Spontaneous auto-repair

Bicycle: 13.7 km

Route: Shin-Osaka to Bicycle Repair shop

Total riding time: 1:06 h 

Total ascent: 60 m 

Average speed: 12.4 km/h

Weather: Cold, slight rain drops, 12 C

On Sunday on the last part of my ride downwards Yodogawa, something started to sound really bad in my bicycle. Like a small stone being inside the front wheel. I tried to see if I could understand where it is and how to remove it... but to no avail. As I want to ride this weekend again, I decided to bring it directly to a brompton repair shop to see if they could fix the problem. Only that about 3 km into the ride whatever it was that caused the sound, had popped out and the problem fixed itself. I anyway rode all the way to the shop, just in case they could understand what the problem might have been. Which well, they couldn't... fair enough, there was no longer a problem when I arrived at the shop. 

The only interesting thing to report about this ride, is that I came by a big shrine (which I didn't visit) in Tenma... which I will visit some day in the future. 

Up and down Yodogawa - 淀川に沿って

Bicycle: 85.0 km

Route: Yodogawa and Kizugawa

Total riding time: 5:55 h 

Total ascent: 241 m 

Average speed: 14.3 km/h

Weather: Sunny, cloudy and a chilly strong wind, 11 C

After the rain yesterday, today it was mostly sunny, a few clouds, but also quite windy. Headwind in the first half of the day, but tailwind cruising back down the river to Osaka. 

I had decided to make a ride from a leaflet I had picked up in an onsen (the same where today's ride finished) last time I was in Osaka. The ride in pink at the bottom right going to Uji... only that I added kilometers at the beginning to even get to the starting point, cut kilometers from the ride by not actually riding into Uji and then adding again kilometers by riding all the way back to Osaka. So well, I did a quite different ride, but I did see the place that had caught my attention on the leaflet, Japan's longest wooden bridge:

Only that currently it is off-limits, not due to Covid-19, but due to restauration works! So I have a reason to ride there again. Actually riding up Yodogawa and then transferring to Kizugawa means one can ride all the way to Nara from Osaka along a river... but it would be quite a long ride. 

Riding along the Yodogawa isn't specially scenic...

... at least not until one reaches the confluence with Uji River and Kizugawa, at which point there is a hanami hot spot. In order that it does not become a Coronavirus hotspot, there were only minimal hanami activities today, much to the contrast of last year. But it is also fair to say, that it was very windy and quite cold there, so it wouldn't really have been a good day for a proper picnic anyway.

Top: 2019 (warmer weather and no virus)
Bottom: 2020 (quite cold and Covid-19)

What I always find surprising is the cherry trees in really ugly locations. As a European one would think that it only makes sense to make an effort to plant cherry trees in a location that is at least somewhat nice, but not so in Japan.

In my very personal analysis, this is a very important difference between Japan and Europe. In Japan the details are admired, but there is no (or at least not a lot) of importance given to the overall picture. It is like Japanese are born with a build in zoom lense, admiring each small detail of the item to admire, but not having any spheral vision to see the surroundings. This is manifested over and over again, when one visits outstandingly nice Japanese places, often it is very hard to take a picture, as there is something really ugly somewhere around. E.g. electricity cables, old buildings, old signs...

Last year I had asked some cyclists at the confluence of the 3 rivers, if one could ride down also on the opposite side, i.e. on the side of Oyamazaki, and they told me know... so I rode down again on the same side I had come. However also last year, I just tried riding UP on the Oyamazaki side of the river, and came really far, so I knew that at least from a certain point onwards there was a cycling lane. And today I can report that there is actually a cycling lane pretty much the entire way from the confluence to Osaka on both sides of the river. However the one Hirakata side is definitely more popular, but I don't really know why. The ride on the other side was very similar. Only getting over the river to the starting point, well, isn't the nicest place of Kyoto:

So I saw a nice bridge and an ugly bridge today.

