Iya Valley to Kotohira

May 25, 2023

The Iya Valley is one of the most beautiful places in a county know for beautiful places. It is a land of cone shaped, volcanic mountain peaks, cascading waterfalls and twisting roads with heart stopping drops at the edge. We stayed in a classic Japanese resort hotel with commanding views, its own onsen with cable lift access and some very traditional meals. As expected, Japan was expanding my pallet through introducing me to new foods and meal traditions. It is a good thing to toss aside you traditional tastes and dive into something different from time to time and those who know me are likely mumbling, “it’s about time,” under their breath as they read this.

The ride to Kotohira started with a nice downhill glide that for all too brief a time put off the lengthy climb to come. Monkeys played in the trees just out of sight except for the one that ran across the road in front of my bike. The river Iya could be seen hundreds of feet below in the valley it carved over the eons. In one spot some erected a statue of a boy peeing off into the vastness, a celebration of youthful freedom. Next to it is a small Buddhist Shrine filled with offerings of small coins as is the flat rock behind the statue. Further on is the Hinoji Valley which resembles the English letter U and gives the area its name.

Leaving this beauty behind it was time to climb one of the longest climbs of our journey so far. It involved an elevation change of around 950 meters over a distance of approximately nine and a half kilometers. Put simple, it was steep and long. For me it was even longer when a bad directional prompt combined with fogged glasses and Garmin’s annoying habit of not using common sense and directing you to just turn around when you make a wrong turn took me back down to near the starting point of the 100 meters I had just climbed. It is one of those time when a plain paper map would have avoided such an error but plain paper maps are becoming ever more a rarity. By the time I reached the top and started down the narrow road to our lunch stop, I was soaked with sweat and shivering ass the cooler temperatures at high altitude combined with my self generated, downhill breeze cooled me beyond the point of comfort. I ate a quick, shivering lunch before getting back on my bike to head further downhill to warmer climes and a sunny ride on lesser slopes that allowed me to shake off the shivers.

Our stay in Kotohira is in another traditional hotel and another pallet expanding dinner to further push my boundaries. It is what I signed up for.

Kotohira to Kyoto

May 26, 2023

Our ride ended quite a bit short of Kyoto stopping instead in the City of Kotohira. There is a well known temple here part of the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage, a circular journey to visit the 88 temples associated with Buddhist monk Kūkai. According to Wikipedia, “The pilgrimage is traditionally completed on foot, but modern pilgrims use cars, taxis, buses, bicycles, or motorcycles, and often augment their travels with public transportation. The standard walking course is approximately 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) long and can take anywhere from 30 to 60 days to complete.” There is very little else in Kotohira but plenty of tour busses loaded with mainly Japanese travelers, some wearing white and carrying walking sticks, so I imagine visiting this temple is an important step on the pilgrimage. However, not being a pilgrim and having already seen a few temples, I decided to pass on this one.

We are taking a motor coach to Kyoto to avoid what our tour leader said would be another week of bicycling without as much scenery and a lot more highway traffic. While I am a EFI (Every Fantastic* Inch) type of rider, I had no desire to to blindly follow that motto. I was happy to get on the bus for the uneventful four hour ride.

Tomorrow I am doing a guided walking tour of the city which should be better than just walking around without a plan or a clue. I did take some quality time today to try to find some alternative to my backpacking rain gear which has performed with less than moderate satisfaction. I found a set for around 4,000 Yen ( about $40 Canadian) at a bike shop just a few meters from the hotel but wanting a second opinion, I walked over 3 kilometers round trip to find a North Face store that Google suggested. Bad choice. The “store” was just a department in a high end, multi floor department store that sold all you favourite designer fashions from Tiffany to Louis Vuitton and everything else you may have heard about but never could afford. Far from the North Face originally sewn together up the hill from my Lake Clear home in Foymount, Ontario, the limited selection at this “store” was way overpriced and the inventory less than what you would expect to find at a dollar store closeout bin. At least I got to stretch my legs and get some sunshine.

*There an assortment “F” words that people use for this expression. I leave it to you, the gentle reader to select what you feel best suits the spirit of the motto.

May 27th, 2023

Kyoto, Japan

A full day to explore the ancient imperial capital of Japan and the stage upon which much of the drama of the book Shogun took place. I was eager and set for a full blown, get down and into it tourism experience, having joined a group tour with a professional guide. In all of my past experiences such tours have been worth every penny from the insights and knowledge provided by the guide. Not this time.

