cycling.monoanimal

Mrs. Isoguchi had told us breakfast, which she had kindly offered to prepare for us, would be ready by eight so we would have plenty of time to catch our 9:07 ferry back to Takamatsu . At eight, we found ourselves in front of what has become one of my favorite things in this world – a home cooked Japanese breakfast. We each had several tempura fried beans, shrimp and vegetable medleys, a bowl of rice, a miso soup, a bowl of grated daikon topped with dashi , a couple sausages and a hard boiled egg alongside green tea and coffee. When I first came to Japan, I was very much of the sweet breakfast variety. I could hardly imagine tempura, salted cod or other such things to start my day. Now, the simplicity and tastiness is something that I really look forward to whenever we stay at a hot spring hotel or ryokan.

We happily thanked Mrs. Isoguchi for the wonderful meal (which she continuously apologized for, saying that she was an awful cook), packed and attached our bags and thanked theIsoguchis profusely before rolling out to meet our morning boat. Back on (only slightly larger) turf, we decided we should get the lay of the land. On the 21st, we are planning on taking a 10am boat to Osaka and we thought it would be a good idea to find the ferry terminal lest we get terribly lost on the morning of our trip and end up, very literally, missing the boat. It’s quite a good thing we decided on our little hunt. The terminal was not easy to find and if I have learned anything about us, lost,pre -coffee, with a boat to catch, it would not have been a pretty sight. We found the terminal, contemplated sleeping in a graffiti covered skate park, decided not to, and headed back in the direction of Marugame – a city we had been to several days prior but had not been explored thoroughly enough. There were several temples belonging to the 88 temple pilgrimage that we still wanted to see.

As we cycled through the city, we found ourselves both with a strange a feeling. Cycling, again, down the same stretch of route 33 – probably for the fourth or fifth time – we stopped after a small bridge.

“Are we really going to go down 33 again? I don’t really need to see those temples,” chimed Meghan.

“Well… I don’t know,” and I really didn’t. I was at an absolute loss. I kind of wanted to see the temples, but really didn’t want to do the same 50km over again. With 50km back the following day. Meghan felt the same way. For about 10 minutes, we both stood there on the side of route 33 – speechless and unable to make an decisionwhatsover. Eventually, Meghan said,

“Well, I think I saw someone camped by that river back there. We could chill there for a couple days, play some frisbee, and tan.”

This seemed like a great idea. And so that’s what we did. We fully accepted our holding pattern for what it was – a holding pattern. We about faced and went to hunt our a spot for our home by the river. Heading down, we realized that a cycling road lined the river for what looked like a good distance. I checked on the map and found out that not only did the cycling path run along the river, but it lead right to another one of the 88 temples. Before settling down, we fired down the path to check out our fifth temple.

Now, we are sitting in MacDonald’s, wheezing precious electricity from their power sockets, before we head out to set up camp. Meghan had to battle the staff for some mayonnaise to go with her fries (which now successfully resides, in aMcFlurry lid, by the fries) and we are catching up on some much needed posts and internetting. Tomorrow, our holding pattern continues. We will, hopefully, check out the Heike Museum, play some park golf or frisbee and maybe lay around a bit. The following day, we will, again hopefully, board the boat to Osaka where we will meet up with some good, old Hokkaido buddies.

We often write of the amazing circumstances which lead to things working out in just the right way. Today’s adventure was the pinnacle of this kind of occurrence.

Weeks ago, in Fukushima, the Miakes had told us of a modern art museum built underground on (in) Naoshima Island (直島), off the coast of Shikoku. Intrigued, we had circled the island on our map and made plans to go there when we got near. Clearly, our path has been much altered since then, but still we managed to find ourselves near a port that sends ferries to the island. Yesterday morning, while quickly borrowing internet from the camp staff, we had mentioned that we were planning to go to Naoshima on Monday.

“Hmmm… you want to go to Naoshima? Will you stay the night?” the camp staffer had asked.

