Our trip to Hakone!

As I wrote in the last entry, we went on a bike trip to Hakone and came back yesterday.



It was just an overnight trip, so we didn't need to bring a ton of stuff, but still we had a bit more luggage than usual. My new Ostrich pannier bags were put into good use.



Kao was quite excited about the trip as this was our first real vacation in a while. Now that Summer is over, the weather is much more comfortable and is just about perfect for a long rides on a bike.



It took us I think about two and a half hours to get to Odawara. We were quite hungry when we got there, so we ate lunch near the Odawara train station and looked around a bit. Odawara is quite a big city compared with Chigasaki or Oiso and it's a very Japanese city as there is the Odawara Castle, so it's somewhat tourist-y with lots of shops catering to visitors. After walking around the station area looking at mostly delicious looking foods and sweets, we rode over to the Odawara Castle. These iconic Japanese castles were all built within a period of half a century during the era just before the Edo period if I remember correctly. Not all of them still exist today and of ones that still do, many are ones that have been re-built after they were destroyed in earthquakes and fires. I believe the Odawara castle has been re-built. It stands wide and not as smart looking as some other castles, but when we went inside it was very roomy and it went up much higher than I expected.

Here's a view from the top of the the castle.


Another view with Hakone which is where we'll be heading.


From Odawara to Hakone Yumoto, it was surprisingly close. Here I am (I didn't even notice when Kao took this) looking at directions to get to our ryokan (inn).

It was exactly there that I made a wrong turn. If we had kept on going straight, it would have been just a gradual climb to our destination, but it looked like an easier route on the map to turn there. Unfortunately for us, that route turned out to be a series of pretty steep climbs followed by a very steep downhill to get to the ryokan, so we ended up doing more climbing than we needed.

But we made it and we were ready to rest and relax.


Our room at the ryokan. That's just by the window and there's a lot more to it. There was probably enough room to sleep 6-8 people.

The river just outside the window looked like this.


We took a bath (hot spring water) and then changed into Yukata (light kimono) and went for a stroll around the area.


It got dark pretty quickly and it was time to go back for dinner.


Lovely, isn't it?


Hungry?

Mmmmm! It was all so good after a day of bike riding (and sight seeing). There was even more than what's shown in these pictures, but we were too busy enjoying the food to take pictures of everything.

More dinner? No, this is breakfast actually.


We took full advantage of the rare opportunity to indulge not just in eating, but we also took another bath after dinner and then one more before breakfast. As you may know, the Japanese love taking baths, but onsen(hot springs) baths are special as the onsen water is rich in mineral with various health benefits. For example, a bath of regular water does warm the body and is good for blood circulation, but after this onsen bath we were very warm for many hours, much longer than usual. A stay at an onsen ryokan may not be super fancy, but for me, it's a perfect luxurious experience. You get to take as many hot springs baths as you like and then they bring you delicious food right to your room. After dinner, they even set the futon for you and you can just relax and fall asleep if you want. When you wake up, they clear the futon and bring you breakfast. What's not to like about that? Of course it costs a little more than a stay at a simple hotel, but when you consider all the extra things you get, it's not all that expensive. For us, it's not something we can afford too often, but it's really worth it on special occasions.

After checking out of the ryokan, we rode around the area for some more sight seeing.


There was this really old path of cobblestones which I think may have been a part of the foot path from Tokyo to Osaka.


Then we went and checked out a couple more places like the Tamadare waterfalls,


and the Zeniarai Benten shrine,

then headed back to Odawara.

We went to the fishing port in Odawara and went to the Fish market restaurant.

Lunchtime!


Yay!
It was indeed as delicious as it looked.


Yes, it was well worth the trip, thought Kao.


"smoking is bad for you!" said the Octopus.


After all that fun, it was time to ride again. And we rode somewhat more slowly for a good 3 hours. Took some shots of the Surly on the Chigasaki beach front almost near home for good measure. The bikes rode great. Thanks bikes. We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to the next adventure with you.

