hour, we happily chose an Oshamanbe camp site and started talking about what we would get for dinner. Then we started biking, and the most insane headwind you can imagine fought us each inch of the way. On a completely flat rode I was averaging 8km a mile. I began to believe Oshamanbe did not even exist. Down this long flat road I saw no signs of life, just the odd car passing. The last time I had eaten was an apple at the top of one of the hills around 2pm. My body was drained of everything. I was totally, mentally fried after all the hills, and I literally began to lose my sense of self as I pumped at my pedals and made no visible progress. At the first vending machine, after about an hour of flat riding and about 10 km, we stopped. I lost it and collapsed on the grass sobbing about how I didn’t ever want to ride a bicycle again. Amazingly, Christophe had nothing but agreement for me. I then passed out mid sob for maybe 5 min, woke up, and drank a grape Fanta from the vending machine. With a little more sugar in our systems we decided we were crashing in Oshamanbe and we were not camping. We would do the only logical thing there was to do- go to an onsen hotel.

Amazingly we were at the Oshamanbe Onsen Hotel not 10 minutes later- joking about the amazing kitsch of the place (there are maybe 200 small statues just outside the door). A little family-run place, we happily followed the ladies upstairs to a big double room, accepted some seriously starched yukatas (robes) and fled to the onsen. The onsen was insanely hot (I later found out the temperature of the water is 49.5 C!!) but I just didn’t care. After, we came back up to the room and hung out while we waited for our dinner to be brought to us. Then dinner arrived.

Dinner was ridiculous. I will now recommend this hotel to anyone I ever speak to again who may be heading through Oshamanbe, because dinner is simply wonderful. Our hostess came up with a tray filled with sashimi (uni, tuna, clam), tsukemono (japanese pickles), a fish dish and mountain vegetables. Happily we accepted this, only for her to raise the tray and expose another layer which included two more veggie side dishes, a crab rice dish famous in this area and 4 table grill things. She then left and returned with a crab miso soup for one burner and a seafood egg drop soup for the other (each!), a plate with tempura salmon and big fried shrimp, a grilled scallop and a strawberry. But the most amazing part- when she lifted this tray, she revealed two, big plates with two, full kegani (horse crabs) each. Horse crabs are hairy and very big. Two is more then I could eat if that was all I had to eat. But each of us had our own set of everything described above- the entire table was covered, it was insane.

I am now nearing a food coma so I will end this post. Somewhere in the middle of dinner Christophe mentioned that it might not be such a bad thing to have a few bad days on the big, all-Japan trip, because treating ourselves to an onsen hotel was the best idea we could have had. All in all I am happy to crawl into bed and take it much much easier tomorrow.