GW2026 D4 from the cold rain into a hot onsen

Route: Obama Beach to Ichinomata

Bicycle: 35 km

Total ascent: 346 m

Average speed: 17,8 km/h

Riding time: 1:59 h

Weather: cold, damp and then rain, 14C

Today was a short day on the saddle and a long day in the onsen. (And more onsen to come after dinner)

I took a relatively direct way from my lodging on the beach… (yes, ACTUAL beach, not something I am used to see a lot in Japan, where often the sea is treated as dangerous and something to be contained rather than enjoyed, maybe for good reasons)…

… to my next accommodation in the small onsen place of Ichinomata. I think there are only 2 hotels and no houses here, and the two hotels are probably under the same ownership, at least when I checked out the onsen of the other hotel online, they claimed that staying guests could use the onsen of the hotel where I am as well. Meaning probably that “my” onsen is nicer. It’s is a nice onsen, with two outdoor pools and a relatively nice view into the landscape. Not a direct view , but as the valley is quite tight, one can see the trees in all the hills around. The water is also special with a pH of 10! I am not sure if I ever bathed in water so alkaline. I have definitely taken baths in pH 1 “water”… (essentially hot acid) in Tohoku (Osorezan and Tamagawa onsen).

I didn’t actually take the shortest route of them all, as that seemed to go over a mauntain pass (not very high for my Tokyo standards) on a road where there are probably no cars all day, but instead more in the valley. Yet even so I managed to cycle on a road that sees 1-2 cars a day. And even when I came to “the big road”, which Komoot tried to avoid at all costs, there were hardly any cars. Well there are hardly any villages and inhabitants. 

With a forced smile I took a selfie when I put on my rain gear. As long as I am cycling , preferably uphill or in the flat, rain and cold is kind of okay  well, tolerable. But no rain and soaking instead in a hot onsen is always better. 

I hardly took any other pictures. One of a coastline …

… and one of a river I was cycling along. What surprised me these days is how much water the local rivers have. It shouldn’t surprise me, after all it’s spring and if there was any snow it melted, but in Tokyo there seems to be a draught, at least the water level in Miyagase Dam is incredibly low. Not so in Yamaguchi! 

PS: after dinner I can add that the fugu was especially tasty. I had had fugu before and wasn’t specially impressed, but this one was great. It seems that Shimonoseki is famous for its fugu.

GW2026 D3 scenic coast, no cars

Route: Hagi to Obama beach
Bicycle: 64 km
Total ascent: 1219 m ( but I don’t really believe this)
Average speed: 13,3 km/h
Riding time: 4:47 h
Weather: cloudy and much colder, 16 C

My main goal for today was a shrine with red torii gates on the coast I had seen recommended in some posts and questions on Japan Guide. 

It’s a place that is very much out of the way, but somewhat reachable from Hagi. When I first planned the trip I couldn’t find an accommodation anywhere close so instead I had booked a ryokan somewhere in the mountains. Which probably wouldn’t have allowed me to visit this shrine. However when I finally decided which of my 4 plans to put into practice, I rechecked my hotel options and did find a place on the coast not too far from that shrine. Probably I hadn’t found it initially as I strictly searched for places with free cancellation. 

I started in Hagi and road all day along the coast. On paper (or rather in the color coding of Google Maps) some of the streets I took were orange , prefectural roads, so I expected some traffic, but actually some of those prefecture roads were again much more like a rindo (forest road) than something established by the regional government and with heavy traffic in mind.

Even where this road was a bit bigger there was hardly any traffic all day. 

And this paired with great views of the rugged coastline with outlying islands. 

Occasionally a small village stuck in time and geography. These places are far from literally anywhere. Even from Hagi. 

Somewhere on the outskirts of a small hamlet was a huge metal earth globe. I have absolutely no idea who thought that installing such a thing at that crossroad would make sense. 

The highest point of the day was a small plateau right on the shoreline with views in all directions. It was on such a steep hill that with baggage and all , I had to push the bike for a bit. 

From there it was mainly downhill to a place with famous views of rice paddies along the shore.

 

More downhill (that I needed to climb up again later), to the famous shrine. Actually, the shrine itself isn’t very old, and curiously it is currently closed on weekends and local holidays. One wonders why it is open on weekdays instead. Anyway , even with the shrine closed one can still see the famous torii. 

From there to my accommodation. I had preordered grill dinner and wanted to be here quite soon so I could still get a shower prior to dinner. And to avoid too cold weather while grilling 

GW2026 D2 my mother was right - Hagi 😍

Route: in and around Hagi
Bicycle: 39 km
Total ascent: 352 m
Average speed: 11,8 km/h
Riding time: 2:50 h 
Weather: Sun and clouds, 25 C

My mother has been enchanted by Hagi ever since she visited in 1995. And she was right! Hagi is a wonderful , traditional Japanese town . One of the few not destroyed by development. Actually probably the biggest that still feels quite traditional but is also alive. 

