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.

GW2025 D2 Ashimori and Takahashi

Route: Okayama - Ashimori -Takahashi

Bicycle: 70 km
Train: 0 m
Car: 51 km
Total ascent: 987 m
Average speed: 15,4 km/h
Riding time: 4:35 h
Weather: sunny and again not too warm, 20 C

Today was a wonderful day with new discoveries and very relaxing. Now I just need to hope that I’ll be able to make it back to Okayama as I am sitting in a train at Bitchu Takahashi station that isn’t moving because somewhere down the line rocks did fall on the track. I am pondering if I should put the bicycle together back again and ride down to the plain of Okayama. However even Soja is 30 km away, it’s already 18:00 and it seems that trains from Soja are also not moving. Probably because the trains from Takahashi don’t arrive. The other passengers are sitting relaxed, and I have still the blog post of yesterday to write, so I am sitting here as well … However, after an announcement saying that the responsible JR person would be at the site of the rock at 19:00 to check it out, instead I decided to take the bike and just when I had it all assembled again a man who was going to take the train as well approached me and offered to take me by car. So here we go. By car to Okayama.  

The car ride itself was also a great experience. Obviously I was a bit conscious of the fact that I am boarding a car of a totally unknown man. But , well, most people in the world are good people. And he was definitely one of them. Surprisingly I had a really good conversation with him. He seemed very well informed about global affairs , the war in Ukraine and just generally an interesting person to talk to about more than just the weather. 

Now back in my hotel , and back to today’s blog post.

Getting out of Okayama wasn’t the best route, but once outside I was on one of cycle paths in the Kibi plain but somewhere took different turns from yesterday and this came to a new place: Ashimori 

I had never heard about this place and even yesterday when I searched for interesting spots around Okayama it did not come up. So I was really lucky to stumble up on it. On my way. A nice small village, largely maintaining its old character of, what I would call, post town. There is an old samurai residence, which I did not visit and a garden that uses the mountains as part of its landscape design. The old lord of the area could sit in his tea house above the small lake and enjoy the breeze and the views.

Before entering into the mountains, I had udon at a local small restaurant, where the owner‘s wife was very eager to speak English and gave me a small cake from the area. From there, it was uphill on a very nice and quiet country road through the lush green vegetation. I’m really surprised how green everything is. Which really I shouldn’t. Japan is a very green country. But somehow this year I didn’t notice the change from winter landscape to the lush green landscape. I’m simply too busy with my house building, that I didn’t have enough time to cycle in the countryside and mountains around Tokyo. So this trip here feels like the first time to really see this abundance of green.

Somewhere in these mountains, there are small hamlets, probably all but destined to disappear in the next 50 years.

And with that I made it to the viewpoint above the castle of Takahashi. 

I didn’t have enough time to visit the castle and the mountain it is on top of looks really steep. I actually visited it eight years ago on my tour through Japan. Back then I took the train from Okayama and then a taxi up to the entrance of the castle. Today instead, I visited a temple, down in the valley, which back then the taxi driver recommended to me, but somehow I hadn’t considered visiting it. The temple itself is probably a pretty normal temple, but the draw of it is it’s Japanese garden.

The Rododendron wasn’t in full bloom yet, but even though this garden was very relaxing and calm.

People always complain or fear how full everything will be in golden week, but it’s so much depends on where you go. Yes the train yesterday was crazy full but today both in Ashimori, and in Takahashi, there were very few people around.It simply isn’t on any major, or even minor routes through Japan, not even for the Japanese.