It had rained a lot on Friday and yesterday, so some parts of the cycling lane was very much inundated. and somewhere there, already quite close to Osaka, something strange must have happened. At least now my bicycle gives a very strange noise, as if a small stone found its way inside the bicycle. I'll need to go to the local brompton shop and get a look at it.

Riding into Osaka I got this nice night view, before retreating for the next hours in Naniwa no yu, a super sento I have already visited several times. 

Rain & onsen 雨の日に温泉

Bicycle: 30,2 km

Route: To Itami airport and back

Total riding time: 2:05 h 

Total ascent: 67 m 

Average speed: 14.5 km/h

Weather: a few drops or rain, more rain and real rain, 9 C

In the morning some shopping in a nearby supermarket, where I bought enough should the government in Kansai region decide to put a lockdown, to survive for about 3-4 days. And more crucially I got toilet paper. A rarity right now due to Covid-19. (Apparently in Europe it is impossible to get right now and also in Tokyo it was not a common sight... but in Osaka there is no immediate shortage. A bit less than usual, but no shortage. The only shortage here seem to be face masks... but still all Japanese seem to have a stock somewhere hidden as most of the people on the streets are walking around with masks. 

This isn't all toilet paper. I only bought 8 rolls. I swear!

With the coronavirus pandemic I decided to do only local rides, starting and finishing from my doorsteps. For today I had decided to try this route https://www.strava.com/routes/11610963, however I started quite late in the afternoon (maybe around 15:00) so it was clearly impossible to do the entire route. But I still wanted to go out cycling a bit and the river part looked nice, so that's what I did. Cycling up the Ina river without a specific goal in mind, except a soak in an onsen at the end.

Ina River is one of the typical Japanese rivers. Highly damed and totally unnatural. This one, for most of the part I cycled, flowing through a industrial neighbourhood.

So this was probably the "nicest" it gets:

There were some sakura along the way, but still not in full bloom. And actually where I shot this picture there was a very strange, sweetish, chemical odour. This combined with the rain, cold weather made that not even Japanese were coming out to do hanami picnics.

When I came up to Itami airport (which is still operating, although for sure at a much reduced intensity than normally), it started to rain more, so I threw the red cape over me and started my descend through the rain back to Osaka and my onsen. In which I happily soaked for the next hour or so, had dinner and was happy again.

Bye-bye Tokyo, Hello Osaka 東京さよなら、ハロー大阪

Bicycle: 5.0 km
Train: 550 km

Route: Tokyo to Osaka

Total riding time: 0:23 h 

Total ascent: 241 m 

Average speed: 14.3 km/h

Weather: Dark, no rain, and surprisingly warm in Osaka, 17 C in Tokyo and 18 C in Osaka

Today was my last day in the Tokyo office and it seems I "fled" from Tokyo just in time before the partial lock-down (well, not really lock-down, just friendly request from the government to stay at home on the weekend). Here in Osaka so far the government is not planning any lock down measures. 

So I said goodbye to my nice hotel in Tokyo where I am now greated and treated as a regular customer (stayed there so far 3 times and always in the exact same room, which I happen to like a lot), jumped on my bike (in my office outfit), cycled down to Shinagawa station, got myself a ticket for the next shinkansen and jumped on a very empty train. Normally trains between Osaka and Tokyo are quite full, but now with Covid-19 in each row there were maximum 2 people (instead of 5). I tried wearing a mask, but I really cannot breathe with these things. So I affronted the danger of virus contamination barefaced. 

In Osaka I unfolded my bike, and rode down the street to my monthly apartment, which happens to be also again the exact same apartment as last time. Slightly far from the office, but actually a quite nice apartment and with a bicycle parking lot. 

From now on, more cycling in Kansai region!

BTW, if you are wondering if I can put all my luggage of 10 weeks of business trip to Japan on my folding bike... well, no. But that's where Yamato Kuroneko is playing its part. 

Maps for Tokaido - 旧街道東海道サイクリング

As I am writing this, I am actually on the modern version of the Tokaido... on the Tokaido Shinkansen, somewhere between Nagoya and Kyoto. But this post is about the old Tokaido, the traditional road network for travelling from Kyoto to Edo (Tokyo)

Always on the hunt for new suggestions of nice cycling adventures these days I stumbled over these maps for riding along the old Tokaido from Kyoto to Tokyo. It seems that the cycling is mainly (or at least quite often) on small streets rather than the big ones.