“Yeah, we will probably try and find somewhere out of the way to camp, there are no campsites on the island.” Christophe replied.

“Well, wait a minute” she mumbled under her breath as she pulled out her cell and began placing a call.

Five minutes later we had a place to stay in Naoshima, our camp staffers parent’s home. What’s more, they had let her know the museum would be closed on Monday, so we had better go on Sunday (today) and they had given her the ferry times. As such, this morning we woke very early, packed up our tent, and rode quickly to the ferry terminal an hour away. By 9am we were being greeted at the ferry terminal in Naoshima by an old man in a red baseball cap.

Isoguchi-san looks to be in his late 60s, fully mobile as he jumped on his small scooter to guide us to his home. At the house we dropped our bikes and met Mrs. Isoguchi, an adorable woman not more then 5 feet tall and in total shock at the lumbering, Japanese speaking foreigners, but welcoming nonetheless. After a very brief exchange of greetings we were ushered into Isoguchi-san’s car and were racing off toward the Chichu Art Museum. On the way, he handed us two plastic yearly passes to the museum, saving us each a $20 entrance charge. We arrived at the ticket counter 30 minutes before the museum was due to open, so we made small talk outside the entrance with our host.

He had come to Naoshima in 1946 at the age of 17 because the factory on the island was recruiting. At the time, he recalled, he had never even heard of Naoshima even though he lived only a 2 hour ferry ride away, near Kobe. He had lived here ever since, never having left Japan, never having traveled further north then Tokyo. We must have amused him, young Americans determined to see all of Japan. His Japanese was tough to follow, but not impossible, and I think he had as much trouble with mine as I with his. He seemed to take to Christophe though, and I soon found myself fighting just to keep up with the conversation. Suddenly looking up from the Japanese haze I realized the nearly empty entrance way to the museum had filled with people, and, as the doors were opened, an entire tour bus pulled up. Immediately a line began to form, and in classic, old Japanese man style, Isoguchi-san snatched back the yearly passes from us and snaked his way to the front. He handed us our tickets, told us to meet him back here in an hour an a half (it would only take an hour he assured, but agreed to an hour and a half so we wouldn’t feel rushed). We were the second couple to enter the museum that morning.

The museum building itself is a work of art, designed by Tadao Ando to reside within a mountain, almost unnoticeable from the outside but for the entrance and skylights, and using almost exclusively natural light inside. It is an amazing experience simply to walk through the naturally lit halls buried within the mountain. The museum itself only has three artists work; five of Claude Monet’s water lilies, three installations by James Turrell and an installation by Walter De Maria. The Monet pieces are all within a large white room lit entirely by natural light, a breathtaking space for the pieces. As we stood staring at the impressionist’s work, clouds drifted past the sun and the light in the room shifted. It was as if we were outside by the pond itself, and yet looking up, there appeared to be only ceiling.

James Turrell is an artist fascinated by light and creates spaces that use light to confuse one’s perception of space. We had seen another work by him at the Modern Art Museum in Kanazawa, a large room with a rectangular hole missing from the ceiling (Open Sky). It almost looked like a painting of the sky from below, until you noticed that the clouds were moving. Here there were three pieces of his, from different points in his career, the most recent resembling the piece in Kanazawa. The other two both involved neon lights; one involving two room, one lit in blue set up a staircases from the other, lit in a soft yellow. Walking between the two rooms truly felt like passing “through the looking glass” into another world.

The Walter De Maria piece was also naturally lit, through a skylight in the ceiling, and was made up of gold leafed wooden sculptures placed around the room to catch the light in different ways. At the center of the room stood a large, polished granite sphere that reflected the scene from the skylight, the golden rods and the people milling about the room.

The museum was really incredible and I am so happy we were able to go there, but I am even more thankful we did not have to spend $40 to do it. The entire experience would have been severely marred by a feeling of panic at dropping so much money on a museum that, in the end, contained very little. But the simplicity of the museum was its charm, and we happily enjoyed it.

