Best cycling experiences

Bicycle touring Japan - Top 10 cycling experiences

Here my personal top 10 bicycle experiences in Japan:

1. Shimanami Kaido
• Reasons:
• Dedicated cycle lane on all bridges between the islands. 
• Indicated cycle route through all the islands.
• Superbe landscape.
• Here a detailed description of the rides. 
2. From Lake Biwa to Nara prefecture
• Reasons:
• Multiple cycle roads available. They are of varying quality from high speed cycling road along the river between Kyoto and Nara to partly overgrown lanes or gravel. But overall it is a very long cycling trip in which one can use on-and-off cycle lanes.
• Good cycling lanes around Lake Biwa, with nice views on the lake and not the typical "river ride". 
• Specially around Nara there are also a lot of sign posts specifically for cyclists.
• Great area with a lot of touristic highlights, even outside the obvious destinations
• Here a summary of the ride
3. Sado island
• Reasons:
• Small roads with little traffic leading through wonderful country side and well preserved and still functioning villages, including some sightseeing options (temples, shrines...) which are void of tourists. 
• In the center between Ryotsu and Mano Sado island is quite flat, but for the more ambitious cyclists there are two ranges of mountains on each side of the island to explore. 
• Here the detailed description of the 4 days touring Sado
4. Kibi Plain
• Reasons:
• Well indicated cycling lane through fields and on small rural paths
• Sightseeing spots such as temples and shrines
• Here a detailed description of the ride
5. Tono valley
• Reasons:
• I originally had decided to go to Tono valley because I heard of a good cycling infrastructure there. Well there is the typical cycle path along a river, however the valley has a lot more to offer, with having small streets with little traffic.
• The local tourism office has some maps for suggested rides
• Very nice landscape with still a lot of traditional houses 
• I did not ride INTO Tono valley by bicycles but rather by train (because of hills and of rain), however the part I did cycle up from Shin Hanamaki to Iwanebashi was also nice. No bicycle lane, but not a lot of traffic anyway. 
• Here and here a detailed description of the ride
6. Kubihiki cycling path on the Sea of Japan between Naoetsu and Itoigawa
• Reasons:
• 30 km cycling lane along the Sea of Japan from outside Naoetsu to Itoigawa 
• Nice view of the sea
• On an old railway track for most parts
• Relatively well maintained
• Use of old railway tunnels adds to the special feeling
• Keeps you away from the busy road 
• Here a detailed description of the ride
• And here for an official map
7. Cycling with friends from the NPC
• Here some rides with my friends from the Night Pedal Cruising in Tokyo
• Recently we also started to announce them on Meet-up, if you want to join
8. Cycle lane between Sapporo and Kitahiroshima. 
• Reasons: 
• Wide cycle lane through the forest between Sapporo and Kitahiroshima.
• In some points totally quiet, which I appreciated even more after riding in the traffic of Sapporo city. 
• Gently sloping up and down, as it is an old train track
• It is relatively short though. 
• Here the detailed description of the ride
9. Cycle lane to Sayama Lake
• Reasons:
• Long totally straight cycling lane out from Tokyo to Sayama Lake used by both neighbourhood cyclists as well as people going more seriously to Sayama Lake
• Links to a quite long cycling path out of Tokyo, you can essentially start in Shinjuku (or maybe even before), ride down along Kanda river to Kichijoji, then through small neighbourhood streets until somewhere behind Koganei park, get on the cycling road there (see map in the link below) and then ride slowly up to the lake and make a full round of the lake on the cycling path before returning back to Tokyo.
• Easy accessible from downtown Tokyo
• Here a map of the ride
10. Cycling along the Pacific from Shizuoka to Irago and on by ferry to Ise.
• Reasons:
• A long stretch along the Pacific ocean with views of the ocean and farther into Irago peninsula through fields
• The one big problem however is the maintenance of this cycle path. Besides a few perfect stretches (like the one leading from somewhere outside of Shizuoka to Omaezaki on an old railway track or the last few kilometers leading to cape Irago) it has a lot of totally overgrown parts that can become totally impassible and specially between Omaezaki and Hamamatsu the sand dunes on the path are a real problem. 
• Apparently nothing is being done against the vegetation. A bit more is being done against the sand, but for the time being I only saw statements of that something WILL be done, no results yet (unless the path was even worse before)
• Here a detailed description of the rides

Best accommodations

Bicycle touring Japan - Best accommodation

In this post I list those accommodations where I stayed and that I think I can recommend to other travellers. I have stayed at many others, but those didn't impress me specifically. The list is ordered by region, roughly from North to South.