We're ready for our Fall bike trip

It's been quite a while since the last post. I guess there haven't been that much to write about. I've been riding my bike around daily, but haven't been on any epic rides to write about. The weather here has been quite strange. We had a super hot Summer here and then in a matter of a few days, the temperature had dropped like 10 degrees(celcius) and it felt like we skipped fall altogether and gone straight to Winter. That didn't last too long fortunately and now it's neither too hot or too cold, just about perfect weather for bike riding.

We are actually going on a "long ride" by our standards tomorrow. We are going to Hakone and spend a night at a hot springs inn and ride back the next day. Hakone is the first real mountain on the coast from Tokyo to Osaka. We're actually going to Hakone Yumoto which is at the foot of Hakone, so we won't really be climbing up the mountain. It is a long ride compared to what we'd been riding, but there are plenty of people who would ride from Tokyo to Hakone and back all in a single day. We're not one of those people. We're just gonna enjoy a long ride at a leisurely pace and then enjoy a hot bath and some good food. You all know what I'm talking about if you'd ever been to an Onsen in Japan.

The picture at the top is Kao with her bike. We got some slightly fatter tires for it. Kao says that the bike with these 700 x 28 Panasonic Pasella tires are so much more stable and easier to ride.



I put the tires backwards as some of you may have noticed, but that's been corrected. I also got the Ostrich pannier bags for my bike as we'll need to carry more stuff than usual for an overnight stay. These ones aren't those nice canvas bags, but the ones made of nylon that's a lot more reasonably priced. They seem a little more flimsy than my Minnehaha bag, but we'll see how they'll work out.. I didn't get any pictures of them, but I'm sure we'll take a lot of pictures on this trip.

I'll leave you with this picture of a miraculous encounter I had with a fairy on the Fujisawa-Yamato cycling road.

Summer riding

Well we've been on a number of rides since the last entry, but we haven't taken so many pictures on them to do a proper entry about any one ride. Instead, I will just post what pictures we have taken recently and comment on them.



Here is Kao at the Shichirigahama beach.
This was the destination of our ride one day when we did take pictures.


View Larger Map

We went from Fujisawa towards Kamakura and turned South where the Shonan monorail crosses. The map direction begins there. Then the road will go up to Kamakura-yama (Kamakura-hill) which is quite a steep hill to climb. It was the first time we were there so I was too preoccupied with finding the way to take pictures. After the climb, it was all downhill to the Shichirigahama area.



Here I'm riding through the nice path (with no cars) that leads to the ocean front.



You can see the ocean where the road starts to go downhill.



I've crossed the Enoden train tracks and is just a street away from the ocean front.

Kao was taking all the pictures until now, but then I took the picture of her which is at the top.

Shichirigahama isn't all that far from where we live and we just wanted a short casual ride, but the Kamakura-yama was more hilly than we expected.



Another day, we went to the Tsujido beach to take pictures of ourselves. Here's Kao on her bike.

It's been long overdue, but we'd been meaning to make a "We've moved" card for sometime and so we needed material for that.



If you look at this picture closely you might find it a bit strange. That's because it's actually made up of two separate shots. I photoshoped it to make it look like we are standing next to each other.



Here's me on my bike. Kao likes taking pictures of me, but I don't think I'm as photogenic as her.





And a couple of more shots by Kao of surfers riding bikes along the beach. This is a quite typical scenery along this beach. I would say that more than half of the people riding bikes in the area are usually carrying surfboards.

I spent my junior high and high school years in Southern California where surfing was very popular and I tried it as well, but I really was no good at it so I have no desire to try it again, but I think it's quite a romantic sport and I like being around it while riding along the beach.

Japan has had one of the hottest Summers in recent history, but it's finally beginning to cool down a bit. It's quite an adventure to ride the bike under the blazing sun, but it should become a bit easier now. We should be able to go on longer rides without having to worry about heat stroke or sunburn.

Starting again in a new place

Howdy.

Sorry for the long hiatus. Life had taken precedence over blogging for the last months.