Our guide was a Hungarian name Daniel which struck me as an odd choice for a tour of an ancient Japanese city but who was I to judge? I knew that knowledge can come from a variety of sources and Daniel must be good for a company like TDA to recommend his employer, Serpentine Tours.

Our first stop was the famous Nijo Palace, power base and stronghold of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder and first Shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It is a beautifully restore and recreated castle complete with specially engineered creaking floorboards designed to prevent someone for sneaking up on someone. Of course a skillful ninja would easily circumvent this safeguard but the common assassin would be defeated by his own footfalls. An ingenious metal substructure under the wooden floor provided the humming bird like chirps that we heard as we walked along. This detail was learned from a different tour guide that I was able eavesdrop on while our guide was playing invisible man. This was trend that would continue throughout the tour.

Next stop was the Golden Pavilion, a Zen temple with its upper two floors covered in gold leaf. I sometimes served as a temporary resting place for the Shogun during his travels (Another detail not garnered from our guide.) The temple is surrounded by elaborate gardens that are well maintained as are all gardens in Japan. At times I would hear the deep sound of a large bell being struck and wandered what it signified. I later saw the bell and a sign that indicated that you could ring it for 200 Yen. What did it signify? The sound of 200 Yen changing hands!

Further on we we stopped at the Ryoanji Temple famous for its rock garden and delicate wall paintings portraying the life of dragons. Sands are carefully raked into patterns surrounding the precisely placed fifteen rocks. No trees, just rocks and white gravel in this Zen garden surrounded by walls made of clay boiled in oil. It was created around 1500 during the Muromachi Period by Zen monk Tokuho Zenktsu.

After a lunch that almost happened but was abruptly canceled by our guide when he feared missing the tour bus to the next destination, we continued our sightseeing at Ginkakuji temple (also called the Silver Pavilion, although no shiny silver here), that was built by the grandson of the shogun who built Kinkakuji, also as a retirement palace. After the founder passed away, the palace was converted to a Buddhist temple in the 15th century according to his wish. Again it was surrounded my immaculate gardens that were cared for with tender and exacting precision.

At this point we decided that our guide was an necessary accessory and politely bid him sayonara to find our own way back to our hotel and a nice cold beer. As an interesting codicil, I can report that Ezster of Serpentine Tours responded promptly to our complaints and offered her sincere apologies and a refund for our tour. A very considerate and professional response. She also let us know that Daniel was a last minute replacement for the guide she had hired to conduct our tour who had come down with a serious illness. A satisfactory explanation and resolution that restored our confidence in Ezster and Serpentine Tours.

May 28, 2023

Kyoto to Hikone

After a day off we rode out of Kyoto in a quiet Sunday morning. I am assuming that TDA tries to plan it this way when we leave large cities. Sundays have far less early morning traffic in most places. There were few other riders out and about with the exception on one little girl on a bike with 20 inch wheels and a backpack almost as big as she was. We came up on her at a traffic light and when it turned green, she took off trying her best to give it all she had to stay in front of us. I remarked that we were being dropped by a six year old and that maybe we should try to draft behind her. None of would dare to pass her and when she turned off onto a side street she was all smiles.

It took an hour or so to clear Kyoto and the satellite towns that make up its metropolitioan area but when we did we found ourselves riding around Lake Biwako, the largest freshwater lake in Japan and estimated at a geological age of around four million years and is a breeding ground for freshwater species such as trout and hosts an important pearl culture industry. It also provides drinking water and farm irrigation to fifteen million people. Aside from that, it is a recreation paradise for folks anxious to leave the crowded cities. Circling the lake is the Biwa-Ichi bike route, a 180 kilometer cycling route mostly on dedicated bicycle /walking paths that is popular with locals as well as with us.

On this day there was some sort of community cleanup campaign in progress as we encountered hundreds of civic minded volunteers doing a deep clean on every scrap of litter. The walked in two, threes and even higher powers with heads down and talking in their dedicated search for every last bit of anything that might remotely be considered trash. It did not matter if a hundred or so ahead had already passed over the same territory, each new group searched with fresh dedication hoping to score some overlooked cigarette but or bottle cap ring. The cover the pathways, grasslands and even along the shoreline. They sometime strayed into traffic when a particularly tempting score of litter beckoned. It was an impressive sight and a tedious one to negotiate on a bicycle. Even riding along with the highway traffic was no protection from this trash devouring force. I applauded their efforts but wished that they looked up from time to time or at least sailed a true course rather than tacking from suspected liter bit to bit.

