After successfully getting my bike repaired in Nagano, and a wonderful culinary stay with Erika, the last couple of weeks were mainly colored by alternating between bitter colds and steaming hots, combined with a number of important milestones, but a very limited number of kilometers in the saddle. What happened, you can read below.
After enjoying the hospitality of Erika her apartment and wonderful kitchen for over a week, I have to slightly force myself to change from the warmth and inside of the inside, to the quite a bit colder temperatures outside. Raindrops join me on my tour, and for a mere moment I think about going back for just another day, but manage to focus myself and push through. Dressed up in my rain gear I find myself climbing the first hill with fresh snowflakes attaching themselves to me and my luggage, and shivering I end up in the nearest shelter I can find, a supermarket, where I manage to warm myself with a meal of instant noodles and an extra layer of thermo-clothes. I eventually end up close to the castle of Matsumoto, where I decide camping is not an option tonight, and open my wallet widely for spending a night in a 'cheap' hotel.
The next couple of days follow a similar rhythm. Up into the Japan Alps, spending the night in a youth hostel, and yet again some more rain and a snowstorm on the following day. A slight problem, as this very storm made the mountain pas I had to cross for meeting Nancy the same night off-limits, both due to Japanese road safety regulations, and due to my own common sense. Luckily the hostel owner understand my situation, and offers met to bring me across the mountain through some car-only toll-tunnel. Don't really feel like accepting his generous offer, but eventually decide this is probably the best option I have left.
Takayama is a nice, be it somewhat boring, little town, and I join Nancy and het friends to a Taiko drum class and a delicious meal of okonomiyaki. The forecast foresees even more snow, so the next morning I decide to find my way out of the mountains as soon as possible; exactly as was predicted I find some snowflakes falling down around at the highest point of the day, and after that it is speeding down under a perfectly blue sunny sky.
Crossing through Gifu and along Nagoya, polluting industries, aggressive driving, unfriendly faces. The first time to see those in Japan. Along a slightly warmer area, yet up again, and in the direction of Nara-ken. A gorgeous series of hills, and an idyllic downhill, between tea plantations and narrow valleys of pine and bamboo trees.
In Nara I arrive to Mayumi's. She is working hard on opening her own cafe in the city's old town district, and tonight she organises a little party for her friends. Istvan and me are invited too, and while she is busy arranging all sorts of things, we spend a nice weekend, without ever getting to talk to our host.
Once we finally get to talk to each other on sunday night, we find out we actually like each other quite a bit. Things start evolving and in the end I spend close to a month in Nara, and help Mayumi redecorating and preparing her future cafe.
In between I also head off for spending a week in Korea, as my Japanese visa is about to expire. This week I spend in Busan with Eric, Shawn, Tim, Jess and other old and new friends. Small talk, partying and thinking are the subjects. Just taking it easy.
This is where I decide I actually just like to continue my trip. Spending some more time with Mayumi and maybe working in the kitchen of her future cafe for a bit feel like some very attractive options, but I realise that these are not the things that will make me happy on the long term. Besides that, there also seem to be quite some restrictions on how to express a relation in public in Japanese society, restriction that I find only hard to accept.
For another week I help out on preparing the cafe, and just in time we manage to decorate the whole place for the grand opening. And then, the time has come to leave. With a feeling of deep emptiness and tears in the corners for my eyes, I mount my bike and ride a cold and uninspiring route to Kyoto.
From there on I continue to Kobe and fetch a boat to Takayama, as the in between island can only be traveled with by car. Shikoku is great, and especially the Iya valley is gorgeous. Demanding uphills along a river filled with close to green water, beautiful reflections of traditional villages, a famous rope bridge, and of course, Manneke Pis.
Unfortunately the exit of the valley doesn't seem to be on the place that my map suggests (the very first time I ever found an error in this series), a thing that comes at quite a price; that night I was to celebrate Christmas Eve with Andrew and his friends, but this slight error on the map, means I will have to make a 50 kilometer detour and almost makes me appear the personification of the missing sheep. An at times extremely scary night ride is the result.
With yet another ten kilometers to go, I get in touch once more, to update on my progress and ask for directions. Andres uses some excuse and tells me he will come pick me up a couple of minutes later. I don't care, and even the wonderful traditional Christmas meal with a nicely done turkey and all the other extras give me a hard time to enjoy them; I am exhausted.
The next two days show a nice change in that though, I revive in the apartment of Andrew (who finished his own north to south just weeks before) and his girlfriend, and cook and enjoy.
Along Shikoku's south coast, which, with blooming Aloe Vera and thorny bushes up in the hills, has quite a different vegetation than the areas I visited before, I make my way to Kochi. I spend an experimental night in an internet cafe, and then head for the hills again.
There I am surprised by massive winds and snow, and I get frozen in just a couple of hundred meters above sea level. No suitable camping spots or accommodation available, so I end up in some unlocked shed and spend the night shivering between the supplies for the local public toilet. At the break of dawn I rapidly make my way to the other side of the hill and warm up in an onsen. I am so preoccupied with getting warm again, that I almost forget about the fact I am about to ride my 20.000th kilometer.
The ever returning cold really starts to get to my motivation, so I decide to suspend my planned route along some island in the Inland Sea, and take a direct boat to Hiroshima.
Before getting there I was at times making the sick joke that I would visit Hiroshima for New Year's and light some fire-crackers, but how stupid this was, I started realising only after visiting the A-bomb dome. The things that took place here some sixty years ago, seem difficult to gasp now, especially with the new and modern city it is now, but after seeing a couple of photos of what this place was like just after the bomb was dropped, cause a lump in my throat and make me feel like crying.
Total destruction. Nothing left but a smoking mass, at places the charcoal stumps of what were once trees, and a rare, very rare,skeleton of the odd building. This is awful. But still live goes on, as shown by that one lonesome cyclist, crossing the bridge on a picture of a destroyed city.
This, and also Japanese culture, make New Year's a slightly different event than I initially thought it would be. No massive parties on the street, but a silent city, in which the doors of the bars of the famous entertainment district are closed tonight. A small scale demonstration for world peace takes its place, and Japanese that venture en masse to their local shrines to pray for good luck in the upcoming year.
A couple of days later I, together with some other travelers, visit the famous torii of Miyajima, a beautiful red temple gate, located off-shore in the coastal waters of this sacred island. Just like in Nara a immense population of tame deer, that enjoy a sacred protection as they are seen as the messengers of the gods. Enjoying the whole scene around sunset, a good choice so we find out later, as in the afternoon the temple complex gets busier than Amsterdam shopping streets on a sunday afternoon.
Fueled with new energy I ride off into the cold again, along the coast to Kyushu and Okinawa, where I hope to find some higher temperatures. From there on I will travel on to Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia in the next couple of months, hoping to arrive to Bali somewhere around may. And after that, I might just take a little break..
