D1 - Fuji 4 lakes

Route: Kawaguchiko - Saiko - Motosuko - Shojiko 
Bicycle: 67 km
Train: 100 km
Total ascent: 392 m
Average speed: 18,9 km/h
Riding time: 3:32 h
Weather: very sunny, windy, 25C

My company gives an additional day of vacation during the month of your birthday. I can see in the weather forecast that from mid next week the rainy season seems to start, and it is going to get humid and then probably hot.well, this weekend it is very sunny no rain forecast at all and not yet too hot. So I took my birthday leave day on Monday 1st of June. I also still had some vouchers from furusato nozei for hotels in Kawaguchiko. Surprisingly, it was no problem to find a relatively cheap room at short notice in a hotel with a rotenburo right in Kawaguchiko.

I had originally planned to take the train only to Hashimoto and then to cycle on Doshi Street over the mountains to Yamanakako and then over here to Kawaguchiko. But when I arrived at the station close to my house to take the train and disassemble the bike, it was already relatively warm at 8 am in the morning. So instead, I decided to take the train all the way to Kawaguchiko, which is much higher and presumably a little bit colder.and I think that was a good decision. Not only because of the slightly lower temperatures but also because I could cycle today around four of the lakes around Mount Fuji and have absolutely splendid views of the mountain. While I actually don’t really like Doshi Street as it has its fair share of cars and trucks.

I have been here before around all these lakes, both with very good views of Mount Fuji, as well as on a very rainy summer day with absolutely no view of the mountain. Today initially at Kawaguchiko Mount Fuji was partially behind clouds, but as the day progressed the clouds were swept away by very strong wind and a naked Mount Fuji appeared in the distance over the lakes.

Recently on Netflix, there was a Japanese TV series about an alien  living and working in a simple hotel around Mount Fuji. I always suspected that the hotel was on lake Shoji. And today I passed in front of it. It’s a typical hotel of this area quite outdated, but in a beautiful location.

I had no idea that this television series was so famous, and that people come here to take pictures of the locations where it was filmed. But I was clearly not the only person taking a picture of that hotel.

At the lake in front of the hotel, I had my onigiri and then continued back to Kawaguchi to my hotel.

I didn’t only see this apparently famous film location, but also the much more famous Lawson with Mount Fuji in the back. I had always assumed that that Lawson was somewhere around Gotenba but instead, it’s a few meters from Kawaguchiko station.I did not take a picture, but took a picture of another Lawson much closer to my hotel where I got my dinner and breakfast for tomorrow.

For tomorrow, the plan is to ride up Mount Fuji. Let’s see how that will go. 

D3 over Tsuchiyu pass into the fog

Route: Urabandai - Tsuchiyu - Fukushima
Bicycle: 80 km
Train: 300 km
Average speed: 15.6 km/h 
Total ascent: 1143 m
Riding time: 5:09 h
Weather: cloudy and very dense fog on the descent, 16C

I had so many options how to return. One easy one would have been to just ride down to Aizu Wakamatsu, spend a few hours in an onsen right besides the station (I was there in a previous visit to the city) and then take the train back to Tokyo. But the weather seemed good enough to instead attempt to go to Fukushima. Even to Fukushima there were different options available. The maximum option would have been to ride over the Asama Bandai skyline, which probably had starting of koyo. But there were intermediate options, and I finally took one of those. 

I didn't start very early, which would have been needed for the full option due to the long climbing. After stocking up on food and drinks at the local conbini (and only conbini in the area), I took a left turn and was out in the mountains with small lakes below. 

These lakes formed after the eruption of Mt. Bandai volcano about a century ago and now in this region there are a few big lakes and a lot of small ones. 

This is what I got as a view of the inner crater of Mt. Bandai... not much: 

This is how it should look like ... but not today. I will need to come back, which I plan to do anyway. The region seemed very nice, and there are a lot of accomodation options in Urabandai. In winter it is a ski region, but fishing seems to be also very well loved activity as well as hiking. Cycling also was relatively popular. Specially on the first day I met a bunch of cyclists (all coming downhill) in the awful rain. 

I continued on my small road, which however did have some traffic, so I never felt totally alone and cam across a small food stall that sold local vegetables and other produce, but also offered some nice warm udon soups. Which took care of the lunch. 

While eating lunch I studied my options. From here I had still the option to go mainly downhill to Koriyama or to go uphill towards Fukushima. After a lot of thinking I decided to take the shorter of the two uphill versions, just riding to the entrance of the Asama Bandai skyline but not riding it itself, as time would not have been sufficient. 

It was a little bit too early for koyo. Probably the following week would have been good. Probably actually up on the Asama skyline it was already good for koyo... but not enough time for me. 

However when I started the descent towards Fukushima on the other side very quickly the fog moved in. 