Even with this hoard of the civic minded there was still plenty of time to take my time and enjoy the nearly level ride, smooth (and litter free) pathway and soak up the scenery. It was like a picnic on two wheels with a nice lakeside lunch provided by the great staff of TDA. An easy start for our push to Tokyo.

Monday, Monday, Can’t Trust That Day

Hikone to Komagene

(Monday) May 29, 2023

The day started out gray then it got worse. We had a scheduled 2 hour bus ride to our starting point in order to avoid a lot of kilometers of riding through one of Japan’s more industrialized areas. Not only would it be boring but there would be heavy truck traffic as well. We opted for a mountainside starting point with a 1000+ meter climb (over 3,400 feet) but it being over a fifteen kilometer distance the climb itself would be gradual. Lunch would be at the top.

However, what should have been a two hour drive turned into a three and a half hour slow motion tour due to road construction and heavy traffic. Instead of starting our ride at 9:00 am we did not get rolling until a few minutes before 11:00. I was last off the bus and last to start up the mountain but was able to move up ahead of our sweep, Chris after passing some other riders. Nice to know that I am not yet ready for a permanent position at the back of the pack.

Lunch was a soggy but welcome respite after the long, wet slog up the mountain and even with the wind and rain increasing in intensity, I felt good afterwards. My new rain gear and a change to a dry base layer of clothing prevented the chills that plagued my previous rainy day experience. The mid day rain was heavy at times, expanding the tiny mountain streams into raging torrents that were almost kayak-able. However, as I moved down to lower elevations the temperature became warmer and I was able to peal off one or two warm but wet layers.

The ride may have been quite beautiful under different circumstance but every vantage point for a view out over the countryside was clouded by a dense gray mist. Eventually I settled onto a lightly developed roadway for the final twenty kilometers to a hotel that was a carbon copy of the place we stayed last evening, right down to every detail of the lobby and dining area. Almost a Groundhog Day moment except for the wet and dripping clothing that I carried to the laundry area and a room to myself for the night!

Komagene to Fujimi

May 30, 2023

After yesterday’s wet slog through the mountains it was a pleasure to wake up to the promise of sunshine. By the time we were riding out of Komagene the sun was out and the rice fields a brilliant green and flush with nutrients from yesterday’s rain. The big climbs started right away but no one cared as the sunshine was so lifting to our spirits that the meters melted away.

Once clear of the traffic we were free to look at the scenery as we tackled the five big climbs that would take us to the mountainside hotel in Fujimi. Along the way we passed a castle that I decided to pass by, spectacular flowers everywhere and an ancient Shinto shrine.

There also appears to be some influence to the local culture from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Without outright violating the copyright or other intellectual property infringement, they hint at the story with Anne(ish) looking roadside advertisements and non-sequesters such as Canadian Farms. As I understand it, the settings for the Anne stories on Prince Edwards Island are very popular with Japanese tourists.

Just to put today into perspective for my cycling friends, we covered a 70 kilometer route with 1800 meters of climbing broken up over 5 big climbs. That is a lot of uphill in any rider’s inventory but for us it was just another day in Japan. Our hotel this evening does not have in room showers so I must go native and go onsen.

Fujimi to Lake Kawaguchi

May 23, 2023

Today was our last ride before heading to Tokyo. On paper it looked easy with it being mostly downhill up to a point. It was a wonderful morning ride. Not much wind, a bit of sunshine and mild temperatures trending to the cool side. I got an early start hoping to have the road to myself and ease into the ride. I even had time to do a short video call with my wife, Chris and gave her some live views from the valley at the base of my descent. On my way down to the village I passed some sort of institution where there was a wall rack containing twenty or so unicycles. Either it was a Japanese clown collage, an institute of busker education or the kids of that village were buying their bikes on the installment plan, half now, half later.

The rest of the morning was a ride through the usual rice paddy agriculture that seems to be everywhere here in Japan with an extensive irrigation network that allows rice to be grown almost everywhere I have been so far.