Some other much smaller examples I could think of are: Imaicho (but MUCH smaller), Magome (much smaller and now totally overrun by tourists wanting to “hike” between Magome and Tsumago). But I don’t really know any other town even somewhat similar to Hagi. 

I started the day at Hagi castle. Surprisingly one is allowed to ride inside the castle remains with a bicycle. Not sure if this was a good idea. Anyway, from the castle little remains just the moat…

.. and a shrine built by the townspeople after the castle had been torn down in admiring memory of their local daimyo now powerless, at least officially. 

There was also a rather nice garden around a tea house with Rhododendron in full bloom.

With the castle entrance fee one also gets entrance to a samurai building just outside of the castle, which however, was rather disappointing. Allegedly it’s the biggest remaining samurai building in Hagi, but it is just a row of tatami rooms.

From there, I cycled through the old part of the town, which is characterized by long walls on both sides of the road, old  residences, and a surprising amount of gardens, specially gardens with citrus fruits.Hagi is famous for summer mandarins (夏みかん). My mother even brought one of them back from her trip to Tokyo and she still remembers, I don’t.

In the old part of the town, I visited the most famous residence: The house of the Kikuya clan. Apparently, they started out as samurai, but then lost their master, and with that their status as samurai. From there they evolved into merchants, which was the lowest rank in Japanese society back then. But that didn’t impede them to become extremely wealthy, and well liked by the local daimyo and construct a huge house with an even larger garden.

After pottering a little bit more through the old streets, and passing by the Meirin Gakusha, an enormous, wooden school building from the Meiji era, now tourist information center.

From there I rode to the south and tip of the town, had lunch at a typical Japanese coffee shop run by an elderly lady who has a few home-cooked meal options. Close by it was another typical residence of Hagi along a small channel that even flows through the house and was used for cleaning the dishes , washing vegetables and as water source for the bath tub. 

It also had a nice tea room with the best view of the garden with a pond from the same small river. There was an elderly volunteer guide with whom I had a nice conversation about how my mother loved Hagi when she visited 31 years ago and how probably not a lot has changed since. There are tourists in Hagi, including some tourist groups. But even at the highlights, the Kikuya residence, there was always a lot of space around to visit calmly. It seems the city gets exactly the right amount of tourists for keeping the local tourism industry afloat, but not having any signs of over tourism. And I guess as long as Hagi remains off the Shinkansen network it will remain this way. Already now the majority of tourist don’t venture beyond Hiroshima. So going to Yamaguchi and then taking a bus over the mountains to Hagi would seem to most tourists like beyond even the unbeaten track. I’m definitely going to come back, maybe on a trip along the entire sea of Japan side.

The Yukawa residence, was the last residence of the day, from here on to a shrine, a temple, two UNESCO world heritage sites, a volcano, a forest and an onsen with a wide view! 

But let’s go in order. First the shrine of Shoin a famous teacher, who also gave his name to the biggest shrine close to my house where he is buried. 

The next stop was a temple: Tokoji. With so few visitors that the admission fee is self service, meaning that there is a box and a sign how much you should put in the box. The temple itself is big and has a grandiose approach, …

… but the really interesting part is the mausoleum for the Mōri family, the local daimyos.

But there was more to come. The next two stops were UNESCO world Heritage sites. The sites belonging to the industrialization under the Meiji revolution have become UNESCO world Heritage sites a few years ago to recognizing the achievement of the Meiji era to industrialize Japan without being colonized and with speed. 

The two sites in Hagi I visited are a wharf and an iron furnace. Of the wharf the only remains are a sea wall: 

Of the furnace , which actually never worked, more is remaining: 

From here I went to a small peninsula from where one has a wide view over the bay. 

But one can also go down inside the caldera of a cute small volcano:

I even went a bit further on that peninsula to a camellia grove, which however (not surprisingly) had already lost all its flowers. 

Now the last remaining activity of the day was a good soak in the onsen of yet another hotel with a rotenburo from where to enjoy the view over the bay. (Picture below is NOT from the rotenburo but from the top of the mountain.). The view from the onsen was a bit less spectacular but still nice. Down onto a port and the mountains in the background.

Finally back to town, to a wash saloon where I washed and dried my cycling clothes while having ramen in a nearby shop and on the way back got some breakfast items for tomorrow.  I’ll already be leaving Hagi and ride along the coast to the West.