And what a fog! It was so dense that one had to ride very carefully. It also doesn't help to wear glasses, which just seemed to attract every single water droplet. On the upper slopes I was still mixing with cars, not a lot but some. Farther down, the road separated: A road only for cars (I think it was illegal to cross the tunnels by bike/foot) and the old road, now essentially only for bicycles. Maybe on a day with nice weather some cars and probably a lot of motorcycles would use it as well to do some sightseeing... but not so today. In the fog this road didn't feel very safe. Not because of the road itself, which was good quality, but because there was just absolutely no one. No other cyclist was crazy enough to ride there and the cars and motorbikes were all on the main road. So it felt like if something would happen, it could take a day or two before someone would even find me. 

But nothing happened. No bear, no deer, no other kind of incident. 

Getting further down the fog lifted and I came to Tsuchiyu onsen. A small onsen village that was recommended by the owner of the pension I stayed. I took the very first onsen at the entrance of the village. They had a nice big outdoor pool. Not really with a view, but somehow one could see that all around there were trees. After this refreshing and cleaning bath (I was rather dirty due to the wet roads), it was downhill from there all the way to the station.

I had a ticket reserved for around 19:00, but I was at the station about 2 hours earlier. I packed the bike and there was a Shinkansen just a few minutes after I managed to pack everything which had some unreserved seats. I couldnt change to reserved seats as everything was taken, but there were enough unreserved seats that I even found a place in the last row to store the bike behind. 

D2 Around Lake Hibara

Route: Goshikinuma and Lake Hibara
Bicycle: 34 km
Hiking: 5,5 km
Total ascent: 452 
Average speed: 13.1 km/h
Riding time: 3 h
Weather: cloudy but no rain, 16 C

The day started with more rain, but by the time I was ready to leave around 10 o’clock it had finally stopped raining. Originally, I wanted to ride up to Bandai skyline, but with the threat of rain, a day out with a long descent on wet roads didn’t sound like an intelligent thing to do. Instead I decided to do just a round around the lake here by my pension. Before that, however I went to the local famous spot of several small ponds, that were created by the eruption of Mount Bandai in the Meiji period. These ponds are famous for their color variation.

The hike took about an hour and a half and then I started my ride around the lake with my sight on an onsen at the lakeshore already closed back to where I’m staying. That onsen is in a big hotel complex and on this long weekend, only open publicly until 15:00. But I planned it apparently to perfection and arrived there a bit before 2 in the afternoon so could enjoy a good soak in the hot water while looking into the forest over the lake.

My pension also allows stocks to stay. Which is very rare in Japan. Originally, I thought that was the owner would have probably several dogs, but apparently they don’t have any. Today in the morning I saw One guest was a dog who was very well behaved. The dog. This evening, a family of three adult adults and one dog checked in and this dog is extremely badly behaved and their owners don’t seem to have any idea how to control it. During dinner he was walking around in the dinner area and the pension owner needed to ask them to put the dock on a leash. But even then they put him on a leash, but didn’t attach the leash to anything so still the dog was still running around. Now I’m sitting in my room writing the notes of today and in the neighboring room, they are trying to manage the dog shouting at him that he shall not do this or that, and in all this, the dog already pissed into the common area. I think the pension owners are now trying to negotiate that the dog must sleep in the car. 

The other guests in my pension are two men who came here to fish. Which seems to be a very well loved pass-time in this area. There are a lot of small boats on the lake and really a lot of cars who had brought their boats with them.

D1 - up to Urabandai

Route: Koriyama - Inawashiro - Urabandai
Bicycle: 64 km
Train: 250 km
Total ascent: 862 m
Average speed: 16,4 km/h
Riding time: 3:56 h
Weather: rain all day, cold 11C 

For this weekend originally I had two reservations. One in the Hakuba area and the other one in Fukushima Prefecture. A few days ago, I looked at the weather forecast and it seemed that the weather in Fukushima was going to be reasonable while in Hakuba it seemed to rain. I have no idea what actually happened in Hakuba, but in Fukushima, it was definitely raining.

But now I was committed to this three day weekend in the Urabandai region. In Tokyo, I managed to get to the Shinkansen just before the rain started. When I got off the train in Koriyama, the rain hadn’t started yet here, but it would start soon after setting off towards Inawashiro. 

I had come up the same road a few years ago when I stayed in Aizuwakamatsu on a still relatively hot September weekend. Back then, I had a lovely view of the lake. This time the lake was grey and the imposing mountains around shredded in rain clouds. 

