Arashiyama without tourists - 観光客無しの嵐山

Bicycle: 114.3 km

Route: Osaka - Arashiyama and back

Total riding time: 6:37 h 

Total ascent: 299 m 

Average speed: 17.3 km/h

Weather: Some sun, some clouds, no wind to speak of, 13 C

Although since earlier this week there are some restrictions in place in Osaka (among other prefectures), going out to do sport is still perfectly allowed, and I was definitely not alone, although kept to myself. 

After the great experience last weekend in Kyoto and Nara without tourists, I decided to give Kyoto (this time Arashiyama) another try. I had a few other rides also planned more local in Osaka, but will do those some time in the future.

Today's highlight was definitely the Arashiyama bamboo grove without tourists:

Normally nowadays this bamboo grove is just packed with tourists. So much, that it can easily seem that there are more tourists than bamboo around. But not so today. But before I got there... I needed to ride up again the Yodogawa River.

There were definitely less people around than in the last 2 weekends, specially less people doing picnics, but still some groups playing baseball, rugby, tennis or football, which technically is allowed as the web page of the local government exercise is one of the examples of necessary activities for daily lives, as long as done with the smallest number of people attending... so 22 for football... 1 for cycling. Although I have to say, I saw a few cyclists in groups. Mostly it was probably families, but some were clearly riding buddies (unless there is a unknown subculture of polyamorous gay men in Osaka and around).

I came again to the hanami spot at the confluence of Kizugawa, Ujigawa and Katsuragawa where they form Yodogawa and it was clear that mankai 満開 was last week.

Top left: today, top right: 2 weeks ago, bottom: 1 week ago

But still, some nice hanami shots:

As mankai was over, the path leading out into the peninsula was open for cyclists. I didn't need a second invitation and rode it. Probably the first 2 extra km of today.

I continued on on the same river as last weekend, after a while transferring to yet another river, that brought me smack into the center of Arashiyama and over the Togetsu bridge:

Last time I was here was right after a massive typhoon had hit Kansai and destroyed the bridge to Kansai airport (from where I was supposed to leave a few days after the typhoon). As that didn't happen, I decided that weekend to go to Arashiyama (by train), ride around on a rented mamachari and explore the lesser known (and much less touristy areas) of Arashiyama, which was a nice ride, although I got my feet wet on the river banks riding through some puddles that profed deeper than I thought.

Today, the river was well within its shoulders. While riding up the river and getting to the 50 km mark, I was getting hungry. Not too hungry, but well, hungry. So I discussed with me my options but finally decided to make it until Arashiyama, as I remembered that a few years back (maybe 10?) we had a very nice vegetarian lunch in a restaurant in a temple (Tenryuji). The restaurant was still open, just if they had waited for me, one of their few customers of the day, and definitely the only one to make it to their door after 13:15

After lunch I explored the gardens of the temple, which are apparently dating back to the 14th century when this place first was a palace and then became a temple. Today for sure one could admire the garden as it must have been 700 years ago. Quietly sitting on the veranda, gazing out over the pond into the hills where some cherry trees are flowering.

Also across the rest of the garden more trees were flowering, most prominently the rhododendrons.

I would say that today there were more employees around (gardeners working on their knees with tiny knives weeding out invisible weed and guards who had no one to guard or amonish) ....

... than tourists.

Top: handbag in social isolation, bottom: shoes in social isolation

... okay, the shoe picture is slightly tricked. There was one more rack for shoes just behind me, where there were actually 3 other pairs of shoes. So no, I was not totally alone in the temple.

In total, lunch included I spent 2 hours at this temple complex, feeding, relaxing, taking pictures. I even paid the extra entrance fee for the Dharma Hall where a dragon on the ceiling will follow each of your steps... and watches carefully that no one takes a picture of it.

So now it was nearly 15:30 and I knew I needed to get moving back, did I want to make it back to Osaka before nightfall (or at least back to the onsen of choice of the day). But I could not leave Arashiyama without a quick peak to the famous bamboo grove. Last time I was here, it was packed with tourists, and I just had a quick peak and no picture. This time tourists were sparse.

Normally this path is no longer ridable with a bicycle due to the masses of tourists walking through. But today even this was possible. I met the guy in this picture a few kilometers later as we were both riding back towards Osaka (only he had 20 km less than me before him), right when we both were trying to take a picture of a shinkansen and hanami:

Shinkansen hiding behind the petals 

The ride back along the rivers was eventless. I stopped for a quick snack at the hanami spot, where there is a rest area for cyclists and then continued down the Yodogawa river, where I noticed this bicycle cemetery that I must have passed already quite often, without ever noticing it properly.