GW2026 D1 Yamaguchi , Akiyoshidai and Hagi

Route: Yamaguchi - Akiyoshidai - Hagi
Bicycle: 72 km
Average speed: 14,5 km/h
Total elevation: 834 m

Riding time: 4:22 h
Weather: Sunny, 23C

I had made four different plans for this year’s Golden Week:

1. Yamaguchi and Northern Kyushu
2. Toogatta onsen, Urabandai and Nikko
3. Kusatsu onsen, Shiga kogen and Nozawa onsen
4. Eastern Shikoku and Awaijima

The original plan was the Yamaguchi plan, but I also planed the other ones in case the weather wasn’t good. I really liked the idea about the Nagano prefecture ride because it would have allowed me to only take local trains from Tokyo to Takasaki instead of taking a Shinkansen. But that ride would have been a lot more challenging due to much more elevation than in Yamaguchi/Kyushu.

When I checked the weather forecast a few days ago, on the last day, I could still cancel all the hotels for free, the Yamaguchi area seemed to be quite good from a weather perspective plus there’s a lot less elevation going on here, which is a good thing with the added weight from the baggage and my lingering cold which I contracted in early April. 

My mother had come to Hagi back in 1995 when she visited me as a student and then travelled for a week through Japan with a JR pass. To this day she is raving about Hagi, what a nice, traditional city it is. I had wanted to come to Hagi ever since, but it is pretty out of the way. In order to get to Hagi one has to cross from the pacific site to the sea of Japan site. Yesterday I took the Shinkansen around noon from Tokyo to Shin Yamaguchi. There were much less crowds at Tokyo Station compared to last year’s Golden Week when I started a few days later.

While sitting in the train, I looked at tourist guide sites to see if there was something to do between Yamaguchi and Hagi. And there was: Akiyoshidai! 

A landscape with a unique feature with those big limestones and no rivers , because the water just seeps through the ground directly into the ground water.

All this water flowing into the earth created some huge caves. One can visit one of them for a few kilometers.:

While I was in the cave there were several bus tours with foreigners as well. But not too many. One could definitely enjoy the cave with this number of visitors. Afterwards, I had a very light lunch in the old style shopping street that leads to the entrance of the cave. Then it was uphill, very steep, to an observation point over the undulating terrain with the limestones.

The way from Yamaguchi to the cave had  a dedicated bicycle lane which was a very pleasant surprise. It was mainly along the road either on a side walk or and old street. 

After Akiyoshidai I was pleasantly surprised by an other road: State road #490. In my planning, I normally always exclude state roads assuming that they will be the most busy roads in the area. Today, thanks to a sign to a pond with Japanese lilies, which did not bloom, I found that this state road has hardly any traffic at all. In fact it has some advisory boards telling drivers to turn back and take the prefectural road instead. So for the next 10 km or so I had this entire road to myself. Just a few workers that were expanding the road but only for a few hundred meters before it turned back into its small rindo (forestry road) style. 

I was down in Hagi probably around 4 o’clock and  as I had time before the onsen of today would open, I went to the remains of the castle and had some onigiri that I had brought along all the way from the Pacific side. 

My guest house in Hagi is above a motorcycle repair shop, quite basic, but also quite new. I had seen on google map and on pictures in tourism brochures about the city, an onsen with quite nice views into nature and quite close to my guest house. So there I went for a restorative and cleaning bath. Obviously no pictures inside the onsen were allowed so this is a picture of the approach. 

The onsen itself had 4 rotenburos all with relaxing views and one large inner pool. The rotenburos seemed to be all at the same temperature except one that was much colder (for cooling down after the sauna) .

Three Views of Mt. Fuji - Sunset from close to home

Route: Just between my old apartment and new house
Bicycle: 11 km
Average Speed: 12.3 km/h
Total Ascent:  60 m
Riding time:  54 min
Weather: Actually sunny

Today the weather forecast did trick me. I saw a hint of rain and was convinced that it would come true. So instead of getting up early and out and about to the mountains I had a lie in. Frankly I needed it. I have been so busy this year with work, house building, organizing and then on the weekends again getting up early to get into the mountains... that a lazy day was what the doctor prescribed... But looking at the brilliant sun that was shining all day I had remorseful thoughts. 

When I finally did make it out I took my brompton and pottered around a bit. To the new house, to a home center looking at bricks and possibility how to paint them, and finally to Bic Camera for a A/C unit. (Finally - I am writing this post several months later already sitting in my new house -  I did not need the paint but instead decided with the exterior construction company on some nice bricks for the garden wall. And even the A/C I didn't buy at Bic Camera but ordered last minute with the home builder. Which was definitely a good idea. It was probably cheaper and so much less hassle. Already installed when I moved in in early December). So really the only "useful" thing I did today was looking at a perfect sunset behind Mt. Fuji from outside of Setagaya-Daita station:  

Including afterglow with a shadow projected over the horizon: 

Three View of Mt. Fuji - View from Wada pass

Day 2 - Fuji from Wada pass

Route: Takao - Uenohara - Miyagase Dam - Hashimoto
Bicycle: 62 km
Train: 80 km
Average Speed: km/h
Total Ascent: 1368 m
Riding time: 4:15 h
Weather: Sun and clouds

Today an iconic climb in the Kanto area: Wada pass! 