The routes are available here on Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/43713242 from CSC 管理人

On this blog page (in Japanese) there are also some pictures and further descriptions. But it's a bit of a tedious blog page with a lot of clicking: https://www.strada.jp/events/kyukaidou_201908/

If you have Strava Summit you can download the maps directly from Strava. If not, like me... the following short cut seems to work:

• Open the route
• Click on the "。。。" symbol 
• Click on "create route" 
• This opens the route in the planner
• Save 
• And wow... there it is in my planned routes in Strava. And for those I can actually download the GPX file and then import on Garmin (or potentially just open it with the Strava app on the garmin)

Excited of having discovered this feature I went ahead and downloaded me the entire route. 

Seeing how it is numbered, it would seem that the idea is to make it in 3 days! But not for me. I guess a nice week would be perfect. 

Very much looking forward to do this ride once upon a time!

Tokyo Hanami - 東京で花見

Bicycle: 29.9 km

Route: Shinbashi - Tokyo Palace - Koishikawa Garden - Onsen - Shinbashi

Total riding time: 3:01 h 

Total ascent: 168 m 

Average speed: 9.9 km/h

Weather: Cold, slight rain drops, 19 C

Also on the last day of this 3 day weekend, the weather in Tokyo was perfect plus it was hanami season. The government had asked due to Covid-19 to not hold hanami parties, and well, my personal hanami party was definitely one of social isolation...

... but yes, other people (as you can see in the background) were having group hanami parties, but most groups stuck to themselves, and it was definitely not a packed park as it probably normally would be. Although I read somewhere that Koishikawa Botanical Garden doesn't get that packed, as it has an entrance fee, doesn't allow alcoholic drinks (well, some people did have a beer, but hiding it well) and closes in the late afternoon. I have no way to compare it to normal years, as this was my first time ever in this garden. I had tried once before, but back then it was a typhoon the day before that had closed the botanical garden temporarily. 

Before coming to the garden, I first visited a famous hanami spot at the Tokyo palace ...

... and right across the road the official cherry blossom measurement tree of Tokyo city at the Yasukuni shrine. I wasn't the only one interested in taking a picture of it. 

Towards Koishikawa botanical garden I came across the school for Shiatsu which had this very curious monument to the thump at their entrance... but I guess that's the most important body part for Shiatsu, so why not.

At a convenience store before the garden, I bought some lunch items and then headed to the park, took out my one person mini vinyl sheet and sat down to have lunch. After lunch I relaxed a bit in the nice sun and had a stroll through the garden. 

Where surprisingly (after the experience yesterday in Kamakura) all sakura where in full bloom.

When the park closed, I left and headed to my last stop of the day, Sakura (sic!) onsen which just had reopened its doors a few days earlier, after some coronavirus related closure. Now they were equipped with a infrared thermometer and measured temperature of all guests upon arrival.

But before I did my arrival, I had to take care of a little bit more of hunger, and had a overpriced crepe along the way in a posh cafe and had a ride through the graveyard at sunset which is right behind the onsen and also doubles as a hanami spot. Rightfully so!

Even the onsen had some hanami, as one should expect for an onsen called Somei Sakura.

Traffic safety (and hanami) ride with NPC - NPCとの交通安全ライド

Bicycle: 24.6 km

Route: Shibuya - Shiba Koen - Yoyogi Koen - Shinbashi

Total riding time: 2:08 h 

Total ascent:  130 m 

Average speed: 11.1 km/h

Weather: Dry, cloudy, relatively warm,  15 C

Today again our monthly Night Pedal Cruising ride, this time with the topic "traffic safety", as in Japan around the first of April small tents pop up along all major streets informing about traffic safety. One of the attendees even brought along some extra warnvests, which many of us obligingly wore.