Japan - generally: 

• Toyoko Inn 東横イン
• This is a big chain of business hotels. The rooms are simple but reliable and practically furbished (e.g. there is a washing line in the bathroom). You can get a membership card (I think for 1500 Yen) and then with each overnight stay points are accumulated and after 10 you get one free night. The hotels are normally conveniently located next to major railway stations. 
• Highlights:
• Discount system
• Practical rooms
• Location:
• All over Japan, close to big railway stations in general
• Big cities only
• Family Lodge ファミリーロッジ
• I only stayed at one in Kurobe. It seems to be a budget hotel chain mainly catering to car drivers looking for a place to sleep outside of cities but close to major streets. It is sleeping only, with only a minimal service for breakfast. But a conbini most likely wont be too far away to get something else. 
• Highlights:
• Good cost-benefit ratio
• Big rooms, clean and very new
• See here for a description of the experience

Hokkaido

• Ashita no jo　あしたの城
• This is a good quality Minshuku, with friendly hosts and a modern building. 
• Highlights:
• Gyunyunabe ("milk soup") for dinner and eating it with other solo travellers
• View in to the garden from the ofuro (bath tub)
• The big garden with view on Rishiri island
• Nice common living room. 
• Location: 
• Hokkaido, close to Tokumitsu
• Find a more detailed description of the ride to it here.
• Kirkiri 吉里吉里
• This feels like a riders house, at least it is very much geared towards riders of all kind, and the hosts have great interest in all their guests with a nice guest book. 
• Highlights:
• Very good dinner and breakfast
• Very friendly host
• The rooms are relatively small and dark, but you get the restaurant room to use, so essentially the room is for sleeping only. 
• Location:
• Hokkaido, Haboro
• Find a more detailed description of the ride to it here and a picture in front of it here. 

Aomori

• Shukubo on Osorezan - Kichijoukaku 吉祥閣
• This is a big a modern Shukubo (temple stay) right on top of a vulcano and obviously right beside the temple. Osorezan being apparently one of the 3 most sacred places in Japan. The room was really superb. Probably so far on this travel the best room I had. Food was below my expectations (which were high). And as due for a temple stay, you get to participate in the morning prayer at 6:30
• Highlights:
• Location! On a vulcano, right besides a temple, on one of the 3 most sacred places of Japan
• Onsen (see here for a rating of the onsen)
• Location: 
• Aomori, Osorezan
• A more detailed description of the experience here and here
• Business-in Club - ビジネスイン倶楽部
• This is a basic business hotel, quite small and I think family run in the small city of Noheji. It might not look very inviting from outside, but actually inside it is all totally new. The room is basic, but you get your own toilet and shower, which is not standard everywhere in Japan, specially with Japanese rooms. 
• Highlights:
• Very newly reformed
• Incredible number of electrical plugs
• Nice, basic rooms
• Location:
• Aomori, Noheji
• A more detailed description here

Toyama

• Kuronagi onsen 黒薙温泉
• This is a small simple ryokan with a superb onsen with two rotenburos (one mixed bathing, one female-only) in the middle of nature, but still reasonable reachable without any hiking skills. 
• Highlights:
• onsen pools surrounded by nature with direct views into the river gorge (see here for a rating of the onsen)
• If you are lucky you can watch the monkeys while bathing (you bathing, monkeys at their daily chores)
• Location:
• Toyama, Kuronagi onsen (on the Kurobe railway line)
• Find a more detailed description of the experience here and here

Gifu

• Hirayu no mori 平湯の森
• This is a onsen hotel buildt to resemble a mountain village, with simple tatami rooms
• Highlights:
• onsen hotel with no less than 9 different rotenburos (female section, 7 in the men's section)
• while it is a relatively bit onsen hotel, it is not ugly as many others are
• conveniently located right besides the bus stop of Hirayu onsen
• Location:
• Gifu, Hirayu onsen
• See here for a more detailed ranking of the onsen. 
• See here & here for a description of the experience

Aichi

• Kyukamura Irago 休暇村　伊良湖
• This hotel is one in the chain of Kyukamura ("vacation village"). It is located right inside a national park and this is definitely one of its attractions.
• Highlights:
• nice landscape directly surrounding the hotel
• reasonably good dining and breakfast buffet
• several activities are offered by the hotel
• Location:
• Aichi, Cape Irago
• See here & here for a description of the experience