NY2024 - D7 Kyoto to Imaicho

Route: Kyoto - KeiNaWa cycling route - Imaicho
Bicycle: 78 km
Train: 62 km
Average Speed: 18.8 km/h
Total ascent: 214 m
Riding Time: 4:09 h
Weather: Cloudy, 8C

I didn't have a specific plan layed out for today, so in absence of that I decided yesterday evening to do the "easy thing" and just ride along the KeiNaWa cycling route to inner Nara prefecture (somewhere), leave the bicycle there to pick up tomorrow for a ride from there. I have riden already multiple times on this cycling route. From Kyoto to Kizu it is very straightforward, always along the river on a separate cycling route. Later on it get's a bit more "complicated" and although in general it is very well indicated, every now and then the route seems to disappear. But I had found a GPX file online that retraced the route quite well. I didn't actually take any pictures before coming to Nara, where I simply passed by the Heijo palace, a vast archeological site (that I visited before). It is probably a sacrilege to not visit again... but I didn't. 

During the ride I decided I decided to get to Yamato-Yagi, which seemed to be a very convenient transport point back to Kyoto. I have stayed already several times in that area, and like it. Plus Imaicho (which is an old city center within Yamato Yagi) is always nice. It is one of the view villages that are still mainly intact with old houses and seems still to be in normal use. There is a little bit of tourism ongoing here, but very low key. Which is crazy. There are so many tourists flocking to Takayama or to Magome/Tsumago (which are out of the way to reach for most of them), to see a bit of "traditional Japan"... but most of those same tourists stay in Kyoto (or Osaka) and totally ignore Imaicho, and the villages around, such as Asuka, which are an extremly easy day trip.

After a spin through the old part, I went to a super sento in the area. And what an area, your typical grotesque super sento area, somewhere sandwiched between a major road, a construction site and a chemical plant... but once you are inside you don't see or hear any of this and can find total relax. They had one of those "pool" where to lie on the ground on stones heated by hot water running slowing down. You are not actually lying in the water, but kind of on top of it on the hot stones. My favorite! 

GW2023 D7 Exploring around Biwako

Route: Kyoto - Biwako
Bicycle: 59 km
Train: 20 km
Average Speed: 14.5 km/h 
Total Ascent: 584 m
Riding Time: 4:04 h
Weather: Cloudy and at the end a few light rain drops, 23 C

Also this last day of this years Golden Week was a great day out. Actually this week was much better than anticipated. Originally it seemed that only Monday and Tuesday weather would be good and rain on all other days… but finally there were only a few rain drops on Monday and today (just a few, and only for maybe about 30 min). The first real rain day is going to be tomorrow (which actually is today, as I often do not manage to write all the posts in the evening of the ride… and am writing now on Sunday on the train back from Kyoto to Tokyo a lot of the posts). 

I started in Kyoto from my hotel, over to Yamashina and over to Otsu, passing through the same passes as yesterday. In principle my plan was to travel on from there through the mountains around Uji, see some tea planatations, down to Uji and back to Kyoto. But when I was up at Biwako I didn’t feel I had that much energy, and thus changed plan. 

I had a break along the lake, close to this restaurant from Wuerzburg. It was closed for renovations a few months ago… and today I was there simply too early for lunch… so I didn’t go this time either… but definitely on my “to do” list for the future.

While sitting here I saw on the other shore of the lake this strange, white, mountain shaped building. I had come across it years ago on my Tour of Japan ride, but hadn’t taken any pictures. So I decided to head there and explore. 

It’s a huge, modern building that integrates well into the landscape. Looking like a mountain from one perspective and from the other it is transparent. However the building itself houses some kind of new religious sect. Whatever they may believe, clearly their leader believes that the money of the followers are better spent by the cult rather than by the people who earned that money. It is also called “research institute” which for a sect obviously is totally misleading. But anyway, I passed, shot some pictures and still kind of like the building. It is not the only religiously funded building in the neighbourhood either. Miho Museum (where I had initially planned to go yesterday) is also funded by some strange sect, that also extracted a lot of money from their believers. Plus there are other religious buildings throughout Japan that are clearly funded by a lot of money extorted from believers. Not too surprised that someone got angry at these kind of churches and shot Abe-san, believing he had some connection with one of those sects. 