As the weather was nice we had again quite a good attendance, including from Meetup. The funniest attendee was probably a guy from 出前館 (demae-can), a food delivery app. He actually didn't plan to attend and only could ride with use the first few kilometers, before he needed to head back to his shop as a food order had come through. But he was standing at our departure point with his bicycle, looking curiously at all the different bikes that started gathering around him... so I thought he might be also a guy from meetup and approached him... but actually he was just having a rest between orders.

The route today was a bit weird, but we made it down Meiji-dori which was very nice under the sakura trees and to the new train station Takanawa Gateway on the Yamanote line, inaugurated just a few days earlier... in time for the now delayed Olympic games ...

... on to Shiba Koen where we had a long stop and what seemed to be the end of the ride...

... only to cross back across the entire city to Yoyogi Koen and have a wonderful ramen in a shop we often go to in Harajuku, and then at least for me, riding back again across the entire city to Shinbashi. But that's what I had come for. Riding and riding with friends. 

From Zushi to Kamakura with friends - 友達と逗子から鎌倉へ

Bicycle: 8.2 km 

Train: 65 km

Riding time: 54 min
Total ascent: 56 m
Avg speed: 9.2 km/h
Route: Zushi - Kamakura
Weather: Sunny, nicely warm, 20 C

Also today it was sunny and warm. After a relaxing breakfast with self baked bread and other treats at the house of my friends in Zushi, we went over to Kamakura in the hope to see some hanami along the approach to the Hachimangu shrine, but while in Tokyo hanami had started, not so in Kamakura. Except for one tree at a rest stop close to the shrine all other cherry trees had not yet even started to think of blooming. 

But as it was a long weekend and nice weather many people had thought about doing hanami in Kamakura and flocked to the town. More at least than we maybe expected knowing that the local government had discouraged everyone from doing hanami parties (but actually hana-mi 花見, i.e. "flower-looking" was still perfectly allowed by the government. 

Our first stop though was at the ocean, where surfers enjoyed their day out. 

 Due to lack of time we didn't go inside of the shrine, and just had a quick look around the grounds an icecream, and back I went to the train station to catch a train back to Tokyo in time for the night ride with my friends of the NPC.

Tokyo to Zushi - 東京から逗子へ

Bicycle: 56.7 km

Route: Shinbashi - Zushi

Total riding time: 4:08 h 

Total ascent: 234 m 

Average speed: 13.7 km/h

Weather: Sunny and quite warm, 17 C

A long weekend, and we are still permitted outside notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic, which in Europe is getting from bad to worse and seems to be pretty out of control. In Japan, somehow they decided to try to ignore it as long as possible and they are simply doing very few tests, so there are few confirmed cases. However there are also still quite low numbers of deaths reported. Nothing to compare to Europe, where the epidemic has started much later. Nevertheless the government of Tokyo asked us this weekend to not do any hanami parties, but to enjoy the flowers by walking. I took that to mean that enjoying flowers while cycling would be also very much acceptable. 

As I wanted to visit friends who live out in Zushi, I decided to cycle out there. Yet another measure against Covid-19 and pro-cycling. No packed train... no virus!

I used komoot to plan out the route. On some parts however the streets were still a bit too big for my taste. Komoot just doesn't know that in Japan one can use one-way roads in both directions if on a bicycle, plus it doesn't seem to know that while on some major roads there are "cycling lanes", they are simply a line or sometimes only a sign on the pedestrian walkway and get totally ignored by the pedestrians (and cyclists alike). So during the ride I modified it a bit switching to smaller roads, which however made the ride quite slow. But still, I arrived where I wanted to arrive. 

For a small part I was even riding on the old Tokaido, for which a few days later I found cycling maps. The part I was riding was right through Kawasaki and right at that moment due to the heat my buttock was not too happy to me... but luckily there was a Y-roads where I got some chamois creme. 

I continued on an stumbled over a huge temple entrance and I ventured inwards. It was Sojiji temple. To me completely unknown, but apparently the second most important temple of (one of the many) zen schools in Japan. 

