D3 Daibutsu and schools

Route: Heguri - Nokogiriyama - Kimitsu

Bicycle: 50 km
Walking: 3 km
Train: 90 km
Total ascent: 750 m+
Average speed: 15,5 km
Riding time: around 5 h
Weather: sunny and warm, but very windy. Mainly tailwind though, 20 C

For my last day in Boso peninsula I went to the other (other than the flowers) famous place: Nokogiriyama and it’s Nihonji temple with an enormous Daibutsu carved out of the rock:

And as a Daibutsu wasn’t enough they threw in a gigantic Kannon as well:

The small buddhas had suffered though under the Meiji restoration when Buddhist figures in some temples were destroyed.

The other theme of the day was schools. I had started my day in a school, …

… but also for lunch I ended up in a school now transformed into a very popular road side station with many small restaurants. I lined up at the most popular which was in an old class room and served nostalgic school lunches. The Japanese families around me all remembered their school days. 

Overall I am not sure how much I like Boso peninsula. It’s relatively hard to reach from my place (2h+ by train), it was very windy and on the road along the shore there is traffic. Nothing really crazy, but not my solitary mountain roads. However truth be told, the mountain roads in the interior were very quiet. 

D2 Boso flower line

Route: Heguri- Tateyama - Boso Flower line - Chikura - Heguri 
Bicycle: 92 km
Total ascent: 439 m
Average speed: 18.1 km/h
Riding time: 5:06 h
Weather: sunny and VERY windy. Colder than I though  13C

For my second day on Boso Peninsula, I went down to the south coast riding along the famous Boso flower line. I had read about this place full of flowers years ago and always wanted to come, and theoretically now should be a relatively good time to see all these flowers blooming. But frankly enough, there were only two places with some small flower fields. Nothing that you could compare to the tulip fields in the Netherlands.

Luckily, before starting the ride, I had checked the weather, including the wind. And saw that there would be a very strong wind from the south. So I inverted the direction of the ride to have tail wind. And the wind in some places, especially around the lighthouse of Nojimazaki, was ferocious.

While the wind generally was tail wind, in places it was side wind, and that was feeling outright dangerous. So I proceeded with an abundance of caution. And as a result of that, probably didn’t enjoy the ride as much as it deserved to be enjoyed.

But maybe I’m also more of a mountain than a seaside person. I was rather happy to ride back to my accommodation in the hills of the Peninsula.

D1 through the hilly interior of Boso peninsula

Route: Sodegaura - interior of Boso peninsula - Heguri
Bicycle: 74 km
Train: 85 km
Total ascent: 900 m
Average speed: 16,9 km/h
Riding time: 4:24 h
Weather: sunny, some clouds and around 12C

It feels like a long time without some proper rides. Lately, most of my weekend time is taken up by visiting kitchen exhibitions, bathroom showrooms, toilet manufacturers, and obviously meeting with the house builder. But this long weekend I did reserve to do some touristic riding in an area, actually not very far from Tokyo, but where I have never been before: Boso peninsula. 

And I’m really lucky with the weather.  Yesterday it was snowing big flakes in Tokyo during most of the morning and then cold rain in the afternoon. But for this long weekend, today, Thursday, is a local holiday, I think for the start of spring, the weather forecast is excellent. Sun, a few clouds and getting warmer by the day arriving to about 20°C on Saturday. On Sunday I need to be back in Tokyo for more visits to the house builder. Hopefully finally being able to decide on the layout of the rooms, so that the plan can be fixed and we can enter into the next planning phase.

The ride didn’t feel so hilly, because there wasn’t one big climb, but it must’ve been more up-and-down and more gradual ascents than I thought, because somehow I climbed 900 m although I never really got very high up.

I didn’t have enough time to actually plan the rides so I just planned something quick in the Komoot app while sitting in the train. And I have to say so far what I saw today was not spectacular. Not bad either but nothing to write home about, or to actually write in this blog.

The one sightseeing spot, recognizing by Japanese local tourists, was this minor waterfall through an arch.

As far as I know, Boso Peninsula is famous for its flowers. but for sakura, it is still way too early, and while they were some isolated, flowering plum and peach trees, in the mountainous interior of the peninsula, it was clearly still too cold for the flowers.

The day finished in a small village in their abandoned  elementary school, now transformed into a basic guest house,co-working space, and restaurant. But the restaurant is open only for lunch on some days and there are no coworkers around. Luckily, the owner was able to organize a freshly cooked bento, which I ate in one of the old classrooms. And no, this is not my bicycle in the background. Those are some bicycles that can be rented here.