I still hadn’t a clear target for the day, but now thought to maybe just make a round along the smaller part of Lake Biwa. However a bit further along, I sat down looking onto Hiei-san on the other shore and explored on Google maps what is around there. I actually discovered that there are 2 ropeways going up to Hiei-san, which surprised me, as we went many years ago by bus. While browsing through google maps I also noticed some temples at the foot of the mountain, and decided to replan my ride towards there. And this was a great decision. 

I passed over Biwa-O-Hashi towards Katada, and passed through the fishing village of Katada. Which turned out to be a relatively intact, old village with a lot of temples and shrines. Definitely a place to visit again. I stumbled across a temple on the shore with a ticket booth and a parking lot, so I thought, well, I am here… so let’s see what this is about:

From there my way took me land inwards and up the lower slopes of Hiei-san through a rural area and up into a forest traversed by a very small and winding road. Very nice to ride indeed. Not to steep. Just nice. At the highest point of that road there was a remote temple with absolutely no one around. I took a quick look… but then went on, as there was an other temple on my list. 

Saikyo-ji. Again something found on google maps, and what a find! 

I arrived around 16:00 and thought that maybe it is already too late, but anyway went to ask at the ticket booth and it turned out I had a full hour left before they were going to close. 

This is a sprawling temple complex, which somehow seems to love colourful pinwheels. The only other place I remember seeing that many pinwheels was an other temple: Osorezan in Aomori. 

Even some of their zen gardens were full of these pinwheels. 

Definitely a nice spot and probably one to revisit in November with the red foliage, as the path up to the temple was lined with maple trees.

This put to a conclusion my Golden Week 2023. Tomorrow heading back by train to Tokyo and then off for a few days to Vietnam on a business trip. It was again a perfect Golden Week, with weather much better than expected. I was also happy with my hotel choice in Kyoto. Kyoto U-Bell hotel in Jujo. Not necessarily a place I would recommend to other travellers, but for me with the bike it was a good spot. In-house sento (which I used every day, except the one when I went to the super sento… which wasn’t the best), close to the subway station (I came back by train more often than not and did not reassemble the bike at Kyoto station to ride the last meters. It would have been doable… but with the hotel so close and often taking a train out the next morning again, it made more sense to leave the bike all packed up.), a relatively big room and I could even open the window a little bit. And all this for a good price. About 8,000 yen per night. I had booked it I think back in February… while in Kyoto for an other long weekend. I knew GW was coming up, but didn’t have any specific plan yet, so I thought that I could as well reserve a room in Kyoto and if I got some other idea later… could still cancel it at no cost. But I didn’t have any other idea (nor did I really think about it too much, once the hotel in Kyoto was booked), so that’s what I did. And it was good. Already a lot of time  in Kyoto recently. But there is still more to explore. It is a convenient location, relatively fast to ride out of the city, but if starting / ending by train, also a major train station with a lot of connections. 

While I have done trips from A to B to C with all the luggage on board, it is also very nice to ride a light bicycle without all the added weight. And have a stable base and be able every day to decide where to go, depending on weather, strength … So yes, definitely enjoyed it.

One thing a lot of people are always afraid about are the CROWDS of GW. Well, it all depends where you go, but frankly even today (I.e. Sunday, D8) taking the train back (on one of the most crowded days in the calendar) things were smooth. Yes, I had reserved my last row seat weeks ago… but I managed to change it on Friday to an earlier train, as the weather on Sunday was looking really, really rainy (and did deliver on this promise). And actually there were still available seats to be booked on most trains (just not with the luggage area). So all cool. No need to fuss about GW. 

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!

4 prefectures, 3 days - Day 3: Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama & Ibaraki ３日間４県〜本日：栃木県、群馬、埼玉、茨城

Bicycle: 63.5 km

Route: Ashikaga - Sugito

Total riding time: 4:31 h 

Total ascent: 133 m 

Average speed: 14.0 km/h

Weather: Very Sunny, no clouds, some wind, perfect weather,  14 C

Todays highlight was probably visiting Gunma, while the bicycle was in Tochigi (front wheel) and Saitama (rear wheel):

Front wheel: Tochigi; rear wheel: Saitama, rider: Gunma

And only 3.5 km later, I was in Ibaraki. And only because I hadn’t planned this ride carefully enough, I missed Chiba, which would have been only an other 4 km from my route today, and actually quite feasible. But well, then I would have needed to change the title of all 3 days’ worth of posts.