Nara

• Haruya Hostel はる家
• A hostel, although in other places it would probably be called ryokan, in the old part of Naramachi in a restored old town house. 
• Highlights:
• good location
• Nice old town house
• Friendly hostel staff
• Location:
• Naramachi
• See here & here for a description of the experience. 
• Guesthouse Egao グエストハウス笑顔
• An other hostel, in a old town house, not as beautiful as the Haruya hostel above, but also cheaper, very close to Imaicho.
• Highlights
• Very friendly hosts
• Free breakfast
• Very recently renovated guesthouse with traditional tatami rooms
• Good price
• Location:
• Yamagoyagi
• See here for a description of the experience. 

Day 57 - Fukuoka and back to Tokyo 福岡から東京へ帰る

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 57

The very last day of this trip by bicycle, train, bus, ferry, plane, taxi and on foot through Japan, did not see a single kilometer on the bicycle... but many in a plane

Bicycle: 0 km 
Bus: 14 km
Taxi: 29 km
Plane: 1000 km

Route: Fukuoka hotel to city museum and airport and back to home in Tokyo

Weather: Rainy and quite cold


Although this travel through Japan was about bicycle travelling, at least mainly, today on my very last day, no bicycle riding involved at all, as it was raining outside quite intensely and cold:

After considering my options, I excluded to make a last minute splash to Toto toilet museum in Northern Kyushu, for being simply too far from Fukuoka. Looking at my other museum options closer to Fukuoka I found the Fukuoka city museum and took a bus there.

It was actually a quite good, modern museum. Somewhat similar to the Edo museum in Tokyo, with lively exhibits explaining the history of Kyushu since prehistoric times until today. There was also a good English audio guide and also many of the descriptions in the museum were in English. So I think it was a good option what to do on this rainy, cold day.

I made it back to the hotel in time, to catch a cab to the closeby airport and then off my brompton and we back to Tokyo.

Day 56 - Sumo in Fukuoka 福岡で相撲を

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 56

On the last but one day of this trip through Japan, only little cycling, but a very Japanese highlight, Sumo at the Fukuoka tournament and also my last onsen soak of this ride. 

Bicycle:  5.2 km 
Riding time: 26 min
Total ascent: 28 m

Route: Hotel to Sumo tournament 

Weather: Sunny, 12 C

After 56 days cycling through Japan I finally made it to one last highlight of this trip, the sumo tournament in Fukuoka. I had tried earlier this year to get tickets for the sumo tournament in Tokyo, but although I went to the internet page about 30 min after the pre-sale started, the page did not work, phone did not work either and by the time I was in a conbini (that actually was not to far from where I was at the time), there were no seats anymore on any weekends... and I didn't want to take a day off, "just" for watching sumo. So when the tickets for the Fukuoka tournament started pre-sale in early October, I immediately went ahead and got my ticket for today, a Tuesday. 

On this day with perfect weather, I left my dear brompton outside parked below the sumo wrestlers flags and got in Fukuoka International center for a full day of Sumo fighting. 

Sumo is organized in different grades but during a tournament day all grades fight. Starting in the morning with the most junior devision and then scaling up little by little to the more senior and up to the maximum division. When I arrived, not terribly early in the day, but still hours prior to the first professional league match, only a few people were already inside the hall, as one can appreciate from the pretty empty ranks. 

Between the 6 different sumo divisions there is not really a noticeable change or a break, but little by little more spectators arrived and also the sumo wrestlers got more ceremony. E.g. the typical gesture of throwing salt into the ring, only started at the Juryo division (the second highest). Below that much less ceremony. Not only the sumo wrestlers themselves get more and more colourful (from uniformly greyish mawashi for all, to individually and colourful mawashis in the high divisions. Also the sumo judges get longer and more colourful robes as the day progresses. 

Every now and then between the bouts the ring would get newly watered and swiped and after most fights there was at least some cleaning of the ring.

After a few low rank fights I made my way back to the atrium, to get a bento box and was right in time to see the arrival of a few of the highest ranking sumo fighters. A lot of people (maybe even more than inside) where waiting in the atrium, educatedly behind a yellow line on the floor, for their heroes. Who swept through quick paced with their helping junior sumo wrestlers behind them, carrying their belongings. 