Around Tsuchiura

Day 1

Route: a part of Kasumigaura 
Bicycle: 81 km
Train: 85 km
Total ascent: 51 m
Average speed: 21.4 km/h
Riding time: 3:46 h
Weather: very sunny, weak wind, 7C

For this weekend I had reserved a hotel in Tsuchiura , Thinking that cycling in the mountains around Hashimoto was maybe not a good idea if there was some snow. There probably isn’t, But now I’m here anyway. I’ve been here in this region last year in February and March several times, and in one of the visits I did ride around the entire Kasumigaura lake with a group of very fast cyclists, at least for my standards. Today I took things more relaxed. Enjoying the very sunny and windstill day. Sunny enough to ride with short sleeves, thanks to the Castelli ROS jacket with removable arms. 

The view of the lake with the sun is really nice, But I think now I do prefer riding in a more hilly environment. 

The day concluded in a typical super sento in Tsuchiura with a special treat: nearly naked men in one of the rotenburo. On tv screens though and fighting for the sumo winter title. What a Japanese experience! 

Day 2

Route: Tsuchiura - Sawara - Abiko
Bicycle: 129 km
Train: 56 km
Total ascent: 131 m
Average speed: 19.8 km/h
Riding time: 6:31h
Weather: cloudy, no wind, colder than yesterday , 6C

On this second day I did a ride that reminded me a lot of my rides in the Netherlands. Nearly always cycling lanes, very flat and a lot of water alongside. Either the lake of Kasumigaura or the Tone river. 

The destination of the day was Sawara. One of my first rides with my old Garmin was to Sawara. Back then I had stumbled across Sawara, not knowing that it is known as a nice small traditional town. This time I knew. 

There was a moderate amount of tourists, mainly Japanese. Sawara although close to Narita is pretty complicated to reach from Tokyo. But much nicer in my eyes than Kawagoe, which is the other famous traditional town close to Tokyo (and gets many more visitors).

After lunch in Sawara (soba) I took the cycling road on Tone river toward Abiko a station on the line back home  at least when you manage to get a JR train that transforms into a Chiyoda line subway and an Odakyu line train, like I did. It’s a slow train stopping everywhere but direct back home. 

Also today concluded in a super sento. This time in Abiko.

Narita with friends

Day 1

Route: Funabashi - Hanamigawa - Narita

Bicycle: 54 km

Train: 35 km

Average Speed: 15.6 km/h

Total Ascent: 200 m

Riding Time: 3:27 h

Weather: Surprisingly sunny and getting hot (although the measured temperature seems to say otherwise), 19 C

This weekend friends had organized a ride out to the Hilton Narita. The same friends with whom I went to the Odawara Hilton back in February and to the mountains of Tokyo last October. One of them works at the Hilton in Shinjuku so gets discounted rates for staying at other Hiltons and these two are the closest to Tokyo. 

This ride was organized as two of the group soon will relocate to Thailand and unbeknown to us before the ride had just got married the day before... so kind of this was their honeymoon ride. At least we were nice enough to give them a double room. 

The day before typhoon #2 had come bashing through Honshu, but it seemed that from the late morning the rain would have moved on and we could cycle. So we decided to meet for lunch at a famous Ramen place close to Funabashi station and only start the ride around 14:00. With our speed we made it to the hotel just in time for dinner. No washing before though. 

One of the team lives in Funabashi and did plan the ride. To a good part it was along Hanamigawa which I had ridden a few years back on suggestion of yet another Tokyo cycling friend. 

The intense rain from the previous 2 days, had inundated some parts of the cycling road, but still mostly rideable. Only one of the rest stops along the way was deeply inundated... 

... it is that little hut in the background. But the water was nicely cold in a warm day, so it was actually quite nice to wade out there. (Keep in mind the water height to compare how much the water receded already on Day 2 below). 

On one of the many rest stops we had, we took a picture of us as peanuts, famous local produce apparently. 

 And on we went... to our next photo opportunity.

Day 2

Route: Narita - Hanamigawa - Funabashi

Bicycle: 83 km

Train: 35 km

Average Speed: km/h

Total Ascent: 282 m

Riding Time: 5:38 h

Weather: Sunny, humid and warm tending to hot, but still okay, 23 C

On the second day we started early... well earliER... probably we only got started at around 10:00 am. Also today was a day full of rest stops and photo stops. For this group of friends the important thing when cycling together is the TOGETHER... not so much the cycling itself. And that is also fun. Sometimes to me it can seem a bit too slow... but then just enjoy the moment, the time out there, the time on the bike and the next rest stop. And obviously the time in the evening in the hotel. 