The day started in Tochigi city, which to my surprise I found out yesterday evening, still has some old buildings. It is not so nice as e.g. Sawara, where the old buildings are all very much centred around a small channel, but the interest in the old buildings in Tochigi is more that there are also some from Taisho area, clearly influenced by Western architecture, as this hospital (which continues to be a medical center to today)…

… the restaurant where I ate yesterday evening and the old city hall, which however was totally in refurbishment. There were also some more normal old Japanese houses in town:

The one attraction I had found before going to Tochigi was the New Ginger Museum, which was definitely a very pink (and strange) experience. This awaits you at the entrance:

And it is not what it seems to be… or well, actually it kind of is, but by saying that it is a ginger root, it becomes totally acceptable to dedicate a complete, pink museum to a penis.

All possible things one can prepare with New Ginger, which actually isn’t fresh, but pickled ginger. I even took a sweet with ginger and a ginger soda.

But the highlight of this museum, without doubt was this video of the entire company dancing the New Ginger dance:

After these first touristic stops the ride of today could start. When I planned, I had not really found anything else interesting in the area, so set as a goal a super-sento with a convenient train station closeby, at a reasonable distance. For the ride itself I handed over the planning mainly to the komoot app. However I entered a few changes to avoid any major roads, and the ride was really great. Nothing by itself outstanding, but just a nice enjoyable ride through Japanese countryside with some mountains in the far distance. Some, closer to Nikko even with still some snow on the top, but not a lot, for end of February. This year was unseasonally warm in Japan. Mainly I rode on small country lanes and then on the typical Japanese bicycle path along a heavily dammed river. The rivers in that region still show the signs of the flood last year October, and are still being cleaned up from debris (mainly vegetation) lying around.

I finally came to a big water reservoir which has a cycling road right through the middle of it. On the center is a small artificial island, where I hate some cookies I had bought on the first day. Shortly afterwards, and just before the point with the 3 prefectures, there was a Michi-no-eki, where I got the best grilled sweet potato I had in my live. Only grilled, nothing added, but so creamy and sweet.

After the picture of at the prefecture boarders, the ride continued through similar landscape, although become a bit more built up over time, as I was approaching Tokyo.

The super-sento for today, was really nice. With 3 pools inside, and a whooping 5 pools outside and a small forest in which to gaze (although the supersento is in a built up area, there are no houses close or high enough, to warrant a high wall around it. Very nice. I had a long soak in the different waters, followed by dinner and am now sitting in the Tobu express train, back to Tokyo, heading for Otemachi, where I should be arriving in about 5 minutes. Perfect timing for this post. 

Maibara to Omi Hachiman 米原から近江八幡へ

Bicycle: 45.6 km

Train: 520 km

Route: Tokyo - Maibara - Omi Hachiman - Shin Osaka

Total riding time: 3:08 h 

Total ascent:  88 m 

Average speed: 14.8 km/h

Weather: Sunny, a few clouds and nicely warm, 

Today I got up early to catch a Hikari shinkansen from Tokyo station to Maibara at 8:33. I had already sent my luggage to my new monthly apartment in Osaka yesterday (to be delivered tomorrow Monday) and was left only with my faithful (and dirty) brompton and the T-bag with two computers (work and private) and some cloths in it. With that I set out in the morning through relatively quiet Tokyo streets to Tokyo station. I had not reserved a seat before hand, but was still able to reserve when I arrived at the station and as I was first in line, it was no problem to find a "parking" space for my bike behind the last row of seats... From next May however this will need a reservation. 