After lunch, or second breakfast, as it was before 10:00 am, We hit the big challenge for the day, a 1,500 meter of climbing over a twenty kilometer distance. The climb started easy at two to three percent grade with occasional increases to seven or eight percent. Our route followed the path gouged by a mountain stream that zig-zagged its way slowly up the mountain. Small farming villages would pop up from time to time breaking up the ride through a heavily forested area. As we climbed further along the 1,500 meters of uphills, they became steeper, topping out at ten to eleven percent at the summit.

At the end of the climb there was a three kilometer long highway tunnel that fortunately was not busy. Tunnels themselves can be scary for cyclists and I know of at least one fatality on a group trip in Arizona that caused the Adventure Cycling Association to abandon that route. The group that was on this route three days before us reported that the tunnel did not have lights and that it was extremely busy. However, they were there on a Sunday and unless there was a power failure during their visit, the tunnel definitely had lights. Still, three kilometers is a long tunnel and I was lucky enough to have only one vehicle come up behind me and there was a convenient pull off just ahead that I was able to duck into.

Tonight we are lakeside at Lake Kawaguchi, a resort town with a nice hotel and a beautiful lake view. The only down side is the lack of a convenience store nearby for a snack. However, in a rare moment of foresight, I stopped at one about a kilometer before arriving at the hotel and picked up a snack and a beverage. Strange flavours here in Japan and I can testify the SPAM is not a great flavour for potato chips.

Lake Kaeaguchi to Tokyo

June 1, 2023

Our Tokyo adventure started with a long morning at Lake Kaeaguchi with time to explore while we waited for our bus and two hour ride into Tokyo. Japanese hotels are very strict about check in times so arriving too early was not a good idea. Riding bicycles into to Tokyo, while possible would have taken us through some very industrial areas and heavy traffic. The wise folks at TDA Global Cycling decided to have us avoid that part of the Japanese experience.

Mount Fuji is very shy. Most of the time she hides her mighty peak in the clouds only allowing the most brief glimpses this time of the year and those during the cooler early morning hours. Between 4:00 and 6:00 am she decided to shed her misty cloak and reveal herself. I missed the earlier show but managed to catch the 6:00 final act. It was worth waiting for.

A walk around Lake Kaeaguchi is a walk through an area devoted to tourism. Hotels upon hotels take up all the good real estate with some cut into the side of the steep hills that line part of the lake. Still, there are some hidden local touches such as the two shrines that I found in my travels. One was well up a somewhat unused path behind our hotel. I was told the idol within it was a Buddha but that Japanese frequently invoke both Buddhist and Shinto images in their shrines. This small one may have been to honor the spirits of that hillside. Further along the lake was a more elaborate shrine with a well defined path leading to it. This shrine was used to pray for easy childbirth as well as grandchildren.

My final stop in my walk around the lake was at an amazing sculpture depicting two women as polar opposites dancing around a vase. One signifying the positive and the other the negative but combining to portray the drama of two opposites coming together to become one in the never ending renewal of life. A yin-yang moment. The sculpture was created by Seibo Kitamura, Japan’s greatest sculptor, who at the age of 101 visited Lake Kaeaguchi and was so moved by its beauty that he created this statue to symbolize man’s quest to understand the eternal essence of the universe.

June 2, 2023

We arrived in Tokyo to warm weather and sunshine but Mother Nature had other plans for the next day. A typhoon out in the Pacific decided to confound 99% of the storm tracks and slip along the coast of Japan, well out to sea but close enough to blot out the sun and deliver tropical like rains with some strong winds thrown in for kicks. Fortunately, we did not have to ride in it but walking we did.

I had two events scheduled for this day. One was a day long walking tour of some of Tokyo’s sights and the other was tickets to a Japanese major league baseball game. The tour happened but the valiant Tokyo Sparrows refused to fly.

With rain coming down in sheets our indefatigable tour guide Ivette met us at the hotel lobby with a smiling face and a disposition so sunny that it nearly drove away the showers, nearly! With her ten charges in tow she led the way to the train station and through the maze of turnstiles and platform to our first stop, the shrine to Emperor Meiji. Emperor Meiji’s reign marked the end of the era of Shoguns and Samurai and the beginnings of modern Japan. With a bit of a nudge through American gunboat diplomacy courtesy of Commodore Matthew Perry, Japan recognized that it needed to modernize and the Samurai and Shoguns were not getting the job done. Emperor Meiji recognized this and led his people into the modern area. For this he is venerated as a god like being with a shrine dedicated to his spirit. People visit it to ask for various support and favors. You can buy various talismans there to promote all sorts of good things such as healthy mind and body or doing well on exams. Rather or not they work is up to you and the power of positive thinking.