I stopped along the lake for lunch and they even had a small fire going, but my shoes and socks were so soaked that even putting them right in front of the fire, it made no difference for getting them dry. I am actually writing this block post on the following day and the socks are still wet although they have been hanging to dry for over 24 hours. Luckily, I was able to dry my shoes though with a strategic use of newspapers. Actually, a very interesting newspaper. It seems that instead of getting the first female Prime Minister, Japan will be getting the third non-LDP Prime Minister in a few days. But I needed something to dry my shoes.

After lunch while riding uphill I made a quick stop at a fruit stand, selling local apples and peaches.

D3 Nozawa onsen back to Nagano

Route: Nozawa onsen - Kaesa - Tokyo
Bicycle: 35 km
Train: 250 km
Total ascent: 328 m
Average speed: 18.1 km/h
Riding time: 1:54 h
Weather: sunny and WAY TOO HOT!

After the rather cold day in the wet yesterday, today was my return to the valley and with that the heat.

Up in Nozawa onsen, there is skiing even in summer on plastic slopes. My mother always tells me that the one and only time she tried to learn skiing was on a plastic slope. And not even on a mountain, but in Frankfurt in a stadium where they had put a plastic slope on top of the tribune, some motor oil on top so that it would be nice a slippery and then it was time to learn skiing. Surprisingly she never got the hang of it nor enjoyed the experience. These snow(plastic)boarders in Nozawa onsen seemed to enjoy it more. 

There is a lake close to Nozawa onsen, but the direct road is closed since a long time (it was already closed all the previous times I came up here. As today I hadn't any special plans I tried if the closed road was passable for a cyclist... but it wasn't. So I went a long way downhill, just to cycle up again to get to the "famous" lake. And yes, it's a nice, serene, small lake on which people do some kayaking. 

On the shores was what looked like an old school house now transformed into a relaxed bar. Very relaxed indeed. Although there were hardly any guests, it took an eternity for them to scrape up two balls of ice cream. 

From this place it was downhill and then in the valley all the way to Nagano... or so was my plan. But with every loss of meter of elevation the temperature kept soaring and once down in the valley it was simply too hot for me in the middle of the day to continue riding. 

And instead of risking a heat stroke, I took a quick glance at google maps, found a nearby very small train station and was in luck that the next train would depart soon, but not too soon for me to reach the station and pack the bicycle up. I think I even had time for a quick visit to the loo and refueling the drinks. So a rather short day in the saddle... but after quite some time finally again a weekend away with my bike. 

I had planned a longer weekend away later in September, and while it turned out to be perfect weather, I also managed to catch a cold right in time to bind me to bed for the entire long weekend :-( 

D2 - Towadako and Oirase

Route: Kazuno - Towadako - Oirase and back
Bicycle: 29 km
Car: 42 km 
Riding time: 1:49 h

Total ascent: 236 m 
Average speed: 16,1 km/h
Weather: mostly cloudy , 27 C 

When my friend first suggested this trip she proposed to cycle once around Lake Towada.  Which I agreed to, but also pointed out that although this is only about a 50 km ride it has more than 1000 m of elevation gain. It’s a lake. But it is a volcanic lake in an old crater and in one place the road goes up to the rim of the crater. So it was quite unlikely that we would manage to do the ride. 

Luckily a good alternative appeared. We had a relatively late start and until we were actually sitting on the bikes (we drove up to the lake from Kazuno by car) it was already 11:00. We parked at a road side station and started from there which was the flatter part of the ride. On our way I saw that the road along Oirase stream would be open from 12:00 onwards. 

My friend was very happy to see that news as it meant we could alter our overly ambitious plan to make a full round of the lake to a much more easy but tourist-worthy ride along Oirase stream. Actually I had hoped that we could walk along the stream, but only the road had been opened for traffic, the walking path officially was still closed. Which didn’t stop all potential hikers but did stop us from attempting it. Oirase stream is very popular and has become very popular with foreign tourists as well. But thanks to the closure yesterday there were very few people today and no bus tours. So we could ride leisurely along the road , stop every now and then and walk a bit to see some highlights. 

The River was fast flowing still showing the damage of the strong rain a few days ago. 

As this is a River flowing out of the lake the road along it is downhill. Not steep at all, but it also meant we would need to ride it uphill again  so relatively early we returned and started on our way back to the car.

The main road in some places was still very dirty from the rain that had washed down parts of the forest. So our bikes (and we) got pretty dirty.

Back at the car we put the bikes back into their bags and in the car and then drove back down to our excellent ryokan. We did stop at a very new road side station in our village that even had a foot bath. Kind of mandatory at a road side station called “big onsen”.

Back at our hotel we had a relaxing hot bath in the rotenburo before another excellent dinner and an early night on two very comfy futons. 