I arrived in Maibara around 10:45 and started on the wrong side of the train station... but that showed me that there is a rental bicycle shop right in the station, which I hadn't known of the last time I was in Maibara. Actually a good part of the ride today was the same as Day 38 of my 2 months tour through Japan. However, this time I did NOT go to Hikone castle and when last time I turned inland, I stayed on the shore just a little bit longer and approached Omi Hachiman, where I had finished also back then my day from an other side. 

I did however pass again by this tree on the lake shore:

Tree in 2019

Lake shore tree in 2017

Last time I was there on a normal weekday... so there were not a lot of people. But this time the tree and the view from it, but actually more the picture spot was very popular. Specially with motorcyclists.

Thanks to so many other visitors, I managed to get myself a picture taken of me, the tree, the lake, my brompton and my skirt, which depicts the tree, the lake and my brompton:

After resting here a bit I continued my way along the lake. There is a cycling route, not really a cycling road though around the lake which is indicated by blue signs on the road:

Strangely enough the assumption is that everyone is riding around the lake in counter clockwise manner. I didn't, and it was definitely the better direction for today, which I found out when I turned around for a little bit to get to a conbini I had passed, and was faced with relatively strong headwinds (nothing to compare to the Netherlands, but still). 

Along the way there were nice landscapes...

... however also for some stretches the cycling path follows a street with quite some traffic (but one can cycle on a type of side walk). 

In Omi Hachiman last time I had not really seen a lot from the old city. I guess I wasn't really aware that it existed. I had visited however a temple on the lake shore. So this time my goal was the old city quarters of Omi Hachiman. Frankly I am not really sure if I made it to them this time either, as at some point I turned into a small street and found some art exhibitions in old houses and some nice elderly ladies in one of them, who persuaded me to get a ticket and see their art exhibitions. 

All the exhibition spaces were in old village houses, which was nice to see them from inside. The art itself was not terribly interesting to me, except some small sculptures carved out of wood by blink artist. One could touch them all, and some where in "black boxes" for one to guess what the form is. I only came close with one form, which I took for a horse or cow, but it turned out to be a giraffe. A fat one though. 

Btw, the slippers were not art... but probably the image that I liked most in this exhibition. 

A strange structure in this nice garden... in which I actually walked into a private gathering of people in kimono... which did result to not be part of the exhibition (who knows... could have been a performance). 

And the view from one of the exhibition houses over the roofs to the famous mountain in Omi Hachiman... Mountain I haven't conquered yet (there is a ropeway...), and with the museum ticket a discount ticket for the rope way was included and I decided to head back to Omi Hachiman the next weekend as well, to finally get on top of that mountain and hopefully also discover where and what the famous part of Omi Hachiman is. I think it involves channels...

But for today some pictures of the old houses need to suffice...

... including an old Taisho area post office:

I had comfortably the time to see the exhibitions in the central part of Omi Hachiman before catching a train at around 16:30 to Shin Osaka. I needed to be here at my new monthly apartment before 19:00, just in case I had some problems with the keys... but I had not. 

So once I had successfully occupied my apartment, I went to an onsen, Nania wa no yu. A super sento on the 8th floor of a pachinko & parking lot house, which however has a quite large out door part. I have been there already several times before, and always had some mixed feelings. Also today. The outside pools are actually very nice, also because there are some of those lying in the warm water "pools", however there are too many tourists and some of them have no idea about onsening. The very first time I saw a lady trying to get into the onsen with a swimming suit! and her child actually in the bath with a swimming suit... They were quickly convinced that this was not the right way to do it. It must anyway feel strange to be in a swimming suit if everyone else is naked... And an other lady with a tattoo! I think I am slowly but steadily becoming an elderly Japanese lady frowning upon the new customs. 

After the search for the bicycles yesterday at the end of the NPC ride, today it was my turn to no longer find my bicycle when it was finally time to head home. I had parked it in a roofed parking lot, which however turned out to be part of the pachinko parlour and not of the onsen. Luckily enough at the onsen they explained me that the pachinko caretaker puts all bicycles parked in their lot when it closes just outside... and there it was. Waiting for me.