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.

Fujisawa Yamato Jitensha-do

Last week, we took the local cycling road called "Fujisawa Yamato Jitensha-do" (Jitensha-do means cycling road) from Fujisawa where we live to Yamato which is about 15Km to the North. The cycling road runs along the Sakai River. We have been riding along the Hikichi River quite often as it is quite near where we live and it too has a cycling road, but it's in bits and pieces with lots of gravel in between. I hadn't heard about the Fujisawa Yamato route until I found it on a Japanese cycling blog. It seemed like quite a nice and long route, so we decided to give it a try.



Some parts of it was overgrown with plants and that made the path narrower, but for the most part, it was quite nice to ride. I didn't take the best photos as I was just enjoying the ride, but I think it's the best cycling road I've been on in Japan as of yet. It's maybe almost as good as the Springwater trail in Portland. It was quite refreshing as most places I'd been riding are very nice, but still most streets lack any kind of real consideration for bicycles.



Yes, I'm loving my Surly.



We met our friend in Yamato and had a nice talk with her in a family restaurant (Japanese equivalent of Denny's) where you can order a "drink bar" and drink all the drinks (non alcholic) for like a dollar.

Then we made our way back to Fujisawa, but made a little detour to the Iida Dairy Farm.



It's the self-claimed smallest dairy farm in Japan and they sell ice cream and cheese cakes there. We had a nice gelato and met with the cows who live right in the back.





We got a little rained on, but by the time we were near Fujisawa, it cleared up. It was a very good ride.

I wish I had taken better pictures, but if you check out this page, you can see what it's like. The text is in Japanese, but if you are curious about other rides in the area, the site has reviewed quite a number of them, so you might want to check them if you're thinking of riding in this area.

Meet my new bike!

Yes! That's my new Surly Crosscheck.

I took the picture right after I got back from the bike shop, so the saddle is still lower than what I normally ride with.

That was yesterday afternoon. Since then, I took it for a little ride along the nearby Hikiji River and then today I went for a longer ride to Oiso. I can say with all sincerety that this is pretty much the bike I wanted. It is really solid and can be ridden over all kinds of stuff like gravel and sand without having to worry if I might slip or damage the bike. I took a bunch of pictures and I think this entry will be very much tech oriented, so if you're not into that, I'm sorry, but please let me indulge as I am still so happy to have this "new" bike.



This was along the Hikiji River yesterday with rice fields in the back. I've raised the saddle and put on the rear rack. You don't see too many people using rear racks here other than on mamacharis. Also, you might have noticed that this bike has a kick stand. That wasn't standard issue, but I knew that almost everytime I park the bike, it will come in handy, so I had it put on at the shop.



The tires are the Schwalbe Marathon 700 x 28. These are pretty wide tires for me, but there's a lot of bumps on the roads around here, so these are much better than skinny tires.



The rims are Salsa Delgado Cross. The shop guy picked these which was a surprise, but I know of Salsa as a maker of mountain bikes and components, so I think these will be plenty tough.



Avid Shorty cantilever brakes. One thing I wanted on my new bike were cantilever brakes. I wasn't unhappy with the performance of the sidepull brakes on my old bike, but I never liked the complexity of them. With cantilever brakes, they are simple and you can see exactly how they work and so they are easy to take care of as well.



As you can see, I've got quite a bit of stack under the stem. On my old bike, I had less, but it seemed with this frame, I needed this much to achieve the same position. I'm not sure if the top tube is low on purpose as this is a cross frame. If I was to build a custom frame, I would probably have the top tube a bit higher, but the bike rides just fine as it is, so, I'm OK with it.



The kickstand. Not sure the make, but this works great. You can adjust the length of the leg by turning the striped collar. There are almost no bike racks anywhere you go in Japan, so the bike needs to be able to stand by itself. Bike theft isn't as much of a problem here especially in this more rural city of Fujisawa, so you don't need to lock the bike to something else as you would in the US.



Anyway, this bike and I are definitely gonna go explore all over this area. I'm really looking forward to it and I will be reporting on our trips for sure. I haven't thought of a name for it yet, but if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.