Japanese are quite used to travelling with friends and sharing rooms (which I don't mind either). And while this Hilton didn't have very big rooms, some other hotels and specially ryokans in Japan are geared towards groups sharing one big room. 

The first one was on a hill just outside of Narita airport plane spotting. A hill apparently buildt only for this purpose with many "professional" plane spotters that were listening in to the conversations of the tower on small radios plugged into their ears and who did seem to know every single plane where it came from, where it would fly. In a country of train spotters they must feel like an exotic breed. 

Through some quiet country lanes ...

... we went on to Narita-san, a big temple in Narita city. There were some big celebration that day for the founder of this specific buddhist sect. 

More country lanes did bring us back to Hanamigawa river and lunch closeby. By now it was quite hot... but still kind of bearable, but the lunch break was welcome. However 2 of the friends didn't feel well. One with sleep deprivation (it seems he sleeps only a few hours every day and has a hard time falling asleep at all) and the other with a bout of pollen allergy. But luckily we were in never too far from a train station, so dropped them of at a train station, helped them back up their bikes and after a while (and by now a bit cooler) continued back to the river and riding towards the Pacific. 

Also today still parts of the way were inundated... 

... but the water from the rest place had receded... and one could "sit" there again:

And on we continued versus the Pacific where we arrived shortly after sundown. And were still not in Funabashi, hadn't entered an onsen yet and hadn't had dinner yet either... 

So on it was to Funabashi, a supersento and dinner at the supersento before catching a late train back to Tokyo. It wasn't the last train... but I think I arrived home at around 1:00 am, after a good day out with friends. 

Crazy fast ride around Kasumigaura

Route: Full circle of Kasumigaura and over to Tsukuba

Bicycle: 137 km

Train: 145 km

Average Speed: 26.0 km/h (!)

Total Ascent: 73 m

Riding Time: 5:30 h

Weather: Sunny, no wind, 4C (but felt warm enough to take the long sleeves off)

I had seen a new Meetup group announcing this ride around Kasumigaura, one of the places on my bucket list. The sell was that this would be also for beginner road cyclists, so I gathered my determination and signed up. 

I had never made the full loop and even in parts I think I had been here only once before, many years ago on one of my first rides with Garmin (RIP). But the lake is definitely very nice and with the sun out it was warm enough to roll down the long sleeves of my winter jacket, albeit I was the only one thinking so. Everyone else was still very much in deep winter mode. 

We set out and had a very high pace going... but just about to be able to stick in there. A few stops on the way were planned, the typical conbini stops to get to a toilet, fill up the bottle and get some quick snack between the teeth and into the stomach. 

A bit later a stop at a local restaurant, famous for its huge Katsukare where we were lucky to get in as a relatively large group for a small and famous restaurant. 

After a quick picture at a road side stop the slowest rider (not me) dropped of and went directly from there over a bridge back to Tsuchiura... while the rest of us set out to cycle around the smaller part of the lake as well. And here the speed really picked up. So much that the front group left us, but luckily a French guy had pity with me and I was sitting in his wheel cycling with all my possible speed and hitting 30 km/h and more. 

The day should have ended after this beer back at Tsuchiura station, but it turned out that there was some major problem with the train line and no trains passed for hours on end. Some of the guys had come by car, so they went back to their car and even took an other 2 with them, the German girl, decided that riding an other 80 km back to Shibuya was her thing... while the French guy and I headed over to Tsukuba, a mere 10 km away to catch a train from there.

Hanamigawa to Narita Yukawa 花見川沿ってのサイクリングロードで成田湯川へ

Bicycle: 45 km

Train: 100 km

Route: From Makuhari to Narita Yugawa

Total riding time: 2:40 h

Total ascent: 122 m 

Weather: sunny, windy at about 9C

Yesterday riding back from the NPC Onsen ride, the rider who accompanied me until Shinbashi, suggested a ride out of Tokyo to Makuhari and then following Hanamigawa to Narita. Although he mentioned that the cycling road ends around Murakami, when I looked it up yesterday night, it seemed that there is a cycling road all along the river straight through to Tone river. And well, at least until the lake Inba-Numa there is a cycling road.