At 11:30 Isoguchi-san met us and packed us back into the car. He drove us quickly over to the Benesse Museum, Tadao Ando’s first building on Naoshima – another museum he could get us into for free. This museum was part museum, part hotel, filled with a variety of fun Modern Art pieces – my favorite being a wall filled with connected world flags made in colored sand and inhabited by a giant ant colony. We began to realize that Naoshima was not home to a single art museum, but rather many. It seemed as if the entire island had been invaded by a colony of artists (or art lovers who came after the artists had departed). Inside the Benesse we admired a large painting of two small boats, one yellow and one black, washed up on the beach. In front of the painting, the boats sat as sculptures. Out on the balcony of the museum we starred out at the amazing shoreline when I saw them, again one yellow and one black in the same orientation, on the beach below. The artists had made the island into a giant instillation.

After the Benesse Museum were were $60 in our guides debt, but he was not through with us yet. Back in the car he drove us down a a park filled with fun colorful sculptures, including a rather famous giant spotted pumpkin. After some quick photos we were back in the car, weaving through a narrow street that worked its way around a large lake. On the side of the road we stopped to admire a giant trash can sculpture that somehow seemed to fit into the natural space. Our guide asked us what we wanted to do for lunch, we said anything cheap, and so he headed in the direction of the “center”.

The “center” it turned out was the “General Welfare Center” of Naoshima where one could get a full set lunch for about $6. He walked us to the door of the restaurant and said he would be back in an hour to pick us up. It was like having a private taxi for the day!

And hour later, stuffed, we were loaded back into the car and handed one “Art House Project” pass each (bringing the total expense of our museum costs to $90 saved by having Isoguchi-san as our guide). The “Art House Project”, as stated by my pass “involves the restoration of old houses and the transformation of these houses into works of art by artists”. Scattered around the main town area of Naoshima there are five houses and one shrine that have been transformed into works of art.

We wandered around town, our guide always milling around the area of the house we were in, spotting us as we came out and setting off in the direction of the next location. It felt like we were following a video game guide who you can never quite catch up with but who always keeps you going in the right direction – our Navi. Each of the houses were designed by a different artist; an udon shop that had a room of molded black plastic and a two story tall Statue of Liberty, a simple black fronted house that led to a stone garden overlooked by two tatami rooms filled with stone flowers, a Japanese home where the tatami room had been replaced by an indoor pond at the bottom of which sat digital displays of different colors counting at different speeds from 1 to 9, a very traditional house that was done with very modern and artistic touches, and finally a home that was completely gutted and dark in which you had to sit for 10 minutes to allow for your eyes to adjust before wandering about the room (another Turrell light installation). The shrine had a glass staircases leading up to in and also down into the ground to meet an underground lake that could be viewed after walking down a long narrow cement hall just large enough to fit one person through. On the way out the horizon completely overwhelmed the exit view, making you feel as if you were about to walk straight into it.

Exhausted and excited by all of these different houses, we fell back into the car and were taken home to re-coop over coffee and treats offered by tiny Mrs. Isoguchi. My brain was overwhelmed by the whirlwind of art I had seen today, and was not up to the task of Japanese, so I lost myself in the snacks. The next thing I knew we were being ushered back out to the car to visit the “Kaisha”. Kaisha, I thought, I knew the word but I couldn’t place it. I guess I was muttering it under my breath, because Christophe translated – we were going to see the “company”.

I felt like I was in Pittsburgh being given a tour by my father.

“You see this here, this was all company ground. But they sold it and turned it all into houses. Looks totally different now.” our guide narrated in Japanese as we drove around the town. Christophe translated the overall feel of the tour best with this excerpt:

“You see this house here. It’s totally uninteresting. But you know what happened inside it? Nothing that cool, my boss lived here. But he was the boss of the biggest factory on Naoshima. What did our factory do, something with earth. And maybe gold and silver, I can’t remember, but definitely earth.”