It was a very family like feeling in the temple grounds, with families doing small picnics and playing right in front of the old temple building badminton:

But the nicest part was probably these doors on the temple building, which at least to my completely ignorant eye, looked very much like moroccan doors. 

A bit further down, I did ride through Yokohama Minato Mirai... but didn't take any pictures. All these big, grey buildings... somehow not easy to take pictures of from a small bicycle. Maybe some future weekend from Tokyo a ride to Minato Mirai might be an option. 

But today I continued on. A little bit later at a conbini I picked up some lunch items, and looked on my map to see if there was any park nearby. Not really, but I found one, which was more a sports ground than a park, but still, some green and some place to sit, have my simple lunch and then ride on over the hills to Zushi.

In general the ride was not the nicest, simply because it goes through cities all the time. I probably shouldn't be surprised knowing that I road through the biggest metropolitan area of the world (Greater Tokyo area with nearly 40 million inhabitants) and three of the Top-10 cities of Japan in the same day: 

• #1, Tokyo, 8.3 million inhabitants
• #2, Yokohama, 3.6 million inhabitants
• #9, Kawasaki, 1.3 million inhabitants

Night Hanami in Tokyo 東京で夜桜

Bicycle: 26.3 km

Route: Shinbashi - Ueno - Skytree - Shinbashi

Total riding time: 2:09 h 

Total ascent: 53 m 

Average speed: 12.2 km/h

Weather: Night, no rain and relatively warm, 12 C

Today I started work early (well early for me... at 8:00) so I left early and with a very nice weather outside I decided to go for a night ride to see the opening of the cherry blossoms. I tried to plan an itinerary on Komoot, but somehow I was unable to transfer it to my Garmin. I usually blame Garmin for that. Not sure if rightfully so. (Note: it actually was correct to blame Garmin for it. There seems to be a maximum of routes you can store on the device... only that the error message doesn't say so)

So finally I set out without a planed map and just road down to the palace (there must be somewhere a famous Hanami spot, but it wasn't where I was - I looked it up later Chidorigafuchi) so I only took a picture of a tower reflecting in the moat:

From there I cycled over to the nearby Tokyo station, which also looks very nice at night:

and then on to Ueno Park. Where at a temple I took this nice night hanami picture:

And a picture of the temple itself reflecting in a lake in front:

Ueno park is famous for its lively hanami parties. This year they have been kind of prohibited. Not outright prohibited, but people have been asked to refrain from sitting down and to look at the flowers only walking. However the city administration doesn't seem to fully trust that everyone will adhere to this guidance and has put up already the trash bins (note that normally in Japan there are nearly no trash bins around). 

From there I was wondering where to go next. In my original plan I had thought of crossing the entire city to Meguro, an other famous hanami spot... but without a good map that would have meant riding on main roads only, or stopping just way too often to check on Google maps. So instead I opted for Asakusa, which was much closer and should be nice as well. And well, it did not deceive:

I wasn't the only night time visitor, but with the Covid-19 crisis, Japan has been void of tourists. So it is mainly the locals who are out and about and taking night pictures, with much more advanced equipment than me. 

The main gate to Sensoji normally has a big, red lampion. But it gets changed regularly and this year they are changing it ahead of its turn for the upcoming (???) Olympics.

Speaking about the upcoming Olympics at the Tokyo Skytree there was a countdown up on the observation deck... Let's see when they start to add days to it.

 Riding back, I rode for a while along Sumida river. A bit eery with nearly no one around, but this is Tokyo. So need for fear alone at night.