The first stretch along the Hanamigawa was for sure the most scenic one.

A nearly natural river! in Japan!

And many kilometer later, but not as many as would be reasonable to assume, I was in the Netherlands:

At the feet of the windmill there is also a bicycle rental station.

While riding I was thinking from where it would be best to return back to Tokyo... and found a station called Narita Yukawa (成田湯川). Reading湯川 I immediately thought of onsen... and yes, there was actually one quite close to the station. Actually VERY close to the station, only that there is not yet a direct road between the station and the onsen. There are big works in progress though.

Then onsen was your typical supersento, with a large parking lot which was quite full (but the baths were not) and a very small bicycle parking lot (well, it is in the middle of nearly nothing... so I guess they expect that their guests normally come by car). From the rotenburo I had a nice view of the full moon and also a view into the forest nearby, so actually a much better view than from many other onsen.

The cycling road at a certain point becomes a gravel road, but I did ride through it only to find that the cycling road then ends officially...

Which was a bit surprising, as the internet page promised something else. So I checked google maps and there definitely seemed to be a continuation of at least some kind of road along the river. I thus road on (on more gravel) and after actually not that much a new, but differently named cycling road, which clearly must be administered by a different town hall started along a continuation of the river (which also changes name...).

This cycling road was actually of excellent quality. No bollards (like recently in Osaka), well asphalted and used. Even this picture above is not the whole story, the cycling road continue without interruptions towards the last lake from where I then took a deviation on to my onsen of the day. It seems that only the last piece of the cycling road connecting it to Tone river is not yet ready (or at least wasn't when this sign was printed):

The strange form of the ride is obviously due to the bending river:

Chiba - possible routes

Route along Hanamigawa to Narita

A friend from the NPC recommended a ride along the river from Makuhari station towards Narita. He actually rides out from Tokyo all the way along the highway that runs along Tokyo bay and then once in Makuhari takes the river up to Narita. The bicycle road at some point ends, but by then one is in the middle of the countryside and can ride through small backcountry roads to Narita, from where there are obviously frequent trains back to Tokyo.

https://www.city.chiba.jp/toshi/koenryokuchi/kanri/hanamigawasaikurinngukosururu.html

Chiba Rin-Rin

https://www.ringringroad.com/course/

Bicycle Roads in Japan

I really only know about Tokyo and surroundings, but at least here, the best places where to find cycling roads are rivers. Rivers in Japan are practically all heavily built up (supposedly with the exception of Shimanto gawa in Shikoku), with dikes and the like, but this also means that there is often a small asphalted road on top of the dike. Which is used by bicycles, pedestrians ..., but not cars and motorcycles.

Around Tokyo at least the following rivers have bicycle lanes. Some of them easier to navigate some of them less so, simply because they have a lot of crossing roads where one needs to get off or wind through bollards every few hundred meters. But still they are nice and quiet roads.

In Tokyo:

• Kanda-gawa (at least from around Waseda University out through Shinjuku and on to Kichijoji). Ending in the nice park in Kichijoji
• Ride to Kichijoji
• From there one can then also continue on the cycle roads described below: Tamagawa Josui canal and Sayama / Tama lake
• Zenpukuji River (this splits off the cycle lane along Kanda-gawa somewhat after Shinjuku and goes nearly parallel to the Kanda-gawa river, through some really nice parks along the river, up to a an other very nice park with a small lake, Zenpukuji park. At some point in between there is no longer a lane along the river, but coming to the final park really repays for it. 
• Meguro-gawa (approx. from Shibuya down to Shinagawa)
• Meguru Gawa
• No gawa (starting on Tamagawa at Futakotamagawa and going up to Kokubunji)
• If you can, stop at the onsen in Chofu, one of the nicest in Tokyo
• Arakawa (very long from approximately Kawagoe in Saitama prefecture down to the sea, a bit boring in Tokyo area, more like a bicycle highway)
• Arakawa cycling road
• Edogawa (also very long and even more to the east than Arakawa cycling road)
• Edogawa cycling road
• Tokyo Rivers

Outside of Tokyo to the West (Kanagawa / Tokyo):