Sumo wrestler

Junior sumo wrestler with the bags

I had my bento on my seat and after some time the higher divisions started. There was even this colourful entry ceremony of the Juryo and Makuuchi division. Here of the Juryo:

In order that there is only minimal waiting time between the different fights, the next two wrestlers already sit along side the ring waiting for their match. In the highest division only, they get their personal cushion, brought in by one of their junior sumo wrestler-helpers. 

Although the time to wait for the next sumo wrestler to enter the ring is small, the wait for the match to actually start gets longer from Juryo, as wrestlers do more and more ceremony. Here an entire match from first entering the ring to the actual match:

Here the fight also was actually quite long. Often it is only a few seconds (see the last few seconds of the video below):

Before the makuuchi division started, the reigning yokozuna performs his "entry dance" (for sure there is a technical, religious term for it):

Not after each fight, but from time to time even publicity comes through the ring, but as it is a sacred space, also the publicity is in ancient packing:

And here the final fight of the day, between Hakuho and Ichinojo, which ultimately was won by Hakuho, allowing him a few days later to win the third tournament this year by 14:1.

After an entire day of sumo, I concluded the day with my last onsen soak on this travel in an super-sento very close to the sumo hall.

Bicycle touring Japan - Ride maps

For details on the bicycle tour today in Fukuoka, checkout the below maps:

Day 55 - Dazaifu to Fukuoka 大宰府から福岡へ

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 55

Today a relatively leisurely day with a short ride into central Fukuoka after a nice visit to a very nice zen garden and some Sumo in television in preparation for tomorrow. 

Bicycle: 20 km 
Riding time: 1:40 h
Total ascent:  38 m 

Route: Dazaifu to Fukuoka

Weather: Sunny, but very windy again, 8 C


The morning I spent very leisurely in the onsen of my hotel, alternating between the 3 rotenburos. While during the night it must have rained, by the time I was sufficiently washed the sun had come through. I didn't have a lot of touristic plan for today, as I was in Dazaifu early this year and had already seen all the major sights. But I remembered a very nice zen garden in a temple close to the main shrine, so I visited both. 

At the shrine there were again a lot of families with their 3, 5 or 7 year old kids. I think there were actually no 7 year olds, as today was a school day and most kids looked smaller. 

To the shrine leads a pair of very typical bridges:

After a quick visit to the street leading up to the shrine, full of omiyage shops, I continued on to the zen temple. 

One can sit on this "balcony" and gaze into the garden. Very relaxing.

This is how it looked back in May:

And here the same spot 6 months later:

I was also lucky that when I was there not many other tourists were visiting. But exactly when I left an enormous group (well, one bus load) of elderly Japanese entered.

With that I left Dazaifu behind me and road again very leisurely into Fukuoka. Part of my way was on the approach path to Fukuoka airport.

While I was riding on one of the typical Japanese bicycle lanes along a river.

This brought me to my final accommodation on this nearly 2 months trip through Japan, a Toyoko-Inn in central Fukuoka that I had reserved already 2 months ago, when I bought my sumo ticket. Tomorrow I will go to see the real thing, today I just watched it in TV, and saw Hakuho continuing his straight line of 8 wins in a row during this tournament as well as one match that needed to be repeated as the judges could not decide who was pushed outside of the ring first.

Bicycle touring Japan - Ride maps

For details on the bicycle tour today in Fukuoka, checkout the below maps:

Day 54 - Saga to Dazaifu 佐賀から大宰府へ

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 54

Today an other cold day through the plain between Saga and a little uphill to Dazaifu, where I visited the interesting Kyushu National Museum before soaking in my onsen of the night. 

Bicycle: 55 km 
Riding time: 3:50 h
Total ascent: 294 m 

Route: Saga to Dazaifu

Weather: Cloudy, a few drops of rain and later a bit of sun, strong wind, cold! 6 C


It was cold and windy today! Really cold! Probably it didn't help that I had decided to ride just with a skirt (not stockings), but closed shoes and cardigan. Probably the jeans would have been more comfortable for riding. 

Apart the cold there isn't a lot to say about the ride today. Here two pictures of the landscape, which again was the typical Japanese mix of fields, houses in all states of repair and disrepair, less industry than yesterday, train lines, including the Kyushu shinkansen and streets crossing it. And me on one of them... Partially I found smaller roads, but specially when they were through open fields, the wind was even stronger and colder, so where possible I reverted back to ride through built-up area.

Shortly before Dazaifu I found a curry restaurant, I had driven by a lot of other restaurants, but somehow had decided that I absolutely wanted to warm up with some curry. 

