Hanami in Izu Peninsula Day 1 - 伊豆半島で花見

Bicycle: 51.4 km
Train: 100 km

Route: Atami - Hokkawa

Total riding time: 3:49 h 

Total ascent: 719 m 

Average speed: 13.4 km/h

Weather: Cloudy, but expect for the last 50 m, no rain,  11 C

For this weekend I signed up to a meetup group I found recently that seems to be very active with cycling in Tokyo area. The initial plan was a bit daunting, riding about 80 km with over 1200 m of elevation gain. But I signed up anyway, as there was a train line all along, so I figured I could hop on a train somewhere in between and catch up later (and my breath). However the final plan was much less sportive and only had on Day 1 about 50 km and 700 m elevation and about 20 km on the second day. Still much more elevation than I do in an entire month in Holland, but doable. 

The plan was to ride from Atami along the coast to Kawazu on Izu peninsula and see the early cherry blossoms. Which are a special subspecies that blooms super early. Actually this year so early that they were already way beyond peak. But still nice:

But we are getting ahead of ourselves... as this was the goal... 

We met up on Day 1 at Atami station, and after gathering everyone and reassembling the bikes (I had no idea that reassembling a road bike takes some time. I thought it was pop out the front wheel and you are done. but apparently there is much more involved. Mental note to self: to be considered for the famous N+1).

Initially I was intimidated by all these guys with much more speedier bikes, but they all assured me that they were happy to go slow and yes, it was a perfect ride along the coast line. Maybe a bit too much traffic for my liking, and with relatively narrow roads, some of the car drivers pass you with way less than 1.5 m. But the views were great and the company even better:

Unfortunately one of the team had a mechanical kind of even before the start line... and spent the entire first day trying to fix it. So he didn't really have a lot of a ride, but the rest of the bunch had. 

When hunger did set in, we looked for some place appropriate to deal with it. The first small sushi joint was already full, so we settled for an outdated summer vacation hotel cum onsen and amusement area, where we had a huge hotel restaurant, with at least 3 waiters and probably 2 or 3 cooks all to us. We didn't go for any of the amusement though: 

Riding on we could continue to enjoy the scenery and at some point hit on a road that is a half way up the mountain but then stays at that altitude, which gave spectacular views and had little traffic. 

And even came with some sakura in actual full bloom:

The organizer had even brought a drone and got us this group picture in the middle of the road under sakura trees:

We did take the ride very relaxed with a lot of intermediate stops (the faster waiting for the slowers), pushing up bicycles too steep of hills and everyone except me racing down like in free fall the hills a little bit later... while I was prudently following in the "(w)brake". So when we reached Hokkawa, it was already starting to get dark, and more importantly, starting to rain. But we made it to our guest house shortly before rain set really in. 

After some group discussions and reviews on google maps, we settled for a onsen in Akazawa onsen. We took the small local train two stations back and then a shuttle bus. It was a very posh area, a bit Kanazawa style... but the onsen we went to was the day spa... so for the normal public, and thus considerably less posh. As we were quite late, and restaurant last order was already at 20:30, we started with dinner, which was actually very nice, and then had our soak afterwards. The soak was okay... but it being dark outside, did remove one of the main enjoyments of this onsen, the unobstructed view over the sea. 

4 prefectures, 3 days - Day 3: Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama & Ibaraki ３日間４県〜本日：栃木県、群馬、埼玉、茨城

Bicycle: 63.5 km

Route: Ashikaga - Sugito

Total riding time: 4:31 h 

Total ascent: 133 m 

Average speed: 14.0 km/h

Weather: Very Sunny, no clouds, some wind, perfect weather,  14 C

Todays highlight was probably visiting Gunma, while the bicycle was in Tochigi (front wheel) and Saitama (rear wheel):

Front wheel: Tochigi; rear wheel: Saitama, rider: Gunma

And only 3.5 km later, I was in Ibaraki. And only because I hadn’t planned this ride carefully enough, I missed Chiba, which would have been only an other 4 km from my route today, and actually quite feasible. But well, then I would have needed to change the title of all 3 days’ worth of posts.