D1 - Towadako with a friend

Route: Tokyo -  Hachinohe - Towadako- Kazuno

Bicycle: 12km

Walking: 2 km

Train: 650 km

Car: 110 km

Weather: Sun and clouds and much cooler than Tokyo but still warm. 29C

A friend of me wanted to go for some summer vacation.  I hadn’t any plans but insisted that it must be up North to flee the scorching heat of Tokyo. I hadn’t any plans made some potential plans to go to Towadako, so that’s where we went. We met up a few weeks ago to plan everything, found a very nice ryokan in Kazuno (all the places on the lake itself were either extremely expensive or had bad evaluations). 

A month before we bought the train tickets, which turned out to be more complicated than we thought. Although we took an early morning train out of Tokyo on a Friday morning when we wanted to buy the tickets, there were no rear row seats available anymore and overall the train was already pretty packed. But she managed to get some reasonable seats in the second but last row. 

However this morning we had to wait for 1,5 h for the train. Somehow there was a delay in rail works between Omiya and Sendai so no trains of the Tohoku Shinkansen could leave Tokyo station.

 So although I got up at 4:30 we were only at around 12:00 in Hachinohe. 

Towadako is pretty hard to reach by public transport and probably impossible with a bicycle in tow, so we rented a car (my first time driving in Japan after converting my driving license again back in 2022… I had driven here sometimes between 2015 and 2017 but not since)  but luckily driving is slow and automatic cars are easy to drive. 

As a typical Japanese my friend found a perfect spot for a light lunch in an old farmhouse. 

Our original plan was to do some hiking along the famous Oirase stream… but when we got to the upper parking lot we learned that both the road and the hiking trail were closed since a few days due to damage by too much rain. So we did a mini walk around that information center … 

.. and then continued by car onwards to our ryokan. Which was actually good timing as we arrived around 17:00 and had all the time to enjoy the rotenburo while gazing out into the big Japanese garden with an even bigger pond…

… before our rich dinner in the room.

D2 NAAF Around Omachi

Route: around Omachi and up to Kuzuonsen

Bicycle: 60 km
Total ascent: 1012 m
Average speed: 
Riding time: 4:19 h
Weather: clouds and sun, no rain, 22C

Also today I saw one piece of art that was great. Unfortunately only one. Or one and an half. But that one was actually the best I have seen so far. Better even than the ones in Echigo Tsumari. 

Initially I thought that the second last art work was good, and it’s nice and all, but like yesterday the best was the last one.

A very cruel piece of art. In the forest some trees have been cut, prepared into wooden planks, firewood and even the branches are all there. Only a central column remains and the root still in the earth. While the neighboring tree hasn’t been mutilated and is still growing as if nothing had happened to his neighbor. Makes you wonder if one should be “lignio abstinent”. But at the same time I am thinking of buying a piece of land in Tokyo to build a house which will be made of wood… conflicted…

It’s also true that there are too many trees in Japan. Specially Japanese cedars (probably the tree in the picture) which causes hay fewer to what seems to be half of the population in Japan. Actually the government announced a plan to reduce these trees, but it is hard to see how this can be implemented due to the lack of manpower specially in rural areas and just the vastness of the forests and mountains in Japan.

The day started relatively late, because the art works don’t open until 9:30 and I used the full opening time until 16:30. The first art work was close to my accommodation around lake Nakatsuna. 

I’d say decorative, but mainly because the lake is nice by itself. The next two in an abandoned school did tell me even less. 

The third on my way to a dam was a video installation about hunters and the forth was a decorated but otherwise ugly wall of the Omachi Power museum… 

… a museum likely dedicated to the many dams that exist in the area. The most famous of them: Kurobe Dam, which is on a complicated but very popular route of many different transports (Trolleybus, cable car, bus, train…) through the Northern Alps. 

From there it was up and up to a first dam …

And a second dam which had yet another piece of art.

For me it was the place to eat my onigiri. Which felt a bit little but was all I had. As it was already 12:00 I decided against continuing up to the final dam but instead was tempted by an onsen in the area which had been highly recommended by the owner of the pension where I am staying. 

It was a nice onsen, but I confirmed that doing an onsen during a ride isn’t so nice as doing it at the end knowing thrrr are only a few kilometers left. 

Once down from the mountain I found a soba restaurant (in the middle of soba fields) , where I had lunch. Warm soba this time. 

Before heading to the last cluster of art works on Omachi onsenkyo a hotel village , now apparently popular by bus tours that do the Kurobe dam tour. 

In this old sake factory now a sake museum where small moving and sounding objects. 

Right next to what seemed to be a waste thermal plant was this art work, which didn’t tell me anything. Jus looked like wooden planks for walking, similar to the ones in the forest with the long poem above. It looks like a nice place to have lunch, but that’s about it.

Anyway even here I did get one more stamp for my passbook.

And off I went to the last but one piece of art, which gains an honorable mention.

But the best was the last, to which I arrived in extremis, barely minutes before they were closing.