And then on to the one and only sightseeing spot of today, the Kyushu National Museum. An interesting building that I had seen earlier this year, when we were in Kyushu for Golden Week, but then I didn't have time to visit the inside. Originally I had hoped to visit it tomorrow... but tomorrow being Monday, it will be closed, and actually there was enough time today in the afternoon.

There was a very interesting exhibition about the Momoyama period. The time when the first Christian missionaries arrived to Japan and also other influences from overseas were present and Japan traded with other Asian countries. Before at the end of this era Japan was hermetically closed for all foreign contacts for the next 220 years. 

But during these few years when Christian missionaries first arrived to Japan and when Japan was finally closed off to the world, there was an active cultural exchange. In the exhibition was for example a folding screen with European city views, including Sevilla and Lisbon, or a wooden statue of Erasmus that had been conserved in a Buddhist temple. Also a embroidery with the virgin Mary that probably was produced in China was preserved in an other Buddhist temple. And through laboratories in Macao the Japanese folding screen became popular also in Europe. 

Apart from these intercultural objects, there were also a lot of tea ceremony objects that most of the visitors admired profusely. I have to admit that to me many of them look like first attempts at pottery in an evening class, but judge for yourself here. 

I also visited briefly the permanent exhibition of the museum that started with the Yayoi and finished around the Momoyama period. But only quickly as the museum was closing. So I rode over to my hotel on the hill opposite of the museum, here you can see the museum's roof from a distance as it integrates into the hill:

My hotel doubles as a day onsen. Before dinner I had a nice and relaxing bath, and I plan to have an other one tomorrow morning. Actually for tomorrow so far not a lot of plans, as I was in Dazaifu earlier this year and have seen already all major sights. But I guess I will to to the zen temple again and probably also the shrine. In Fukuoka itself there actually does not seem to be so many interesting things, so probably I will spend the morning soaking then off to Dazaifu "downtown" and then a short ride into Fukuoka. 

Tonight will be the last night in a Japanese room during my trip, as the next two nights are in a Toyoko-Inn in Fukuoka. 

Not one of the nicest Japanese rooms, but nice. Generally I have preferred the Japanese rooms over the Western ones, as with the same m2 they seem spacier as the bed does not take up so much space and during day time the futon just gets folded up and packed away.

Bicycle touring Japan - Ride maps

For details on the bicycle tour today in Fukuoka and Saga, checkout the below maps:

Day 53 - Yanagawa to Saga 柳川から佐賀へ

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 53

Today was the first cold day on my cycling trip through Japan, and that in Kyushu! But not too cold to visit the village of Asterix, ups sorry, of the Yayoi culture.

Bicycle: 42 km 
Riding time: 3:00  h
Total ascent: 62 m 

Route: Yanagawa through Yoshinogari to Saga

Weather: Very cloudy, later a little bit of sun and a few drops of rain, windy, 12 C


I started the day in the onsen of my hotel and I ended it in an other onsen close to my new hotel in Saga. I had a hard time yesterday to find an accommodation, but finally the one I did fine, in Saga, close to the station, is very good. A big hotel, quite elegant and not very far from an onsen (well, more like a super-sento). So all is fine.

Between these two soaks, I had a small roundtrip - by bicycle only - through Yanagawa and then a ride up by bicycle to Yoshinogari, where there are remains of the Yayoi culture and a recreated village has been constructed. 

Yanagawa is famous for its nice channels and the boat rides on them. Well, I did not do the boat ride, essentially because doing it alone seemed a bit strange. So I just took some pictures of other people doing it:

As today was the first quite cold day on my trip through Japan, I did use my long trousers and did start my ride with a cardigan on. If you wonder, where the long trousers have come from, I added them to my luggage during my brief stop in Tokyo earlier this week. After a while of riding North against a fierce head wind, I did take of the cardigan though and continued in short sleeves. Still wondering if the jeans were the right garment for riding. They were perfect though for the touristic part of today.

The ride up North was through a typical and not very nice Japanese landscape. Well, not really LANDscape, but more like a VILLAGEscape. There was everything mixed, fields, plants, houses, abandoned houses, old houses, new ones, derelict ones, shopping centers, convenience stores... Everything mixed and in between rice fields. It didn't help that the wind was blowing strongly and not in my direction...

But finally I did arrive to the Yoshinogari Historical park, where important Yayoi excavations have been done, but more importantly from a touristic perspective, an entire village including residences for the ruling class and temples have been reconstructed. 

