Never ending story - Part 2: Nikko

So Monday, the national holiday, was the only day left for the whole supposed fun part and the return to Ikebukuro. I started rather quickly and was in Utsunomiya on the bike, ready to go before 10 a.m. 

The first part through the city was great (but city).

The second part, leaving the city behind and going towards Nikko, was ok - the road was really nice, trees line the street, but too much traffic to really enjoy it.

Finally reaching Nikko as first interim goal, it was terrible. Whole Nikko was a traffic jam! I see green traffic lights as far as I see, but nothing is moving. I am fighting my way through the crowd, driving wherever no barrier blocks the way, using sidewalks, shoulders, ditches...

Finally, I reached the area of the great temples, the goal of many and the end of the non moving avalanche of steel.

Having passed this, I had free road ahead of me for the first time on my trip. I entered the iroha-zaka quickly, a famous ascent with about 22 serpentine curves. As it has two lanes and goes to one direction only, the cars on the road didn't matter too much. That was at least true as long as the cars where moving, at curve no. 14 there was... traffic jam!

Of course the area around Nikko, the high moor, the waterfalls and the pretty lakes are really beautiful, especially as the turning of the leaves had already started. As you can guess not only I knew this - so even after having left the traffic jam at iroha-zaka behind, streets were always crowded. What didn't help were two signs I saw pretty everywhere on this trip: "speed limit 40km/h" and "no overtaking". There was always somebody who was driving 40, behind him some cars that didn't overtake so I only had the choice to stick to 40 or to drive like a "Drecksau"... 

Still the sightseeing part was worth the drive and some curves, I had all for my own (after doing the driving like a Drecksau to pass the slowly moving obstacles).

Lake Chuzenji

Ryuzu Falls

Ryuzu Falls from above

high moor of Senjogahara

nice road but with too many cars... :(

Yu no Taki

Yu no Taki from above

Lake Yu no Ko

Some relaxation in the Onsen (hot spring)

Onsen Tamago (Eggs boiled in natural thermal water)

So finally I was on my way back to Tokyo. Having left Road 120 - the Romantic Road - I found myself again in traffic jam, only this time not produced by too many tourists but by too many people wanting to go to Tokyo (pretty normal condition, there are just too many people on this island. And everybody has a car...).

Even with the bike, using every small gap and every centimeter between the roadside ditch on the left and the rear view mirrors on the doors of the cars on the right, I wasn't able to go really fast.

The watch said 7:00 p.m., the speedometer said 17km/h and the road sign said 117km to Tokyo... the result of a quick calculation was 'I'm in trouble'. I needed a new strategy if I didn't want to stay on the bike until 2:00 a.m. (which I didn't!).

Or I could reuse a strategy that was proved, like leaving my bike in Utsunomiya the other day. So I found the nearest station of a major line going with direct connection to Tokyo, left my bike somewhere not too close to the station and went home by train... As there was no traffic jam on the railroad tracks, I made it back home in 2 hours.

Yet my bike tour was still not over as only I, not my bike returned to Tokyo. 

Therefore 

to be continued...

Never ending story - Part 1

Timing would have been everything

Monday a national holiday, a 3 days weekend. Recently the waves are not that great and I have my new toy, the motorbike, so I decide to take a ride.
With my sleeping bag and air mattress I plan to stay where ever I roam. My target: the highmoor at Nikko. A vast and beautiful plano alto with hot spring, waterfalls bringing water from the nearby mountain and, most important, nice curved roads.
Google Map tells me that the overall distance is 380km, something that could be easily made in Germany within one day, so I guess 3 days is no problem even if the Tokyo traffic is involved at the beginning and end of the trip.

All the preparation go well, I'm ready to go. But then: RAIN. I wait until it gets better and go anyhow, assuming that it won't be that bad.

It is that bad. It is worse. I wait in the traffic jam in Tokyo being rained on, I drive behind trucks being sprayed on, I try to advance as quickly as possible sneaking to the pole position at red traffic lights, overtake everywhere where's more space between cars than the width of my handle. The roads in central Tokyo are great, 3 lanes in every direction, but as soon as I leave the center, the roads become smaller with the same amount of traffic on it.
Road No. 4 leads from Tokyo to Utsunomiya which is close to Nikko, so I imagine everything will be better once I reach that road. It isn't. Road No. 4 packed, has huge cart tracks (even the newly built parts!). And the rain is increasing ever since I left Ikebukuro.

Always raining I wasn't too motivated to stop to take pictures. The only picture I took was at the only place where it didn't rain.

I continue driving until Utsunomiya, crossing 4 prefectures: Tokyo, Saitama, Ibaraki and Tochigi. I am soaking wet. My clever plan of staying somewhere where I could find a roof - not an option any more. I look for a hotel but 50 Euro is the minimum and they don't even offer parking for bikes.
So I decide to go back to Ikebukuro to stay the night in my own apartment... but not another 4 hours drive with the bike in the rain, I take the option to go 1,5 hours with the train. A train round trip is cheaper than a hotel anyhow. So I park my bike somewhere where I hope it will be ok and go home.

Not only did my skin feel like leather, it also took over the color from the leather bike wear that was completely wet.


The weather forecast for Sat said it would rain and I thought I wouldn't be that bad and went anyhow.
The weather forecast for Sun said it would rain and I thought I maybe should believe it this time - but it turned out to be not bad at all. No rain, even sunny from time to time. But when I realized that, it was already too late to go to Utsunomiya to continue the ride. Instead I enjoyed the Yosakoi Festival in Ikebukuro (the original plan was to go surfing, but than I wasted too much time taking pictures of the festival for you... coming soon so stay tuned! :P )

The 88 temples pilgrimage of Shikoku - last day (Day 8)

Today is the day I'm going to head back. But before I think about how to return (as I said, no trains here, and the local buses don't cover a big distance) I try to visit one more temple, no. 26.