From the shrine we visited other sites such as the busiest street crossing in the world at what some call Tokyo’s Times Square. Here the busiest mass transit hub in Japan spits out over 2 million people each day, all of whom need to get across the street. Luckily, we visited during torrential rains and at a slow time of the day so we did not experience the full crush of the masses. However we did get a moment to look at a statue of a loyal dog who waited nine years, sitting outside the station every day waiting for his master to return. His master had passed away while at work but no one could convince the dog to abandon his daily wait for the man who never returned. Such loyalty must be rewarded and his image is now as eternal as his patience.

Our final stop was at a recreation of a Saga Town as it would have looked at the end of the Edo period around the year 1840. It faithfully recreates and and tells the story of town life complete with sound effects and docets that were able to fill in the few details that our guide was unsure of.

For a drippy, wet day it turned out to be a great experience with a nice lunch added to the bargain. Our guide, Ivette was a Hungarian married to a Japanese and living in japan for nearly half her life. Her knowledge and language skills were excellent and she turned a gray day into a bright experience.

June 3, 2023

Typhoon Mawar decided to sleep in this morning and was reluctant to leave the Tokyo area. After pounding the city with rain for the the last 24 hours she decided to give it another ten to remember her by. In actuality she did next to no damage to The City of 808 Villages as she swept by but she did make for an unpleasant day and night. My evening walk for dinner turned into a mad dash to a convenience store for whatever I could grab. This morning when the downpours finally tapered down to some sprinkles, I decided to head out for some last minute gear replacement before starting my day. That short delay cost me a chance to buy tickets for an attraction I was interested in but while disappointing, was no great loss.

Instead I went to Tokyo’s impressive Skytree, the tallest structure in Japan and platform for communication arrays, shopping and gawking from a height. With the final addition of a communications mast in 2011 it became the tallest tower in the world at 634 meters (2,080 ft). There are observation decks at the 350 and 450 meter levels which are reached by high speed elevators that can lift 40 people at 600 meters (1968 feet) per speedy minute or 22 vertical miles per hour. While the view was not great with the Mawar’s last gasp still swirling around, it was still quite impressive. I have included a downloaded view along with what I was actually able to see for comparison.

After a stop at the Skytree food court for a surprisingly good and inexpensive lunch, I decided to do a Crocodile Dundee style Walkabout and just see where I wound up. I picked a direction and started out eventually coming upon a linear park that went on through a number of blocks of tall residential apartments. Within its confined spaces I found a very industrial urban fishing spot as well as a landscaped area complete with waterfall and rocky stream. It seems as though this park like every green space in Tokyo is a mecca for dog owners. I guess the pooches have to make do with what they can find for toilet facilitates. To a dog, all were of the smaller breed sizes, compact dogs for compact green spaces.

Where the park ended I went up onto surface streets and just kept walking through some of the former 808 villages that mostly looked to have been rebuilt into modern mid-rise residential areas with shops at street level. This occasionally melded into business like concrete canyons as I headed mostly south and west. Occasionally, I stopped at a bench, when I could find one, to read a bit, glance at Google Maps and do a bit of people watching.

Eventually my travels took me to the Imperial palace, home to Emperor Naruhito, who acceded to the Chrysanthemum Throne on 1 May 2019, beginning the Reiwa era, following the abdication of his father, Akihito. He is the 126th monarch according to Japan’s traditional order of succession. (this from Wikipedia) Like the former Queen and now current King of England, his role is ceremonial and he is forbidden to make political statements. Still, he lives in a nice house with lavish grounds on the former site of Edo Castle, the seat of the Tokugawa shogun who ruled Japan from 1603 until 1867. His palace is surrounded by a mote and the grounds outside the mote are popular with joggers. It is not known if the Emperor ever tosses a line over the palace wall to catch fish but given the Japanese interest in this sport, it would not surprise me to know that he might when no one is watching.

From the palace I decided to skip the long and somewhat boring walk back to the hotel so I ducked underground and took my chances at following Google’s subway directions. Despite my penchant for sometimes heading the wrong way, I made it back without a single inadvertent adventure.