It reminded me a lot of the village of Asterix. Probably these wild boar at the entrance to the village did help create this impression: 

And well, the wooden wall around the village:

Also the houses really looked very Asterix-like. One could enter into most of them, where small every day scenes of the rich and powerful of the Yayoi culture were depicted.

This was the most important temple/shrine of the village. About 16 m high with two big rooms for ceremonies.

There is also a small museum with the typical clay rests and spear points that one can see in all these kind of museums (obviously a Yayoi culture fan - or any other pre-historic culture fan will say that the tools used by the Yayoi compared to everyone else are very different... but to me they looked like the typical stone tools to cut meat, spears to hunt etc.

Further inside the park there is also a museum with the excavated remains of a burial ground. At least the rich got buried in large vases, closed by an other vase. These burials were quite large, a sitting corpse really only occupied half of it. 

These two here are Majestix (= Vitalstatistix) and Gutemine (= Impedimenta):

Bicycle touring Japan - Ride maps

For details on the bicycle tour today in Fukuoka and Saga, checkout the below maps:

Day 52 - From Kagoshima to Yanagawa 鹿児島から柳川へ

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 52

Today was mainly a day on the move up North from Kagoshima, but I managed to squeeze in one sightseeing spot: Kagoshima Aquarium!

Bicycle: 13.5 km 
Train: 250 km
Riding time: 1 h
Total ascent: 31 m 

Route: In Kagoshima by bicycle, Kagoshima to Chikugo-Funagoya by shinkansen, and then on to Yanagawa by bicycle again

Weather: Very cloudy, a few drops of rain in Kagoshima, cold 9 C


Today rain was forecast, so I decided to use the day to move up North to my final stretch of cycling. Tomorrow and Sunday weather should again be reasonable fine (although right now not so sure about tomorrow...)

As the move up North was not going to take so long (by train), I decided to go to the Kagoshima Aquarium in the morning. It had a dolphin show both inside and outside in a channel that is part of the port.

Plus tanks full of fish and other sea creatures.

I never really liked aquariums, as I don't like fish so much (the looks of them, nor am I really a big fan of fish on my plate either). And I always get a bit sick in aquariums. I think it is not really only the fish, but something to do with water behind glass that breaks the light differently. In some way, looking at fish in aquarium (but also in the sea itself) is not something I enjoy. So well, I still went, as it is one sightseeing spot in Kagoshima and aquariums in Japan are very popular anyway.

When I left the aquarium it had started to rain very slightly, but not too strong, so I decided to ride to Kagoshima shinkansen station. Luckily a part of the way through the city center was roofed (well, only for pedestrians... but we are in Japan and cyclists commonly use the pedestrian walkway as well... so I did).

I took the shinkansen up North and as the weather forecast further North looked like no rain, just clouds, I decided to ride shinkansen up to Chikugo-Funagoya, a small village north of Kumamoto, and then ride the last kilometers to my hotel by bike, as coming here by train would have meant a lot of train changes.

I was lucky that the weather forecast and the actual weather were the same, so I could ride through the countryside on quiet roads, partially along the famous channels, towards Yanagawa.

When I decided yesterday where to go next, I wanted a place with an onsen, and in Jalan that is quite easy to search for. There is even a setting to search for a onsen with rotenburo. I had different options about places where to go, more traditional onsen towns, like Ureshino or Takeo, but specially Ureshino is hard to reach by public transport, so I decided for Yanagawa, which is not a place known for its onsen (we are in Kyushu, so there are onsen here as well), but known for its nice channels. When I reserved my hotel, I had probably not expected to be in this kind of location:

The next building to the hotel is a cement plant... But the area is popular, at least with the local crow population who gathered for an evening meeting on the power lines. They clearly had a preference for the higher lines. Not a single crow on the slightly lower hanging cables.

At the 7/11 at the corner, I got breakfast for tomorrow and my sumo ticket I had reserved in early October for next week.

As I had not originally planned to visit Yanagawa at all, I had a look today at the map what to do from here, and where to go, and decided on Yoshinogari. It turned out to be very challenging to find an accommodation for tomorrow night, on Jalan and Booking.com no hotels available even in the wider area (+/- 20 km from Yoshinogari), or at least not at acceptable prices, because 35,000 Yen for one night is not something I am prepared to pay for a pretty normal hotel. Finally I got lucky on Rakuten, and found a room in central Saga. With that experience I decided to also reserve the night of November 19th, in Dazaifu, which in turn was not complicated at all. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow. Maybe it is simply because it is Saturday???