I passed through some more of these terribly annoying roadblocks ...

... before heading "inland" to my choice of onsen of the day, a onsen of the same chain I went to yesterday in Amagasaki. This one however a bit newer. I had a great relax in the different outside pools, including one lie down option on stones with hot water flowing over it, and just made it in time for last order to their restaurant for my solitary dinner.

The plan for Arashiyama was a 108 km ride, which I knew was doable, after the 101 km ride last week to Kiyomizudera. I got up a bit earlier than normal and was out on the road at 9:00 (early for me... late for many others), which gave me the full day ahead. Also I didn't have a heavy sightseeing plan due to Covid-19 but also due to the fact that I needed to ride all the way back, if I didn't want to cheat on the restrictions to only do essential travel. But my timing was perfect arriving at the onsen only shortly after it became dark.

While I road at the beginning of the day I thought, well, 111 km would be a nice number, knowing that there are always a few extra km that one rides by missing a right turn or by just straying off the route. However during my dinner at the onsen, I looked at the date, 11th of April and first thought, oh perfect 111 km on the 11th, is a nice number, until I realized that 114 km on the 11/4 would be even nicer. So that's why I did a few extra loops just below my house - no Strava art :-) 

And oh yes, it was my longest ride ever, by a whole 7 km!

Tomorrow it will rain. So a rest day, and time to write some posts. 

Evening ride to onsen in Amagasaki

Bicycle: 14.7 km

Route: Shin-Osaka to Amagasaki and back

Total riding time: 55 min

Total ascent: 44 m 

Average speed: 15.9 km/h

Weather: Dark, somewhat cold, 9 C

To celebrate the end of the work week and seeing that many (albeit not all) onsen in Osaka are still open, I decided to try out a new one, over in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. Well, new for me... not the super-sento itself, which was actually a little bit old style or so it seemed. It didn't help that due to Covid-19 the restaurant was closed and that they don't offer free shampoo and soap, which however I bought at the reception. The bath is fine, with 3 different outdoor pools. Nothing terribly special. For the purists, probably the TV that one could see (and hear) from all pools could be quite an annoyance. 

The ride itself was slightly creepy, along the river on a nice cycling path, but in the dark and it is simply a very industrial area of Osaka. Also there are not many exits from the cycling path, but luckily there was one just shortly after the bridge I needed to cross. 

Still even for the ride back, I preferred the river, as the street that runs parallel is quite narrow and does have its traffic. Not a lot, but if you can choose between no traffic on a cycling path or some traffic on a narrow road, I go for the slightly creepy ride along the river as long as we are talking Japan. 

Brompton "THE" folding bike - brompton ザ折りたたみ自転車

Tonight while walking back from work and crossing Shin-Osaka station I came by this poster made by JR explaining how to bring your bicycle on a train, and clearly the brompton fold did sit model for it: 

Nara without tourist - 観光客無しの奈良

Bicycle: 85.5 km

Train: 40 km 

Route: Osaka to Nara

Total riding time: 5:40 h 

Total ascent: 386 m 

Average speed: 15.0 km/h

Weather: Sunny, warm but not too hot, up to Kyoto very nice tailwind, 12 C

After the touristy highlights yesterday in Kyoto for today I decided to ride all the way up to Nara. Not over the mountains, which is much shorter though, but along Yodogawa and Kizugawa.

Today's highlight, I would say was the view from Nigatsudo, the temple in Nara I like most... and there is no shortage of temples.

The initial part along Yodogawa was the normal ride along that river. Not very scenic. It's just a useful river. For BBQ, baseball, rugby, football, picnics, cycling, jogging, bird watching... and fishing! (Not actually in the river but in some artificial ponds)

Today the wind had changed and was blowing from the side/front all the way up the river until I changed my direction by turning on the Kizugawa, when it turned into a very nice tailwind.

Along Kizugawa I passed again the place with the Nagarebashi (submersible bridge) where I turned back last Sunday). I had no expectations that it would be open today, but actually it was.

So I took the opportunity to cross it - by foot - and continued on the other side of the river.

There were many nice Hanami spots along the Kizugawa and also generally the landscape and the cycling lane is much better. Landscape, because there are simply less buildings around. Cycling lame, although it is much more narrow, it doesn't come with the continuous obstacles as along Yodogawa. 

