Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Joetsu


We arrived in Joetsu in the afternoon and quickly found a grocery store to buy something to cook for dinner. We decided on tofu stir-fry.  Due to a lack of imagination and energy in the evenings after long days of riding, Stir-fry was quickly becoming our steady.
We continued on towards the coast hoping to find a place to camp on the beach and as we did so, a funny thing happened. What at first appeared to be a non-desrcript, even unattractive town began to take on a certain level of quaint charm. All the buildings were cracked and weathered from the salt air. We passed empty lots of concrete rubble, the remnants of buildings that had long since succumbed to the abuse offered by decades of seasonal typhoons. The few crumbling structures that remained had become the canvas of young surfers armed with spray-cans.
We pulled into one of these lots to take in our first glimpse of the Sea of Japan. After riding through mountains for so many days it felt satisfying to finally be at the ocean. We sat there for a little while gazing out at the sun set. A friend of ours believes that people are drawn to the ocean through some sort of primordial nostalgia- A deeply rooted sense of longing to return to the place from which we came eons ago, but to which we can never go back- an evolutionary Eden of sorts. I like that idea, but I could only sit there pondering life's mysteries for so long; stir-fry was beginning to invade my thought space.
A few hundred yards down the road we found a beautiful sandy beach to call our home for the night. We cooked a hearty dinner and hit the sack.
In the morning, our beach-haven campsite was a little gloomy. Heavy rain made us reluctant to get out of the tent but we managed to do so around 7:30. We rode a wet, sloppy mile to a convenient store for coffee and we stalled there a bit for the weather to let up. When it didn't, we figured we should probably get moving anyway. We soon discovered that we had a nice bike path heading in our direction so we were happy to get off the road and away from the trucks who aren't always kean on sharing the road with cyclists. We biked at leisurely pace chatting and thoroughly enjoyed every curve and tunnel along the way. When we stopped for lunch in Itiogawa the weather had cleared and we realized we had put quite a few miles under us.
In the afternoon we were less lucky. We rode along Route 8 which followed a gorgeous stretch of coastline but the view was diminished due to the heavy, high-speed traffic that we were forced to contend with. When a tractor-trailer whizzes by at sixty miles an hour it can create disastrous effects for a cyclist. The amount of wind a truck generates is frightening and it can whip you around like a paper doll, pushing and pulling your bicyle in unexpected directions. The gear packed on our bikes act as sails magnifying the effect. The trick here is to relax, to avoid the impulse to tense up and resist what is happening. Keeping your arms loose, elbows and knees bent you have to just go with it and let the wind do with you what it will. Because as suddenly as that wall of air comes crashing into your world- its gone. In that brief moment any attempt to compensate by steering or leaning your weight one way or the other will be grossly overestimated.
Tonight we are camped on a patch of well manicured lawn in the municipal park of a fishing town called Uozu. The coast around here is quite rocky and not very good for pitching a tent so we make do with what we got. We rode 107 kilometers today and we're pretty tired and eager to get comfortable. It is a great feeling when we finally pry our swollen feet from our sneakers. 
As we cook dinner on a noisy camp stove, barefoot and shirtless, sweaty clothes hanging up to dry, we are truly a site for passing locals to behold. There's a good chance the authorities will kick us out of here tonight but at this point in the day we're too exhausted to be discreet. We Americans are an obnoxious lot.  
 

Monday, November 5, 2007

Nagano


Nagano was big for us. It was our first actual city since we left Tokyo and it marked the successful completion of the first major leg of our trip. It let us know that we could put some miles down in a reasonable amount of time without killing ourselves. It was fun riding into the city. We felt like cowboys in the old west. We cleaned ourselves up and went to check out the nightlife.

For whatever reason, we found ourselves in a pirate bar. The bar was shaped like a pirate ship and there was a pirate behind the bar serving drinks. Spitting image of Captain Jack Sparrow. . . if he was Japanese. Really weird.
Rather than playing the usual bar music, this bar went with the score from Pirates of the Caribbean. It just played over and over. Must have been set on repeat. I'm still undecided as to weather I think this would be an annoying place to work or the best job ever. I'm fairly certain my nephew Andrew would think the latter. Hes three. The kid sleeps with a sword and a leather tri-pointed hat. My sister is hoping its just a phase but I'm not so sure. Once a pirate always a pirate in my mind.
The Next day we got on our bicycles without any of our gear weighing us down and went to check out the city. I felt awkward and unsteady at first, like I had forgotten how to ride a bike without an additional 5o lbs piled on it. We headed for the Zenkoji Temple, one of the oldest in Japan and the first to allow women. We spent a few hours wandering around the gardens there, Gettin' our calm on. It was quite nice.

Friday morning we planned to leave Nagano for Joetsu a town on the coast north of Nagano but we decided to take a side trip east to check out the Jigokudani Monkey Park where the famous Japanese snow macaques live.
The ride out there was a lot longer than we had expected but it was gorgeous. It followed a beautiful green river valley up through a ski resort town. As we got close, the road turned into crazy steep switchbacks and the forest grew dense and dark. Finally the road leveled off and I started riding fast. I came tearing around a bend to find a huge macaque walking across the road on all fours. It was a big monkey. We're not talking about some little spider monkey. I thought this guy was a yetti. The squeal of my brakes startled him but then he just stared me down for a moment before resuming his walk at the exact same pace. It was like he was making a point of letting me know that I wasn't worth hustling for. Pompous monkey.

The park itself was great. There were a lot of monkeys in there all engaged in different activities. Snacking on stuff, grooming each other, little ones playing, other ones trying to make more monkeys, and some just relaxing with a soak in the hot springs. They didn't seem to mind our presence and it was great just to hang out and watch them for a while.

From there we were headed to Joetsu when my tire blew out. Not the tube but the sidewall of the actual tire- not fixable on the road. We decided to grab a train back into Nagano to hit up a bike shop.

That minor hiccup aside, it was well worth the trip out to Jigokudani and Nagano itself was a great place. So after taking in some city comforts for a couple days, an internet cafe that serves free milkshakes for instance, we hit the road and headed for the ocean.