I am all well and good. I may have mentioned it here before, but I have finally made the move back to my native country of Japan. We have found a place to live in the city of Fujisawa which is about an hour South East of Tokyo by train. It is just West of Kamakura which is the city that used to be the seat of the Shogunate long ago. They call this area Shonan and is quite a popular area for its beaches. We are quite happy to finally be living together and in our own place. (We were living in a family related place before.)



I had actually a couple more Portland posts in mind before I left, but then the move was so consuming, I had no time nor energy to write them. This move was probably the worst move of my life as I barely got out of the place in time to catch the plane. My friend Eric who came to give me a ride to the airport saw that my apartment was still a big mess when he arrived and if he hadn't been so kind to help me pack and clean, I wouldn't have made it. I was quite deluded about how much work was involved and how much stuff I could take with me. I had been hoping to be able to take the remnants of my bike (the bike sans the damaged frame), but there was no way for me to take the wheels as they were too big and I already had so much luggage.



I did manage to take the KT (Kao's bike) with me as you can see in this photo. It is doing well. I've made a few modifications to it to suit the environment here. I will do a post about that soon.

This area is really beautiful with the the beaches, but there are also many rivers and rice fields and lots of green. I thought I would be missing Portland a lot, but this place is so much better than my expectations that I haven't even thought about Portland that much. Our place is only a 15 minute bike ride from the ocean and 30 minutes to either Kamakura or Chigasaki. Chigasaki is a very bicycle friendly city and it is where the pro cyclist Fumiyuki Beppu (he rides for Lance Armstrong's Team Radioshack) is from.



We have been taking little bike trips all over the area and it's too much to write about it all, but I will now resume with regular updates, and I will write more detailed entries from now on.

We currently have 3 bikes among the two of us. One is Kao's KT, one is Kao's mamachari and the thrid one is my Dahon folding bike. We have been sharing KT and the mamachari between us for now, but I have been looking to build a new bike with the parts from the old one. It's taken a bit of time to consider many different possibilities and I've finally decided on something, but I never would have guessed my new bike will be that. It's still going to take a while to put it together, but I will write about that soon as well. I don't know if we might have lost what few readers we had during our inactivity, but if you are still with us, thank you. I think this blog will be much more interesting reading as we are starting a new life in a very beautiful new place.

old man carrying aluminum cans by bike

I caught up with the old man at the corner
I talked to him and he told me "this is not heavy" and laughed.

Scenery with the bicycle

in Aoyama


bike with resturant advertisement.



parcel delivery bike.

Pictures by Kao

Me and Kao both have accounts at flickr. Mine is quite a mess with everything from daily snaps to artworks. Though I have taken classes in photography, I must admit that I am a poor photographer. Kao on the other hand is a much better photographer and so, I have often thought this blog can benefit more with her photography than mine. I've used her pictures in the past in my posts, but it was a bit of a hassle as I had to ask her to give me the html code each time. We noticed recently that now flickr has a "share this" feature for each picture, and with that I can grab the code myself without having to bother Kao about it.

Anyway, I thought I'd do a post with some of her recent pictures.


This is me on my Dahon riding along Tsurumi river.


Me again riding a mamachari on the path around Kitaura lake near Kao's parents house in Ibaraki prefecture.


A tin bike toy Kao found in a window in Nezu (old Tokyo neighborhood).


Me sitting and flipping through a bike magazine at the old Cycle Square Kitasando.


We stopped by F.I.G Bike after our visit to the Cycle Square. It not only has road bikes and fixies like so many other biks shops, but more utilitarian bikes and a whole section of causal bike clothing by brands like the Rin Project. The staff was very vocal about the merits of regular looking clothing that you can bike in.


Nice card on the wall!


Close-up of the entrance. The two bikes on the right, I think are a Globe and maybe a Velorbis. Not sure.

Also some of you readers who are fellow bloggers are also welcome to use our photos from our flickr pages; Mine and Kao's. You don't need to tell us beforehand, but drop us a line afterward if you can. I doubt that any of you will do so, but please don't use it in a negative way like being negative about bikes.

We may not have a lot of exciting things to write about in the near future as we have to deal with real life things and also it's not warm enough yet to really ride a lot, but we'll try and update regularly anyway.