It was a totally different view of Naoshima. The “company” had taken up the majority of the town we were driving through. In fact, when it was running, the population had been around 8,000 people on the island. But it had closed, and although there were other factories, including a new recycling plant, the population was down to around 3,000. We made our way to the still running companies.

It looked as if someone had taken a huge sculpting knife and simply cut out chunks of the hills that make up Naoshima. In this cut out chunks, huge pieces of machinery and large warehouses had been placed. This barren land stood in stark contrast with the carefully constructed Chichu museum we had seen this morning. It was the “real Naoshima “, the reason people lived on these islands. The art movement was only about 20 years old on the island, but these factories had pulled in young people since the war, maybe before.

Back at the home we decided to visit one last work of art – the Naoshima Bathhouse which had been designed by on of the “Art House Project” artists. It was a great bath, the only “modern” sento I have been to in Japan. The floor of the bath was a collage of 60s bikini snapshots and edo period woodcut porn. A giant elephant stood on the wall that separated the men’s and women’s sides. The view from the large window was of cacti and pitcher plants which found plenty of heat from the giant water boilers behind them. We ate a quick dinner at a local restaurant (I am not sure that our elderly hosts really do dinner, although they had promised us breakfast in the morning) and returned to the house.

Back home Mrs. Isoguchi had prepared us beds, which she ushered us to along with a tray bearing two glasses and a pitcher of water. I fell asleep almost instantly.

We got up and out of our wonderful, free campsite and headed out to meet our day of temples. Shikoku, as I’m sure we’ve mentioned before, is famous for the 88 Buddhist temple pilgrimage. Any time of year, although more often in the warmer months, you can see pilgrims in white tops and bottoms walking the roads between the 88 temples that line the entire coast and top many of the mountains of the island of Shikoku. Since we had hit one already, we got it in our minds that we should hit as many as we could before leaving Shikoku’s shores. Today, we would try to hit a few while making our way toward the ultimate goal of Muragame Castle – the castle park of a nearby city.

Our first temple shared its name with the neighborhood of our camp site – Kokubunji. As temples often are, it was a serene place with many statues and, usual for Shikoku, many white clad pilgrims. What made this one a bit different was that it had a “mini 88 temple pilgrimage”. Each temple had donated one statue toKokubunji and they had recreated the pilgrimage in miniature – kind of. Really it was just a line of statues with the names of the 88 temples beside them. We quietly walked around the grounds, observed a couple prayers, saw how much money people drop on their white linen pilgrim-wear (a lot), and headed back to route 33 toward Muragame.

We managed to hit two other temples before getting to Muragame. One was more a shrine than a temple and the other had an underground cave full to the brim with tiny, gold kannon statues. A bit kitchy if you ask me. Right before getting to Muragame city, we stopped for some udon.

Udon is the famous thick, white wheat noodle that is most often served in a hot broth topped with grated ginger and chopped scallions, It come in many different incarnations but that is your basic udon. Shikoku, as we quickly found out, is very famous for not only udon, but cheap, fast udon. Almost all the udon places we’ve seen have been “self” which really turns out to be less self-serve and more like cafeteria style. For the second day in a row, we filled our selves with too much udon at lunch time and returned to our bicycles about 2 lbs. heavier and not excited to cycle. Luckily, the udon drunkenness wears off quickly.

At the castle, we walked through the gates into what appeared to be the preparations for a flower festival that would no doubt be happening very soon. Tall chrysanthemums sat alongside carefully manicured bonsai trees while old, tanned men and women scurried about making preparations. We peeked into a couple tents and then headed up the steep incline to the main grounds of Muragame Castle. When we finally made it to the top, we were greeted with a stunning view of the Seto Inland Sea (we could see all the way to Honshu!) and the “remains” of the castle – a tiny tower you could pay to 3 dollars to enter. No thanks. We enjoyed the view but, on a sadder note, realized that our idea to cycle to Kannonji , a city on the opposite coast from our current location, would require almost a day of straight city riding. We regrettably nixed that idea and headed back down to meet our bikes.