The city surrounding temple no. 25 is vivid as it seems to be a more or less important harbor city. All over the place there are fish shops that dry their fish in front of their shop on the street.

I head out of the city passing fields and finally reach the woods again. The last climb... is there a rule that temple have to be always on places that make them uncomfortable to reach? Don't they want people to come there? But I like the path as it's a true hiking path and doesn't lead along a street.

Miwa tree

Rice fields

In the woods again

View from close to the top...

...only a bit to go

The last temple for this trip!

Tea field on my way back

"Everybody you meet is your Great Teacher" (Great Teacher is posthumous title of Kukai, the founder of the buddhist school all those temple belong to.)

Down again, last time through the woods

Having reached the cost, this trip is at it's final point.

I decide to hitchhike again, at least until the next bus comes. Maybe because it's a more vivid city, I don't have success with my selfmade "Kan no Ura or direction of Tokushima" sign, so I take the bus. The bus crosses the city (from my point of view: heading back) but doesn't go much further. I get off at the last stop, far away from my destination. By chance I see another bus stop and curiously, I check it out. "Highway bus to Osaka"... This sounds like a comfortable plan!

Waiting for the bus I find all sorts of animals living in the cliffs. As soon as I'm in the bus, it starts to rain. The first time since I left Tokyo...

Finally civilization again! I take the Shinkansen to Tokyo and am catapulted into the present.

The 88 temples pilgrimage of Shikoku - Day 7

Even though I took the train and walked until late, I did not get close to the next temple at all. The distance between temple no. 23 and temple no. 24 is over 80km - if I continue walking the whole day, I still won't have any chance to reach the temple on this day. So I decide not to walk for hours next to a big street in the middle of nowhere but take the only measure left to advance faster without having a train available. 

But first I had to back to the street, so I walked along the shore and took the next turn toward the road I had been walking on yesterday. What I didn't know that time was, I was on a hiking course, actually a round course. It led one time around a lake, beautiful indeed but not really bringing me closer to my goal.

The shortest circumference with a given area is a circle. If you think of the contrary, your imagination might be quite close to what the lake looked like, so even if there wasn't too much water, there was enough to walk. (I was here for walking, but still it isn't fun when it's in circles. 

the lake

rice field on the way

After being back on track, I reached a nice beach, not sand but pebbles and about 3km long. Here and there were some people who were fishing, but basically it was empty. Did you ever try to walk on pebbles? When every step you take is absorbed by the ground - walk 10m but advance only 5m? So the 3km long beach would have easily felt like 6km, if I hadn't decided to climb the wall that protected the forrest behind the beach from high tides and went back on the paved road... climb because there was no gate close. Looking back I remember the wall was 3m high and my backpack weighed 50kg, but of course my memory might not be that accurate and in reality, it was more.

long long beach

fishermen

I reached the main track again and continued walking. Honestly, I tried to walk it all, but the track was desolate. Only a road, vegetation but no trees that could provide shadow and birds circling above me like vultures above somebody dying of thirst. 

The extend of emptiness of this area: Usually Japan is ALWAYS crowed, and especially when it is the one week where everybody has vacations - this week! 

Shirohama beach - this "city" is quite big compared to what I've seen along the way elsewhere, it even has a hotel.

Finally, not having advanced too quickly the hours I walked until now, I decide to hitchhike. The first car that passes stops and a nice lady takes me with her the few kilometers she has to go in her tiny car. On the way we stop as she insists to buy me something to eat and drink. Lacking convenient stores or other shops, we stop at a vending machine corner with the common huge variety of drinks, but also lots of food - if you have not been in Japan you will never believe what is possible to sell in a vending machine...

At least 65km left, I hitchhike again. This time it takes a while, not the first car stops but maybe one of the first ten cars that passed. 10 cars crossing will take you in Tokyo seconds (unless it's traffic jam again), here it took like 30 minutes.

Again a tiny car but we manage to store all my luggage and myself together with the driver, a woman a bit below my age, her grandma and their dog. We talk about a bit about my trip while they pull out all their food supply to share it with me. We talk about the different areas about Japan, she says she has studied in Kyoto, like me but in a different university. I say I know only one person from her university, she wants to know who and - unbelievable she knows him too! It turns out that, when she was a student, she did karate with Shimizu Ryosuke, who later became Japanese champion and now trains at our dojo in Tokyo.

Time flies and we arrive too quickly at the crossing where I have to head away from the cost again for the next temple, the southmost point of Kochi. Considering I'm just a hitchhiker it was a rather big goodbye, I get more food (for the way) and I'm even allowed to pet the dog. The dog doesn't seem to know that and barks aggressively at the approaching hand, so I decide that this trip might be nice even without petting this dog.

I have to climb another mountain, the serpentines are endless but the temple is worth it.

The next temple is close (6km) and there is still some time. Finally, I arrive there, not willing to take another step. Well, but it doesn't count without climbing that stairs.

Having climbed the stairs, I get rewarded with a beautiful main hall.

 New discovery: A fruit called "Miwa". I also discover that I'm allergic to miwa.

Finally some luxury! This night, no tent, no sleeping back - and - being clean after a bath. I checked into a Ryokan, a Japanese style hotel near the temple.

Also no instant ramen, I visit a restaurant and order as much as I can eat (a lot).

Katsuo tataki - barely grilled bonito filet.

 the habor

Grilled mouth of squids