Known for being steep... and that it is. But I like it. Very little traffic, steep uphill. I don't manage to ride it up all in one, but with 3 - 4 stops (I have my specific points where I stop to regain energy), I manage to ride it up completely. I have phases when I ride in some parts more often, and Wada pass every now and then ends up a weekly ride. 

From the pass itself one can walk up to the peak of Mt. Jimba, from where with good weather one has a 360 view over Mt. Fuji, Minami Alps, the mountains around Chichibu and even as far as Nikko. Today I did not walk up, as I wanted to continue cycling. 

On the downhill towards Uenohara one of the famous views of Mt. Fuji awaits, equipped with some benches to have a snack. Weather wasn't perfect, so one has to kind of know where Mt. Fuji is, but I promise once you found it, you can see it on this picture! 

From here downhill to Uenohara loosing all the elevation I had struggled up, and then up again on the other side. However the good thing about starting a ride with Wada pass is that any climb that comes after it, is much easier. 

From Miyagase dam theoretically one could even go up Yabitsu pass, which I think is slightly higher than Wada pass, but much less steep, at least from the Miyagase side. But today I did not have enough time for that, so it was only over to Miyagase Dam and then down from there to Hashimoto. With an obligatory stop at Onigo pan to get one of their fried donuts. 

Three views of Fuji - Autumn view of Mt. Fuji from Nagao pass

Route: Shin Matsuda - Kentaro-Hakone Line - Nagao pass and back
Train: 170 km
Average Speed: 13.7 km/h
Total Ascent: 1271 m
Riding time: 4:09 h
Weather: Sunny

Bicycle: 57 km

In the spirit of Hokusai, I had a long weekend with 3, instead of 36, 46 or 100, famous views of Mt. Fuji. 

Normally for a long weekend I would have probably gone somewhere, but this year with all the house building I was busy most weekends in Tokyo, so instead of going far, I did day trips from Tokyo. Normally I don't write about them in the blog. Afterall, when the weather is good enough and I am not busy with the house I am going riding every weekend. And while the nature around Tokyo is nice, I do tend to go to the same places a lot. I do enjoy it... but it's "just riding" the bike, not an adventure or sightseeing about which to write a blog. But this weekend it kind of came together under one topic: Views of Mt. Fuji.

For the first day I took Odakyu line out to Shin Matsuda. An area from where one can cycle up either to

• Ashigara pass, the first time I did it I thought it was very hard... but once you know how it is and know where it finishes the next time it gets easier and a nice view of Mt. Fuji awaits at the top (but this wasn't where I went today)
• Kentaro - Hakone line over to Hakone, which is a road going actually higher than Ashigara pass but less steep then a short downhill to the Hakone area. From there one could either cross Hakone along the lake and then the hairpins down to Odawara (I think I have done that only twice so far) or, like I did today, up again to Nagao pass. 
• Tanzawa Lake and further up, an area I first explored in March 2026 - I am writing this blog post many months later while recovering from a very persistent cold

But today it was Kentaro-Hakone line and then up to Nagao pass. Nagao pass is probably one of my preferred passes in the Tokyo area. It is a very agreeable inclination. From the Hakone side also quite short and with spectacular views first of the Hakone bassin and the volcano and then once through a small tunnel at the top great views of Mt. Fuji. Today even with some autumn colours:

This is the road up to Nagao pass. Such a bliss and with very few cars, because there is a main road through a new tunnel to which most traffic defaults. However recently I am seeing that there are tourist tours with JDM cars, mostly sporty cars, for hire to go on a group ride. There is a toll road closed to bicycles (why??? I would even pay...) which seems to be one of the destinations. 

At the top of the pass is a very short, old tunnel. Before crossing it one last view into the valley of Hakone with Ashi lake:

And out on the other side of the tunnel ... and an ugly view of Mt. Fuji. One needs to get a bit closer to have a more direct view of the mountain without the abandoned old restaurant. 

There I turned back and went back the same way I had come. Alternatively one could go down to Gotemba, but it is more complicated to get back from there by train and for going down and then up again over Ashigara pass back to Shin Matsuda I did not have enough time. Plus I dont really like the outskirts of Gotemba. Too much traffic. 

The Kintaro-Hakone line in itself is relatively uneventful and doesn't have too much traffic either, but gets some images of Kintaro and the Hakone mascot.