• Tamagawa (quite long from the sea in Kawazaki up to nearly Tachikawa)
• Tamagawa cycling
• Tamagawa cycling road
• Tsurumi river (from somewhere beyond Tsurukawa - just have a look at Google maps, it trails out at some point in the middle of nowhere of Machida - down to the sea in Yokohama. It actually goes right through Shin-Yokohama)
• Sakai river (from about Aihara down to the sea at Enoshima, quite a long ride).
• Sagami river (parallel to the East to Sakai river. It is also okay, but I prefer Sakai river. I think the river is just nicer as it is less built up, and there are also less industrial plants)
• Along the beach from Enoshima in direction Odawara. Actually there is a real cycle lane right on the beach, for maybe about 10 - 15 km. Afterwards on to Odawara there is only the normal street, with quite some traffic. But the part right on the beach, which starts right in Enoshima, is very nice.
• Sakawa river in Odawara, and one can also make a round and come back to Odawara along the Kari river.

Outside of Tokyo to the North (Tokyo):

• Tamagawa Josui canal. This is a canal that runs from Tamagawa - approximately from Tachikawa - to Kichijoiji). Technically speaking there isn't a cycling road, but rather on one side of the canal a very quiet neighbourhood road. While on the other side there is road number 7. It can also be nicely combined with the ride along Kanda-gawa (see above) or the ride out to Sayama / Tama lake (see below). It's also nicely in the shadows of big trees for most of the ride. 
• Kichijoiji Sayama /Tama lake. A long cycling road starting a little bit after Kichijoji, just north of the Edo Tatemono Museum park and running all the way up to Tama and Sayama lake, partially in Saitama. 
• Tamako cycling road
• Check also out this post: Ride to Sayama Lake
• Minami Asa river (from Takao to Hachioji), where one can link on to the Tamagawa route described above

Outside of Tokyo to the East (Ibaraki, Chiba):

• Tone gawa (aparently one could start in Gunma prefecture and ride down to the sea. I think a real cycling road is only from about Sekiyado down to the pacific, but that is still quite a long track)
• Also some rivers flowing into Tone gawa have their own cycling roads, like for example Kinu river, flowing into Tone gawa at Moriya
• Tsukuba rin rin road (actually not along a river but on an out of use rail way track. From Iwase to the Kasumigaura lake. From there one can link up to a cycle road around the lake)
• Tsukuba RinRin road map (日本語)
• Tsukuba RinRin road map (ENG) on page 30
• Around the Kasumigaura Lake (this could also be easily linked with the Tone river
• Around the Kasumigaura Lake (日本語）

These are just a few I know about. But remember, in general a river is a good bet for a cycle road. 

By the way, in case you wondered "gawa" or also "kawa" 川 in Japanese means river.

Toride to Kasumigaura, Sawara, Katori and back to Abiko

This weekend I took a train out of Tokyo on Friday evening, stayed at a somewhat depressing hotel close to Toride station and then took off the next morning towards Kasumigaura Lake and on to Sawara. On day 2 a short excursion to Katori and then back along Tone gawa to Abiko, and back to Tokyo by subway.

Day 0 - Toride 取手

I decided to leave Tokyo on Friday evening so I could start next day early. So once I left office on my way home I searched on Jalan for a reasonable hotel close to Toride or Abiko station and came up with this one:

... well just a typical Japanese business hotel. This one celebrating its 20 (?) years aniversary and giving to all guests a small alarm clock, which I still have at home.

Day 1 - Toride to Sawara 取手から佐原へ

Being this one of my first excursion with my Garmin device I learned that it likes rather large streets, while I don't. I set off Toride on smaller roads, because I had made Garmin take those, but on to Kasumigaura lake I had left it to Garmin to find a road... and it found a major road going through an area full of shopping malls and cars. So at some point "desperate" by the choice of road I decided to replan, and stopped along the road:

Only to find out that in that spot I was unable to catch a reasonable internet connection and thus was unable to replan the route. So I just checked Google Maps on the iPhone and took a road that seemed to be relatively easy to follow without need to check on Google Maps every 100 m and still going on to Kasumigaura Lake. Where I arrived and was repaid by a cycle lane along the lake:

This cycle lane is part of a larger cycle lane net from Sakuragawa around the entire lake. I just did a relatively short part on the West side of the lake.
Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon I started searching on the internet for a new accomodation for the night and found a hotel in Sawara... which turned out to be (at least from the outside) even more depressing than the one in Toride. (It is that black and white striped building).