On our way back home, we decided that our time without internet had gone long enough. It had been almost five days since we updated the blog and its many parts so we hopped into a little internet cafe for what we thought would be a quick thirty minutes of updating. An hour and fifteen minutes later, we left with most things updated, bellies full of free coffee, corn soup, milk tea and hot chocolate, and a bit of a ride to do before arriving back at our home base.

When we finally got back home, I took another quick and cold hose bath (revitalizing!) and Meghan, having not been comfortable with the idea of a very public and cold hose bath, ran over to the public bath on premises. Since I was energized and clean, I told her to take her time in the bath and I would prepare dinner. When she got back a little over an hour later, we enjoyed a very random meal of red lentils, curry croquet, tiny hot dogs and steamed broccoli. Random, but tasty (and we finally got rid of those red lentils)!

Dishes. Star Trek. Pack up the bags for a very early morning. Bed.

It was a leisurely morning, happily stress free. We decided late last night that we would be handing out here at this campsite for a few days, allowing us to ride to several things in the area we wanted to check out. In the end, there were only a few things we were actively interested in on Shikoku – and all but one were in this area. The one area we have decided to forgo is the Shimanamikaido (島並みか井戸）, a set of bridges that pass between a bunch of little islands that connect Honshu and Shikoku. The bridges all have cycling bridges, and we have been told by a number of people that they are very beautiful to ride across. We have also learned that they each have a toll, the campsites on and around them are very expensive, and they are 90km through city from here, away from Osaka. So to go to them we would have to ride through city for a day, then ride up and down the bridges for a day, then ride straight back. Or we could go over to them, cross them, and ride back along Honshu – but that stretch of land is even more densely populated. And considering our heightened stress levels the last few days, we decided it would be much more enjoyable to hunker down here, get rid of the bags, and just take day trips to temples, shrines and a castle in the area.

Today, after breakfast, much chit chatting, an episode of Next Generation (we love having this plug at our disposal) and general dilly dallying we finally set out just before noon. Our frist stop was a michi no eki (道の駅), rest stop, that includes an Udon Kaikan （うどん会館）, or udon noodle meeting house. Udon is super popular is Shikoku, as well as super cheap. We saw some udon making, dug on a very cool statue of a traditional dance (possibly a rain dance?) done here, got the rest stop’s stamp, and moved on.

After about an hours ride we had reached our goal for the day – Kampira-san (かんぴらさん）, a very large shrine built up a mountain. The main part of the shrine sat at the top of the mountain, but the entire mountain had been paved (well stone streeted) over long ago and now one worked they way up an endless series of steps and ramps, lined with shops and dotted with rest areas involving shirne related statues. Towards the top the shops ended, and it became more religious. There were even two “God Horses” – beautiful horses that, if we can decipher the kanji well enough, contain the spirits of gods. The view from the top area of the shrine complex was breathtaking (so were the steps up there), we could see all the way to Honshu.

By the time we left the shrine it was already 4pm, so we decided to head back to the campsite (it begins to get dark around 5 and is pretty much pitch black by 6 or 6:30). On the way back we stopped at two “home stores” and a three story mall in search of a new gas canister for our stove- all to no avail. In the end we decided to have sandwiches and edamame for dinner, items that required no cooking, and hoped we could locate gas tomorrow.

We also hope we will be able to find internet tomorrow, as we have been disconnected now for about five days!

It’s more official than it has ever been: fall is here. I spent most of the night and morning trying various ways to keep myself completely warm. Although our sleeping bags are three season, I think they assume you’ll be smart in the colder seasons and layer a bit. I was not smart last night – wearing but a t-shirt and jogging pants. From here on out, layers for sleep are the name the game.