With this all my accommodations for the cycle ride through Japan are booked, as the last 2 days in Fukuoka I had already reserved when I got my Sumo ticket weeks ago.

After a curry dinner at a local family restaurant I took a relaxing bath in the hotel onsen, which is well frequented by local people and has two pools inside plus a small outdoor area with a relatively large rotenburo, that is even half covered by a roof, useful in case of  rain.

Bicycle touring Japan - Ride maps

For details on the bicycle tour today in Kagoshima and Fukuoka, checkout the below maps:

Day 51 - Sakurajima roundtrip 桜島巡り

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 51

This post describes the cycle touring on Sakurajima, an island with the most active volcano in Japan. 

Bicycle: 42 km
Ferry: 8 km
Riding time: 3:00 h
Total ascent: 456 m 

Route: One complete round of Sakurajima

Weather: Overcast, later a bit of sun and clouds, 13 C

After seeing Sakurajima yesterday (Day 50) from the coast, today I took the ferry over to the island and circled it completely by bicycle. On the ferry I had a front row seat: 

I had decided to do the South coast first, because there is more up and down, so that I could do the more tiring part in the morning. The first stop was on top of an old island, that was completely covered by a large eruption in 1914 and now has become part of Sakurajima. There biologists observe how the nature slowly but steadily grows and makes the lava fields their home. In only 100 years it has gone from hot lava to these pine trees:

Further along the road, at about 1/3 of today's ride was an other view point of lava, vegetation, volcano and smoke from the ongoing eruptions. With the overcast sky it was however difficult to see and even more difficult to catch on a picture. 

Sakurajima was an island until 29th of January 1914, when the lava connected it to the Osumi peninsula, which is opposite of Kagoshima. But I stayed on Sakurajima turning left and continuing on my round trip. After a while I arrived at the nearly completely submerged torii of a local shrine that was buried more than 2 meters deep in debris from the 1914 eruption and was left like this to remind future generations of the volcano.

Everywhere across the island are also these shelters, where one can hide in the case of an eruption accompanied by volcanic debris flying around. 

Today that wasn't needed, but the volcano is in constant eruption since more than 60 years, some years have seen more than 500 eruptions. This year we were at about 70 so far. And volcanic ashes are being expelled frequently, as I could witness on the Northern half of the island (well, no longer island, but calling Sakurajima peninsula also somehow feels incorrect).

See the red bricks on the side walk?

I washed a small part of this leave, just to see the difference in colour

And no, this is not a volcanic explosion in the middle of the street, but volcanic ashes.

Thus I returned to the port of Sakurajima, but close to it is an onsen, Magma onsen, where I washed away all the ashes and fatigue of the day before returning with a ferry to Kagoshima. 

Tomorrow weather forecast has rain in the prediction, so I am moving by train, further up North to Yanagawa. 

Bicycle touring Japan - Ride maps

For details on the bicycle tour today in Kagoshima, checkout the below maps:

Day 50 - Tokyo to Kagoshima 東京から鹿児島へ

Bicycle touring Japan - Day 50

Day 50!!! And today from Kagoshima airport to Kagoshima city, the last week of my bicycle tour has started in the very South of Kyushu.

Bicycle: 37  km
Plane: 960 km 
Taxi: 30 km
Riding time: 2:15 h
Total ascent: 100 m 

Route: Tokyo to Kagoshima airport by plane, on by bicycle to Kagoshima city.

Weather: Sunny and a few clouds, 16 C

After less than 24 h in Tokyo I am back on the road on my final week of cycle touring through  Japan. On to the Southern tip of Kyushu, Kagoshima.

When I decided yesterday where and when to restart my cycle tour (after a brief stay in Tokyo to meet a relocation company) I decided to re-start in Kagoshima immediately, as today and tomorrow weather forecast is still good, but forecasting rain for the weekend. When I reserved the flight for Kagoshima I did not realize that the airport isn't really close to the city. But all the better, thus I perfectly knew where to cycle today. And then tomorrow the entire day to explore Sakurajima.

During my 21 h in Tokyo I loaded up on fruits, cereals and very tasty French cheese. So I am ready for more Washoku. While in Tokyo I not only met the relocation company, but even had time to de-register my residence. So ever more ready to move to the Netherlands at the end of this cycle tour. Probably cycle touring is the best introduction possible to the Netherlands...