At the reception they had information about a really nice place so I asked where this might be, in the hope that I could maybe go the next day. However the receptionist looked at me slightly bemused, saying that these pictures were from Sawara. It's what this town is famous for. I went to downtown Sawara in the evening in the hope to find a Sento. One I didn't find (or maybe it was already closed), the next I found, but the very elderly lady that was running it told me that she was about to close. This was a great pity, because this Sento really seamed like from a long foregone epoch. So there wasn't anything else but to go for dinner. The city was really nice in the evening so next morning I toured it.

  Day 2 - Sawara to Abiko 　佐原から我孫子へ

After the brief glimps of the town I had on the previous night, I went to downtown Sawara and found an extremly nice city, specially for Japanese standards, where many buildings have been torn down over the past many years leaving the cities void of any historical references besides shrines and temples.
Regardless if you are in Sawara by bike or for tourism (w/o bike) this is so far around Tokyo the nicest city I have seen, excluding Kamakura.

There is even a 祭 (festival) along/on the river, but I was one week to late for that.

Then I went on to Katori Shrine, which was my actual goal when I looked for a place where to stay for the night the previous afternoon, as I had identified it on Google Maps as apparently a place of touristic interest. Which was quite true.

However again I was here on the wrong day. On the following day (a Monday !) there would have been Sumo on the Shrine's ground. 

Anyway after a while I took off and headed off roughly along Tone gawa (check out this post on bicycle roads) back to Abiko to catch the subway back home. Unfortunately my Garmin had some hick-up and would turn itself off with no possibility to turn it on again. I tried, a lot, but with no success... until at some point without me doing anything it recovered and started to work normally again. Luckily at that moment I was along Tone gawa and in no real risk to get lost. However it also means that only relying on Garmin is not possible. I always need to have sufficient battery power to be able to comfortably check and follow a route on Google Maps on my iPhone. As a learning from this experience I bought some weeks later an external battery... just in case. 

On my way back I also had an unfortunate incident with a pair of chopsticks, getting a splinter stuck in my finger, which made that many months later the finger finally needed to be operated. Luckily yet a few months later the finger is nearly back to normal. So never underestimate the dangers of eating with chopsticks!

At the end of a long days ride (probably one of my longest so far) I packed up again and hoped back on the subway which would bring back home. 

As I had problems with the navigation device, also Garmin did disconnect the ride in two different portions. But actually it was just one ride. Anything missing in between, is an eventless ride along the river Tone. 

First trip with Garmin - From Abiko on the way to Nikko

This weekend I wanted to get out and try my new Garmin. So enthusiastic, that even the not so good weather forecast didn't stop me. So I could also try out my new rain gear. The original plan was to ride all the way from Abiko to Nikko in a 2 days ride, however on Day 2 I needed to return quite early to Tokyo, so had to cut the trip short at Kanuma.

Day 1 - Abiko to Yachiyo 我孫子から八千代へ

When I set out at the station the weather was still kind of okay. After a few meters it started to rain just a little bit, so I started putting on some rain gear. Then after an other 10 min the rain increased, so I put on even more serious rain gear. And then I was happy to find this bridge under which to hide for the worst part of the rain, when the water came down from the bridge like a waterfall.

After hiding a bit, it finally got to a more acceptable amount of rain and I continued my way along Tone River and then on to Kinu River. Just when I thought, that something to eat would be a great idea, a very unappealing looking sport complex came along and as it had an onsen (which I didn't visit) it also had a small restaurant. Where to eat some nice hot soup.

Luckily the rain had stopped when I had finished lunch so I could continue my tour through a very wet and steaming landscape.  The ride mostly was along the river on a bicycle lane / small street. At around 16:00 I thought that I should find some place where to stay for the night and started searching on the internet. Unfortunately the closest place I found was in Yachiyo still quite some distance away so that I only arrived there after it had already gotten dark. (One of the problems in Japan is that it get's dark very early. Obviously also sunrise is very early... but unless you accept the fact that in Japan you should probably get up at 5:00 in the morning, the days are relatively short.) However I made it to my Ryokan for the night (nothing fancy) where it turned out that I was the only guest in the entire ryokan.

Day 2 - Yachiyo to Kanuma 八千代から鹿沼へ

On the second day I was more lucky with the weather. It started out with a light drizzle but then stopped during the earlier part of the morning. Also this day I followed rivers, first Omoi and then Kuro river, as if there wasn't already enough water from above.

When I finally came to Kanuma I just had the time to grab an onigiri at the station before boarding my train back to Tokyo to a party. Obviously I wanted to meet my friends... but this made me miss out on the Kanuma matsuri, of which I hadn't known anything before riding right into it.