The day started in Tochigi city, which to my surprise I found out yesterday evening, still has some old buildings. It is not so nice as e.g. Sawara, where the old buildings are all very much centred around a small channel, but the interest in the old buildings in Tochigi is more that there are also some from Taisho area, clearly influenced by Western architecture, as this hospital (which continues to be a medical center to today)…

… the restaurant where I ate yesterday evening and the old city hall, which however was totally in refurbishment. There were also some more normal old Japanese houses in town:

The one attraction I had found before going to Tochigi was the New Ginger Museum, which was definitely a very pink (and strange) experience. This awaits you at the entrance:

And it is not what it seems to be… or well, actually it kind of is, but by saying that it is a ginger root, it becomes totally acceptable to dedicate a complete, pink museum to a penis.

All possible things one can prepare with New Ginger, which actually isn’t fresh, but pickled ginger. I even took a sweet with ginger and a ginger soda.

But the highlight of this museum, without doubt was this video of the entire company dancing the New Ginger dance:

After these first touristic stops the ride of today could start. When I planned, I had not really found anything else interesting in the area, so set as a goal a super-sento with a convenient train station closeby, at a reasonable distance. For the ride itself I handed over the planning mainly to the komoot app. However I entered a few changes to avoid any major roads, and the ride was really great. Nothing by itself outstanding, but just a nice enjoyable ride through Japanese countryside with some mountains in the far distance. Some, closer to Nikko even with still some snow on the top, but not a lot, for end of February. This year was unseasonally warm in Japan. Mainly I rode on small country lanes and then on the typical Japanese bicycle path along a heavily dammed river. The rivers in that region still show the signs of the flood last year October, and are still being cleaned up from debris (mainly vegetation) lying around.

I finally came to a big water reservoir which has a cycling road right through the middle of it. On the center is a small artificial island, where I hate some cookies I had bought on the first day. Shortly afterwards, and just before the point with the 3 prefectures, there was a Michi-no-eki, where I got the best grilled sweet potato I had in my live. Only grilled, nothing added, but so creamy and sweet.

After the picture of at the prefecture boarders, the ride continued through similar landscape, although become a bit more built up over time, as I was approaching Tokyo.

The super-sento for today, was really nice. With 3 pools inside, and a whooping 5 pools outside and a small forest in which to gaze (although the supersento is in a built up area, there are no houses close or high enough, to warrant a high wall around it. Very nice. I had a long soak in the different waters, followed by dinner and am now sitting in the Tobu express train, back to Tokyo, heading for Otemachi, where I should be arriving in about 5 minutes. Perfect timing for this post. 

4 prefectures, 3 days - Day 2: Tochigi ー３日間４県〜本日：栃木県

Bicycle: 42.9 km

Route: Ashikaga - Tochigi

Total riding time: 2:57 h 

Total ascent:  144 m 

Average speed: 14.5 km/h

Weather: Sunny, some clouds and a cold strong wind (mostly tail wind though), 10 C

Today my explorations of the region around Tone river continued. I started at the Ashikaga Flower Park... but only there realized that actually quite close to my hotel there was the Ashikaga School, the oldest education institute in Japan, founded over 1000 years ago... and thus older than the oldest Bonsai I saw yesterday!

But I started at quite young plants today. So fragile that they need a personal hut for each single plant:

Apart from these flowers only some plums (?) were flowering. The main part of the garden was still pretty bare. But I can't complain. The garden is well known for its wisteria... and well, they don't bloom until about May. Now the wisteria trees were still completely barren and in the process of getting pruned. 

I was lucky though that I had picked up a free entrance ticket at the hotel, so the visit didn't even cost the 300 yen the other visitors paid. This garden uses a very intelligent ticket price policy. The more flowers bloom, the more expensive the ticket. I think 300 yen was the minimum... but even then they realize that they don't get that many people to visit the garden, so they offer free entrance as well with a coupon.

When I planned this ride the other day, I planned it in this region here solely because it seemed the only region with 3 days without rain (and so far, so good). So when I searched for what to do, I started with only two places I had vaguely heard about: Ashikaga Flower Park and Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. But 2 places to do tourism in 3 days, seemed a bit too few, so I looked at Google maps to see if there are any other places suggested to visit. 3 sprung up for today, and I integrated them into the ride. 2 out of 3 were fabulous. And the remaining one a bit deluding, but after 2 very nice discoveries this was not set-back at all.

So the first Google maps discovery was the Kurita Museum. It is very close to the flower park, just on the other side of the rail track and has very large grounds and on those grounds many different buildings, some modern architecture, some traditional...

Lower right corner: Building to the unknown potter!

... but the important part is obviously the art exhibited. It is a vast collection of only 2 types of Japanese porcelain: Imari and Nabeshima pottery. Actually mainly Imari pottery. A type of porcelain manufactured in Kyushu that was vastly popular with the European aristocracy even way before the Meiji restauration. Some of the pieces were of sublime quality. Like a simple dish, decorated to look like the inside of an open umbrella. Others were much more complicate, like a stylized description of the Tokaido invariably arriving at Nihonbashi. But there are also plates with maps of Japan (always excluding Hokkaido which at the time was a faraway island, inhabited by some strange indigenous people), like this one:

And well, slightly too large vases. Possibly made for the booming export sector of Imari pottery.

The museum was also nearly empty. I think in my entire time in the museum, I only saw an other 3 visitors. And this emptiness does really not pay tribute to the wonderful pieces of pottery exhibited. 

After so much museum it was time for lunch, which I had very close by in a restaurant, that must be teeming with people at the time of the wisteria flowering... but now was completely empty. But I got a hot bowl of curry Udon, which gave me some warmth and strength, which was needed seeing the fierce wind, which I had to endure riding to my next place found on Google Maps: Izuruhara Benten Pond.

I had been considering during lunch if to ride there at all, as I was quite tired from the ride yesterday... but decided to give it a go, and that was a great decision. Not so much because of the pond (however per an explanatory sign it is one of the 100 best waters of Japan (to see? to drink?), but because of the shrine that is right above the pond:

And from which one has a reasonably wide view over the valley:

This was really totally unexpected.

The place is a little bit touristy, and surprisingly has some descriptions in English. Not sure if that's because they are quite new (and maybe there is a drive towards including English in all newer signs), or if this place really attracts that many foreigners. Definitely not today, as I think I was the only foreigner I have seen the entire day.

Apart from that it was a nice ride through the countryside, which however is not totally romantic, as we are reasonably close enough to Tokyo and in a valley full of train connections, that the towns are generally well, typically Japanese... which means a lot of new and semi abandoned buildings, factories etc. But yes, countryside was nice enough, and even had some more modern historical remains:

Until I came across a field with a very small creek where in the middle of the field 3 old ships were parked. Really strange. How had they come here in the first place. Definitely not because of a tsunami... but I cannot even imagine that it had been because of some freek inundation, as there is simply no river close enough by, to wash ashore these ships. Mystery!

Only the third place that I had found on google maps did delude a bit. 新町薬師堂 (Shinmachi ? Yakushiji) It just was a small temple hall. But I think it is somehow historically important. But unfortunately the sign was in Japanese only. But no problem, it was on the way I needed to take anyway, and as said, I had already 2 unexpected discoveries today.

From there I rode into Tochigi city, where I will continue with my explorations tomorrow, last day of this long weekend.

Today finished in a sento here in Tochigi city. The goldfish sento, and there was a real basin of goldfish, that one could observe while soaking oneself. Very relaxing.

And finally I had Italian dinner in a place right in front of my hotel in an other historical building, probably from the Taisho or Showa era:

4 prefectures, 3 days - Day 1: Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi ー３日間４県〜本日：埼玉県、群馬県、栃木県

Bicycle: 68,2 km

Train: 30 km

Route: Omiya - Ashikaga

Total riding time: 4:19 h 

Total ascent:  193 m 

Average speed: 15.8 km/h

Weather: Cloudy, sunny, windy (but tail wind),  13 C

For this 3 day weekend, after considering several options, it seemed that starting in Saitama prefecture was the best bet weather wise... and so far so good. The weather forecast had rain in Chiba and Nagano prefecture for today, but not in Saitama. So that finally swinged it against Boso Flower Line and against a ride down from Karuizawa through Bessho Onsen to Nagano. 

What I didn't realize when planning this trip on Wednesday this week, that I would be riding through 4 prefectures, in 3 days. Today I touched already 3 of them: Saitama, Gunma and Tochigi (and I even started in a fourth: Tokyo... but did ride only a few km to Shinbashi station, where I took a commuter train out to Omiya. A city which I had never considered for tourism, but while probably the city itself isn't interesting at all, the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum is a true treasure. 

For me, this tree here below alone, made the visit worthwhile. It really moved me. I cannot explain it, but the beauty of this tree arrived straight to my heart. A very peculiar emotion. The terraces (I am sure there is a much better word for it) in which this tree is shaped, the small gap to see the trunk, the overall harmonious form... a true beauty. And still very young, only 70 years!

Before I made it to the Museum though I paid a visit to the Big Shrine = 大宮 which gives Omiya its name. The shrine was nice enough, but really not different to a lot of other shrines I have visited across Japan. What was remarkable though was the amount of people close to the shrine and in the park around it that were playing Pokemon Go. Players of nearly all ages, probably with the exception of teenagers. But even the elderly where avidly playing and there were hives of people standing around in the park trying to catch a pokemon. I did not join. 

When I continued I noticed that the lowest gear didn't click in. Not so much of a problem for these 3 days... but will be quite a problem next weekend (Izu peninsula!), so I decided to search out a bicycle shop to get it repaired right away. It isn't the first time this happens (actually I think the 3rd, and on both bromptons). This time it happened after earlier this week I had my back tyre changed, because of a drastic loss of profile at a brompton dealer very close to my office. 

Before        -          After

I found a bicycle shop in a big shopping arcade, and for 770 yen got it fixed in less than 30 minutes. Although to say the truth, in both Tokyo and Leiden I had got the same problem fixed in a brompton selling store in a few minutes for free... but well, fixed is fixed. 

Then I made my way to the highlight of the day, the Bonsai Museum. There was currently an exhibition of a bonsai master. This exhibition both contained actual bonsais (inside the museum) as well as very detailed explanations about the different Bonsai techniques. Including all the information in English. All of the trees were utterly remarkable. Very varied. Some were entire landscapes out of one tree. (But no photos were allowed inside). Actually bonsais are meant to be a part of a Japanese room, and there were also 3 rooms where one could admire the entire room setting around the bonsai.

In the garden there were more Bonsais, including the beauty above, but also some cherry trees already in full bloom:

and several pine trees. The oldest was over 1,000 years old! Must have been handed down from one bonsai master to the next, I guess. 

In the big garden of the museum photos were not allowed, but a video from a slightly elevated point was:

After the museum it was already past 14:00 so I ate in a small restaurant right in front of the museum. At that point I had only made about 6 km of today's ride... So I decided to skip all the other bonsai gardens (of the bonsai masters) that are close by and start the ride in serious. 

First I was riding along the train lines, which seemed to be particular popular with the local trainspotters. Not sure if some special train was going to come through? Or if this is simply for any weekend day with decent weather. 

Thanks to komoot I had for over 30 km a quite perfect bicycle route along a small river. 

This cycling lane is part of a bigger cycling infrastructure in the valley, as one can see from this map:

When I crossed the Tone river, we were already close to sunset... unfortunately in Japan it gets dark early... and I am not an early bird... so the last kilometers into Ashikaga were in the dark... but not too bad, I have light, the streets didn't have that much traffic... and an onsen awaited me quite close to the hotel. 

Actually a very nice onsen, with 4 tubs inside, plus a pool and a collagen room, which had red light, and NOT a collagen bath. Not really sure how this is supposed to work or what it is supposed to do... but well. Plus 4 tubs outside! 

Plus there weren't really a lot of people either. And they had all kind of amenities (scrubbing towel, tooth brush...) free of charge. So definitely a great place where to finish the ride today... well... finished, finished I did in my hotel close to Ashikaga station, but that was only an other 2 km down the road. 

Meguro Parasitological Museum 目黒寄生虫館

Bicycle: 22.7 km

Route: Shinbashi - Meguro - Shinagawa - Shinbashi

Total riding time: 1:53 h 

Total ascent:  184 m 

Average speed: 12.1 km/h

Weather: Humid then rain, quite cold,  9 C

After the relatively mild temperatures the previous two days, the plan for today was to make a long ride out to Lake Sayama... same plan as back in October, which also failed and ended with rain... albeit less rain than today. 

Today it failed from the very beginning, as I was totally unable to get out of bed in the morning (jetlag!) and finally managed to get up only around noon... But well, with the weather not being so nice anyway, not a big problem. So I reconsidered my plan for today, and remembered a question from a traveller on the forum on japan-guide asking about her/his plan for Tokyo, which included among the several attractions to visit the Parasitological Museum. I had never heard about it, but it definitely sounded intriguing. It's a small (but well stocked with parasites) museum in Meguro.

I was surprised to see that it actually attracts quite a crowd. Many families with children, some adult couples and a few foreigners as well.

Among the many parasites, there was also an old acquaintance: Schistosoma mansoni... the parasite of my university thesis. 

There were preserved parasites...

... as well as wax models of parasites (those were quite huge. Maybe 1:100 or so) and are now actually historical artifacts:

And the most curious of all where these parasites in lace by a local lace-artist:

A flee in the left corner, a part of an 8 m long intestinal worm and a couple of parasites on the right, all in lace

The museum was also very well described in English. Not on the boards themselves, but there were QR codes on each of them, where one could read the translations of the often lively descriptions, e.g. this is what it had to say about the glorious history of parasitology in Japan.

After the museum, I went to an super-sento in Oimachi... but first did some shopping in around Oimachi station (new Japanese keyboard, which now IT will take weeks and weeks to install and some other items). Nothing to write home about. The one thing though is that in all shops (or at least all shops I looked) masks are sold out and even if there would be some, sale is restricted to one package per person. And this is because of Covid-19... the coronavirus currently terrorizing China ... and the world wide press & web. 

After my shopping I went into the onsen, and relaxed... but unfortunately when it was time to return home, rain had set in more seriously. Luckily I had my red rain cape... but still I got quite wet, as well as most of the things in my basket. But well... I have a washing machine, so that's what I did later in the evening. 

Onsen ride with NPC - NPCの温泉ライド

Bicycle: 27.6 km

Route: Rainbow bridge - Shibuya (NPC start) - Shinagawa - Shinbashi

Total riding time: 2:19 h 

Total ascent:  159 m 

Average speed: 11.9 km/h

Weather: Dry, cloudy, relatively warm,  13 C

This weekend it was agin time for the monthly ride with the NPC team. As I had started a ride before to the Odaiba and Tokyo Olympics area... and forgot to reset the garmin device, the route below actually starts a bit earlier... but that description is in the previous blog post.

We did meet as always in Shibuya in front of the United Nations University. Similar to last month and even the month before, there were quite a lot (10 or more) people that registered through the Meet-up announcement, but this was the first time that also a lot of them actually turned up. I think about 10 from meet-up, so actually there were more Meet-up people (or at least that's how it felt) than "traditional" participants. I was having some mixed feelings about, as I also don't think it is fair if this ride looses it's traditions, but the organizers seemed to be very happy about the crowd and I think also most (all?) participants of the ride where happy with how it went. Very social (and slow as always). 

It is also true that by coincidence this time a few of the regular participants could not make it, so maybe in a future ride the balance will shift again in favour of the traditional participants.

And while we didn't have a single tall-bike today, we did have a definitely eye-catching bicycle. A recumbent tandem! Everyone was totally intrigued by it. And we arranged the recumbent, the cargo bike and two bromptons in ascending order for a picture.

The route of the ride was pretty similar to the previous onsen rides... understandable, as we wanted to soak in the same onsen/sento as always. 

It was nice to talk with so many different people while riding through the night of Tokyo. I even met the guy who is going to organize a week-end out at Kawazu for an early hanami at end of February to which I signed up. But more on that at the end of this month... hoping that the ride will go ahead. 

Even into the onsen a number of the foreigners came along (and some of the Japanese new attendees as well). It was as always a nice soak and afterwards Chinese dinner. Same procedure as last year ;-)

Recently a producer from GCN had contacted me through Meet-up regarding the riding scene in Tokyo, so we discussed also this and agreed to organize an extraordinary ride on 18th of April with them... Let's see if this is going to go ahead as planned.  

5 months before Tokyo Olympics

Bicycle: 14 km

Route: Shinbashi - Odaiba - Rainbow Bridge - Shibuya

Total riding time: 1:38 h 

Total ascent:  159 m 

Average speed: 8.5 km/h

Weather: Dry, quite warm (for being February), overcast,  15 C

Before the ride with the NPC friends in the evening I started the day already on the bicycle, just to get out there, moving and get over the jet lag. Which is always a great idea.

A few months ago I already did a ride to several of the Olympic sites, but back then the weather didn't seem good enough to do the walk over the Rainbow bridge from Odaiba back to Tokyo, so I decided today to do that in the morning. And also to see a bit more of Odaiba, which however continues to not impress me positively. But I also continue to think that for the Olympics this is a great place. Actually very close to the centre of Tokyo, but vast space available. 

From left to right, up to down: Urban Sports Arena - still very much under construction... but I think they only need to construct the pats for skating or so; Tokyo Big Sight; Ariake Gymnastics centre

Now also a long Olympic boulevard exists, which connects several of the Olympic sites, but well, without the masses of Olympia is a bit empty. As Odaiba generally is.

At the end of the boulevard it is guarded by Gundam... he puts the bicycle into proportion!

At that point it was around 12:30, and as I knew from my previous ride around Odaiba it can be quite difficult to find a place to eat, I decided to visit an other tourist spot, Venus Fort. I have no idea why people would go there for shopping, but it was surprisingly attractive for foreigners. And well, I have to admit that it is a curious place:

Indoor shopping centre in the style of an Italian (?) city.

I had (a not very tasty) lunch there and then continued to one more Olympia spot, the rings in front of the Rainbow bridge...

... before finally approaching the bridge. Rainbow bridge allows only pedestrians, but bicycles can be brought along... but only with a strap-on chastity belt (see back wheel):

One has a few nice sights from the bridge, but it is also true that mainly it is a bridge with a lot of traffic and one walks alongside that traffic in a cage:

But here the nice sights... Unfortunately although the weather was nice and warm, the sky was overcast, so not ideal for photos.

It was still quite early when I came down from the bridge so I decided to do something else in Shibuya before the evening ride with the NPC. In this article on Japan-guide I had found some interesting things to do in Shibuya, and I went to the Yamatane museum. Which had a quite interesting nihonga exhibition about "beautiful women". Many of the paintings were actually by women and not as old as one might think, but often in old style. One could see quite clearly how the Western art was influenced at the beginning of the 20th century by Japanese art, but also vice-versa. What was also surprising that there were a few visitors in kimono and even some men with kimono. Japanese really dress for the occasion!

The exhibition itself was small enough, that I had even time for a very Japanese sweet in the museum cafe afterwards and arrived just in time for the NPC meeting. BTW, the hot drink, which wasn't a tea, was definitely curious. Slightly salty and with an orchid flower floating gently in it. Wont be my favourite drink, but definitely a worthwhile start into 2 months of Japanese cuisine.