On the way back I passed through Ginza, one of my favorite night ride spots of Tokyo:

Lake Miyagase with Meet-up 宮ヶ瀬湖へ

Bicycle: 49.3 km
Train: 97 km

Route: Hashimoto - Miyagase Lake - Hashimoto - Hachioji

Total riding time: 3:21 h 

Total ascent: 643 m 

Average speed: 14.7 km/h

Weather: Cloudy, sometimes sunny, but no rain, 9 C

For today the same organizer you had organized the ride to Kawazu 2 weeks ago, had organized a ride from Hashimoto up to a lake and around it. I thought that I had already been to that lake 5 years ago from Fuchinobe... but now looking at the map, it might actually have been Tsukui lake. Which would explain, why neither the way to the lake nor the one back from the lake looked anything similar to what I remembered from that time. So I actually discovered a new place ;-)

We met up at Hashimoto station. All the the others were on racing bikes and some could have gone without any shed of doubt at a much higher speed than me... and rode up all hills instead of stepping off (I think twice maybe) to push up my bicycle...  But still we were able to ride all together. And what I struggled on the ascents they did when it was time to pack up the bicycles. Frankly I had always thought that packing up a racing bicycle was something of max 5 min, pop out the front wheel, put bicycle in bag, put wheel in bag and go... but no. One even needed to remove his pedals for the bike to fit in the bag.

The way up to the lake was with quite a bit of up and down... which well, I don't like... but on the other hand, I can now see a benefit in up and down... one gets to relax on the down and then restart again on the next up. While the way back was one long a gentle downhill. Actually a very nice ride down, inclination-wise.

The lake itself was of a very peculiar shade of turquoise:

And here again with brompton on the foreground:

As yesterday the weather was really bad, it snowed even a little bit in central Tokyo on some of the mountains around, one could see new snow.

Once we were back at the station in Hashimoto it was only 15:30. I had already decided to go to an onsen afterwards and knew of 2 in Hashimoto... but it was so early... I wanted to get a little bit more riding done and there were two who needed to go to Hachioji anway... and one proposed an onsen there, so we went there.

Your typical large super-sento, with a quite nice outside area and many guests... but still manageable. Afterwards we had dinner in the onsen and then back out into the cold, on the bikes and over a last hill before Hachioji train station. From there I took then a direct train to Tokyo station... unfolded and cycled the last 3 km back to my hotel in Shinbashi.

An other enjoyable day out and about on my bicycle.

Backstreets from Shinjuku to Sayama Lake - 裏道で新宿から狭山湖へ

Bicycle: 66.9 km
Train: 10 km

Route: Shinjuku - Lake Sayama - Kichijoji - Ikenoue - Shinbashi

Total riding time: 4:53 h 

Total ascent: 315 m 

Average speed: 14.0 km/h

Weather: Cloudy, sometimes sunny, rain at night, 9 C

Finally, I made it out from Shinjuku to Lake Sayama! A ride I had planned for last year October... but cut it short in Kichioji due to rain and had again planned for late February, but again due to rain aborted it. Today, well it did rain, seems to be a feature of this ride... but only on the way home in the evening back from Ikenoue to Shinbashi and not too bad.

So I took the direct subway here from Shinbashi area to Tochomae unfolded my brompton and started the ride. This ride was nearly completely on back streets and this from the heart of Shinjuku, all the way out to nearly Saitama (I think I technically did not enter Saitama, but it was on the other side of the street I was riding around the lake).

For the first part until Kichioji I followed in the "wheel"steps of a ride with the NPC friends last year November, from there in komoot I searched for a good connection for the part from Kichioji to the start of the Tamako bicycle lane, which I have ridden already several times in the past and provides a perfect connection out from Kichioji all the way to and around the lake. It's a very Japanese cycling lane, with pedestrians around (although theoretically they have their own part of the path... but just don't stick to it) and with mutliple hurdles to wind through. Sometimes it feels a bit more like an obstacle course, but generally it is fine. It is definitely not a path to achieve a QOM.

The lake in Kichioji was nice as always, although one has to say that generally it is still very early in the year, so most parks (and trees) are still barren.

Along the cycling path there is a small village museum (which was open - but I did not visit this time, as I have already visited in some of my past rides along this cycling road), while the much larger Edo Tatemono open air museum, which is also close, was actually closed due to Covid-19, even though it is an open air museum. Actually it seems that most museums are closed, plus most in door event spaces (e.g. Kabuki, theater, ...) and even some onsen. Either Japan is an intrinsically dangerous country, or I have been exceptionally unlucky in the last times I came to Japan.

• When I was here last in October / November 2019, a big typhoon came through inundating large parts of central Japan. Although the effects in Tokyo proper were quite mild notwithstanding the fact that the typhoon hit right in the middle of Tokyo. 
• The year before, in early September another big typhoon came through and did cause major damage to the bridge to Osaka airport... big enough that I got stuck in Japan for an additional week. (There are many worse things in like than getting stuck in Japan though)
• And this year, it is the turn of the Coronavirus epidemic. 

Riding on, I came to my goal, the Sayama lake:

... made a full circle around it (there is also an option for making a smaller circle) and then headed down again the same cycling road.

In the evening I had a dinner with a friend in Ikenoue, but I had enough time ... or so I thought ... to have a relaxing soak in an onsen. The onsen in Takaido was closed, but there is another one right along the cycling road not too far from Kichioji. So I soaked there... but was way too relaxed so arrived quite late for dinner... but no problem. We still enjoyed our dinner together and then I donned my rain poncho and cycled back to Shinbashi, following nearly the same street as the day before when I went to Shimokitazawa to my hairdresser.

Ride to my hairdresser

Bicycle: 20.7 km

Route: Shinbashi - Shimokitazawa - Shinbashi

Total riding time: 1:33 h 

Total ascent: 179 m 

Average speed: 13.3 km/h

Weather: Dark, no rain, 8 C

Today I left work early (well earlier than the other days), fetched my bike and headed out to Shimokitazawa to my hairdresser. I know... having a hairdresser in Tokyo and at the other end of the city doesn't sound like the most convenient thing to do... but I have been going there since 5 years and no longer living in Tokyo isn't a good enough reason to give up this habit. 

After the cut, I considered going to a local pizzeria where I went often, but there was no free seat available. Probably people are going out more in their own neighborhood now, rather than going to Shinjuku or some other places where many people come together, to try to avoid Covid-19 infection.

So I rode back to my hotel. After Shibuya I took a little bit a wrong road, but it turned out to be actually quite good, because from Gaienmae I could then take small roads and the central graveyard to come back to Shinbashi. 

But yeah, I still need to find a good way to get from Shinbashi to Shibuya... but I now remember that for some NPC event I had found quite a good way... need to look up those strava files...

Hanami in Izu Peninsula Day 2 - 伊豆半島で花見

Bicycle: 18.3 km
Train: 180 km

Route: Hokkawa - Kawazu

Total riding time: 1:17 h 

Total ascent: 282 m 

Average speed: 14.1 km/h

Weather: Very Sunny, some wind, perfect weather,  16 C

Day 2 of this adventure out onto Izu Peninsula, saw us riding much less kilometers, but seeing much more flowers. But flowers aside, I think the highlight of the day was this onsen, just a few km before riding into Kawazu in Imaihama:

But we got up very early in the morning, with the plan to see the sunrise... (See minute 35:48 in Ecce Bombo)

... well, we did technically not wait on the wrong side... but still didn't get any sunrise, due to the clouds... but instead after the sunrise we were observes of the morning fish "market". 

The fishermen just had come in with the catch and the local restaurant and shop owners (we guess from the amount of fish they bought) flocked to the containers with fish like sea gulls would do and picked out the best. The rest probably went to the market in Tokyo. 

But there was enough even for the village cats... and they well knew:

When we made it on our bikes, the first task was a steep one, to get up the hill, but with this kind of sun, it was a real pleasure riding today:

We had less than 18 km to ride... but still enough opportunity to shoot photogenic landscapes:

That tree above, did remind me very much of some bonsai I had seen last weekend. We even got a perfect group picture with it... but I gather we were more important than the tree in the background.

After a perfect soak in the above mentioned onsen, we road down the last few kilometers into Kawazu and to the cherry blossom festival. Got a very good yakisoba, ate and then leisurely strolled along the river gazing at the flowers and enjoying our conversations (sounds very old fashioned, I know).

After a last relaxing food bath, which oddly enough reminded me of kneipp baths (but no, it WAS hot), we took a train to come slowly back to Tokyo.