This blog is about travelling through Japan on a bicycle. Initially on a foldable bicycle (Brompton) and more recently mostly by road bike (Spezialized)... but also by train, ferry, plane, bus or any other transport, if sea, weather, mountains or the like come between me and my desire to ride.
I have tried to summarise information that could be potentially helpful also for other bicycle travellers through Japan, such as list of bicycle roads, helpful web pages etc.

Monday 6 May 2019

GW 2019 - Day 10 Izumo and back to Tokyo 出雲大社から東京へ

Bicycle: 15 km
Bus: 20 km
Plane: 800 km
Route: Izumo - Izumo Taisha - Tokyo
Total riding time: 1:14 h
Total ascent: 61 
Average speed: 12 km/h
Weather: Surprisingly cool and very, very windy, some drops of rain,  21 C


After the heat yesterday and the day before, today it was surprisingly cold and very, but very windy. The place where I was yesterday evening for taking sunset pictures and where I had decided to have my second breakfast today, was just tooooooo windy to sit down comfortably there.


Luckily I found an other spot not too far away with some benches and it had also stopped raining by then... So I had my breakfast there. Then I continued along the coast on the bicycle road towards the Izumo Taisha. Close to it there is this rock in the sea with a torii on top:


Izumo Taisha apparently is the 2nd most important shrine in Japan (after Ise shrine where I was 1.5 years ago). 


But probably one needs to be a historian or a devote shintoist to appreciate the shrine. For me, it seemed to be similar to many other shrines I have seen, even probably a bit less interesting, as it seemed to be newer than many other shrines.

However close to the main shrine on this weekend there were some traditional performances, so I enjoyed those.


 After the performance the dragon even came through the audience and did - ritually - bid us all in the head. I guess it is helpful... but actually in the moment it was a tiny little bit painful.

Yes, I would have had the time, but not the energy due to an upcoming cold, to ride to the airport. And well, there was a very convenient direct bus from Izumo Taisha directly to the airport. So I hopped on to that in the early afternoon. At the airport I then had a rather long wait, but I got some lunch and rested some more. For sure this all contributed to the fact that finally the cold did not develop into a full blown cold.

What I discovered only after coming back to Tokyo, was that I missed out on Tamatsukuri onsen! Well, at least that way I have a reason to come back to the region! 


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