Here my poor brompton taking its second flight in a few hours. It will need to get used to it, as more flights next week (back from Fukuoka to Tokyo) and the following week (from Tokyo to Amsterdam). So far it is not complaining. 

Here a view of the mountains in Southern Kyushu ...

... and one of many photos I took of Sakurajima:

I arrived around 12:00 and about half an hour later set off on my ride into Kagoshima. Close to the airport there were some very accurate cut tea plantations:

The airport itself is on a high plateau, so the first 9 km were spent rolling down hill and a bit of breaking. But not too bad. At one point a saw a sign for an onsen at a waterfall, and as it was only 1 km, decided to have a look. But it was just a normal onsen building close to a waterfall. A nice waterfall though:

No bathing in the pool of the waterfall.

When I had planned the ride for Garmin today in the morning while waiting for my airplane, there seemed two possibilities how to ride into the city one over some mountains and one down at the coast. I decided for the coast thinking that the view would be nice. It was nice, BUT there was also a lot of traffic on the one and only road. So from about km 19 to 31 the ride was not terribly enjoyable.

I tried to ride on the pedestrian walkway, but often it had too much vegetation to be safe to ride, so back to the street...

When I planned the ride on Garmin connect, it had a total ascent of nearly 400 m (see here KYU99), but there were again, as in some previous rides some mysterious very steep hills, that on the ground did not exist at all. In the ride tomorrow on Sakurajima there is the same problem. Looking at the map with elevation profile, there are no such steep mountains, but in the Garmin elevation profile there are... Very inconvenient.

When that stretch ended, there was a big parking lot and a lot of people walking around. I wanted a stop anyway (actually for lunch), so I decided to stop there. It was a place with surprisingly many people and even tourist buses aplenty. So I had a better look, and discovered that I had just "run" into an UNESCO world heritage site and a famous Japanese garden: Senganen Garden.

So I decided to skip lunch and be a tourist. The garden itself is not among the best in Japan, but one has to admit that the local daimyo found a good way how to incorporate the obligatory "small pond" and "hill" into his garden:

I had taken a full access ticket, that also included a guided tour of the main building and a matcha, which came with a special sweet, that if I understood correctly among others contained shitake (a mushroom) and yuzu (a citric).

In the garden, as in so many others there was an exhibition of flowers. I normally always walk by these flowers just looking at them from far, but here there were detailed descriptions of what was the specific beauty of these flowers:

I think it is hard to guess, but these flowers here are admired for being a set of 6 pots (each pot has 3 flowers), with 6 varieties of chrysanthemum with at least 3 colours, where the front flowers must be shorter and taller flowers to the rear. Also the colour arrangement is decided BEFORE growing the flowers, so while they are growing height control is important (which apparently is achieved by some grow controller). And I always thought that these were simply flowers.

There were different displays. From 1 pot (always with 3 flowers) at maximum 40 cm height to arrangement of 12 different pots, all arranged per height both within the same pot and across the row of pots. And then there was this unruly flower explosion in the form of two daimyos:

The garden is part of UNESCO world heritage as part of the Meiji Industrialization heritage sites, because it belonged to the Shimadzu clan, a very powerful and apparently forward looking Daimyo who controlled the South of Kyushu and Okinawa. Through Okinawa even during the Japanese isolation centuries they were trading with foreign countries and acquired Western weapons and technology. Once Western countries were lurking ever closer to Japan, the daimyo decided that it was time to produce similar weapons and that he needed large industrial plants for that. So a number of plants were built, this building here being the oldest survivor or a industry plant in Japan:

In this building is a nice and partially English explained exhibition about the Shimadzu clan and the Shuseikan project, an industrialization project at the end of Edo and beginning of Meiji period, initially started in order to produce weapons to potentially withstand Western powers. But then also developped glass and porcelain manufacturing among many other technologies, including learning how to built steam machines.

There was also an interesting description of trade in the period of Japan's closure to all external contacts. Per the museum some trade still continued, by pirates, who as you could not BUY something in foreign countries, raided the coasts for goods to sell. Not sure if one could order a specific item from them...

It was getting colder, so I put on my cardigan and the fleece jacket for the final ride into town. During the ride I also passed close to this monument for the arrival of Francisco Javier in Japan: 

And thus I arrived to my hotel, which is in a very lively place of downtown Kagoshima, but my room is probably quiet and I had a good dinner of Satsuma cuisine in a restaurant suggested by the hotel. 

Bicycle touring Japan - Ride maps

For details on the bicycle tour today in Kagoshima, checkout the below maps: