Bicycle: 82 km
Train: 200 km
Total Ascent: 346 m
Average Speed: 18,9 km/h
Riding Time: 4:20 h
Weather: a bit of everything including a few drops of (light) rain, 15 C
Today I had a short night. After cycling yesterday with my friends from Night Pedal Cruising to a sento in Shinagawa, enjoy the sento, have dinner and then to my place to eat cake… I was in bed after 1:00. But I woke up at 5:30 in order to catch a subway at 6:20 to get to Mito by 9:00.
Originally it had seemed that the weather today would be rainy, but when checking again onFriday it seemed that Ibaraki would be okay. Plus it is plum blossom time and Kairakuen in Mito is very famous for its many plums.
The best thing about this garden for me was the smell of the flowers. Although the ume matsuri (plum festival) is already in full swing since a week or two, it is actually still too early. Most of the trees only have buds but no flowers. They did plant early to late trees, but only very few of the early trees are already in full bloom. Anyway this allowed me to document the many stages these flowers go through before being in full swing. No pictures yet of wilted flowers.
The garden claims to be one of the 3 most important traditional Japanese gardens, together with the garden in Okayama and Kanazawa. But for me it mainly seemed to be a huge plantation of many different plum trees on a field. I am sure it is very pretty when they are all in full flower, but that’s not what for me makes a Japanese garden.
When I placed the ride I refound the rin-run- road by Tsukuba. 40 km of bicycle path that runs on a decommissioned train track. Not comparable to the train line cycling path over Venn but also no comparison to most Dutch cycling roads, but still nice enough, and a much nicer landscape than anywhere in the Netherlands. So I incorporated it in the ride, which made this ride very much enjoyable.
On my way I came also through an apparently famous shrine, where there was some cos play action today.
Originally I had planned to finish the day in an onsen close to Tsukuba station, and best time I’ll head to this direction I’ll definitely do this, but I am quite tired (not from the riding but from the short night), so I am back on my way home, already just a few stations away from home, looking forward to my bath tub at home, and early dinner!
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