We got up and quickly fashioned our most favorite breakfast of late – bacon, caramelized onions and eggs on baguette (with a hot cup of coffee for me and a milk tea for Meghan). While enjoying our breakfast, a man in a white truck filled with dogs showed up. Parking his little truck, he let out one beautiful German Shepard and grabbed several long metal poles topped with pink feathers. He then proceeded to stick the poles in the ground all around the field next to where we were camping – it seemed we would get yet another breakfast with a show. He then fetched the German Shepard who had been waiting patiently and gave him a command. The dog eagerly began sniffing out all the flags, tail wagging high in the air, until he found the apparent culprit. He turned to his master, laid down, and looked up at him eager for a prize. They did this several times and we happily watched while scarfing our breakfast medley.

After the show, I decided to degrease the bikes, something that was much needed as gunk had been piling up for couple days; wreaking havoc on our components. Bikes clean, we packed up and rolled out of Hiketa – waving goodbye to the large, old black Labrador that seemed to have taken the role of protective spirit for the free camp site.

The toward Takamatsu, our final destination, was not particularly nice save the roof tile workshops that could be seen displaying their wares on the side of the highway. The first time we stopped was around lunch where we ate our usual rice balls but also noticed a nearby temple. Shikoku is known for its 88 temple pilgrimage so we were excited to see at least a couple of them. We headed over to the temple, aiming for the pagoda peaking above the trees, and found out it was temple number 86. We walked around the temple grounds, taking pictures and giving waves and bows to the various pilgrims that had made it this far. You can always tell a pilgrim by his or her white vest – an article that lets others know they are on the pilgrimage.

Riding a bit further, we made it to the center of Takamatsu city – a city like almost every other.

At this point, we stopped at a street corner and decided we needed to make a decision. As Meghan mentioned yesterday, our time since the ferry from the south of Kyushu to now has been a bit challenging. Not only had our forward momentum been cut and our main goal reached, but we had reached a point where we were trying to fill time as opposed to beating a clock. We needed to find something to do until the fourth week of October as opposed to getting somewhere by the fourth week of October. We had toyed with idea of heading further along the north of Shikoku to the apparently beautiful bridges and islands of the Shimanami Kaido but had not been looking forward to doubling back along truck filled northern Shikoku roads or the bustling cities of the southern shore of Honshu.

So where route 11 bends south in the middle of Takamatsu city, we decided we would head to the Ritsurin Gardens, not 1km away, walk around the park and ponder the final days of what has been, and will continue to be for at least a little while longer, a glorious trip.

The park seemed the perfect place to make such a decision. At first we simply strolled the south garden, taking in it’s beautiful pine trees, bridges and ponds. We learned a bit about the area using some new fangled speaking pen then they rented to us. Eventually, we sat upon a bench near a pond of passed lotuses and talked about the next couple days. A few moments went by and we decided that Takamatsu would be the end of the line. We would spend a couple nights at a (hopefully) nearby campsite and take a couple day trips to enjoy the many things that Takamatsu would have to offer. We would even take a day trip to nearby Naoshima island to dig on an apparently very cool museum on the island. Then, we would hop a ferry back to Kobe and ride down to Osaka where the final chapter of this trip will begin – life without bikes.

Content with our plan, we headed for the nearest campsite, one about 20km outside of Takamatsu but before Marugame.

Arriving as the sun was setting, we cautiously headed into the complex, noticing they not only had a camp site, but also had an old folks home, an onsen, a baseball field and many other facilities. We were sure they would charge an arm and a leg. We rode up to a good looking spot an considered camping first an asking questions later but our consciences got the better of us. We headed toward the reception and prayed for “free”.

And free it was. I was on cloud 9. We now had a free, clean and safe campsite where we could leave our tent up and bags safe. It had plugs and clean water, a nearby discount grocer and was perfectly situated – all the things we wanted to see were no further than 20km away.

We fixed a delicious dinner of cous-cous with red Thai curry, enjoyed some beers and Next Generation, and called it a, very chilly, night.