The bicycle lane, which on the other side connects also Arashiyama in Kyoto finishes a bit abruptly in a region where there is no really obvious connection into Nara, and I had left my komoot planned route to follow it a little bit longer, which maybe wasn't the most clever thing to do... but still I did not get lost (difficult in times of google maps and GPS) and even stumbled across some nice flowers that were NOT sakura:

I approached Nara from "behind" and first came to the park behind Todaiji, which seems to be used by the deer for rest from the tourists. At least that was my impression a few years back. However now with tourist numbers dwindling apparently the deer have decided to go and investigate what happened to all their senbei feeders and were roaming the streets of downtown Nara. Not that I can attest to that. The deer I saw seemed to be the typical deer of Nara. Half of them on-duty in front of Todaiji hunting down tourists to make them buy senbei and the other half waiting for their turn in the park and woods. And all of them rather photogenic.

After taking a few shots at the deer behind Todaiji, I cycled up the hill to Nigatsudo, a temple overlooking all Nara, and even during normal, touristy times, rather calm. Today even calmer, but it was also already 17:00 when I arrived there.

These ema will need to be redone for next year. No Olympics in the year of the rat:

I cycled down again with the idea to take a picture or two around Todaiji and then in the park and then to ride to my onsen of the day. But when I arrived at Todaiji, it seemed to be still open. So I asked, and yes, it was open just for another 10 min. In normal times I would not have rushed inside, I have visited Todaiji already at least twice, but with the sakura in full bloom in the inner courtyard, I did not let this opportunity pass, so rushed in and had the Todaiji nearly to myself (only one Japanese couple rushed inside with me).

Obviously I was here very late in the day, so probably even on a normal day there would not have been that many tourists around any more, but getting such a clean shot of the entrance of Todaiji (only with a small brompton in front of the gate), is unique. I remember from a few years back, when I came to Nara for a weekend, I went to Todaiji first thing in the morning and had a good time visiting it. Some tourists, but just a normal amount of tourist, no bus groups yet. Then I went up to Nigatsudo, which even then - it must have been 2016 or 2017, did not have too many tourists. When I came back to Todaiji around noon time (to pick up my mamachari that I had parked there), the place was teeming with bus loads of camera-armed tourists. Good for the deer (probably), not so good for me, the solitary tourist. But I had seen Todaiji by then already... So today again a very solitary visit.

By now it was getting colder (the sunset was approaching and in total it was colder today than yesterday), so I rushed to the park and then to a sprawling shrine complex, where I caught the last sun rays.

From there onwards, I didn't have any other expectations than getting my well deserved hot bath in the onsen... but the path I had chosen, along a small river proved me wrong. It was one of the main hanami spots in Nara.

After the onsen, I cycled to the closest train station and took a train back to Osaka, to a place about 7 km from where my apartment is, in a very convenient small station. No long trekking with the folded bike through stations (like it would have been for sure had I got of at Namba), but just out of the turnstiles, unfold and ride. The train was very empty, again thanks to Covid-19, so social distancing was very easy. I had the entire carriage for me (and my brompton, but I am pretty sure bicycles cannot catch the virus).

Kyoto without Tourists - 観光客なしの京都

Bicycle: 101.4 km

Route: Osaka to Kyoto and back

Total riding time: 6:14 h 

Total ascent: 317 m 

Average speed: 16.2 km/h

Weather: Sunny, warm but not too hot, up to Kyoto very nice tailwind, 18 C

Very hard to pick the picture of today. Was it Kiyomizudera, just reopened a few weeks ago after extensive restoration in time for the 2020 Olympics? Or was it the torii tunnel at Fushimi Inari Shrine void of tourist masses one of the places that left a most lasting impression on me when I first visited 25 years ago? Or was it my second ever 100 km ride?

Today's ride was courtesy of Covid-19, which cancelled a 2 day ride I had signed up earlier this week on Naoshima with a local Osaka group of cyclists and which made that two of the most popular sightseeing spots in Kyoto, Kiyomizudera and Fushimi Inari were very pleasant without too many tourists. Japan is in a special situation, it banned Chinese tourists very early on, then tourists from other countries were afraid of catching Covid-19 in Japan and started to cancel their trips probably from around mid Feb, early March and at end of March Japan imposed a travel ban on practically all Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Korean... So essentially there are no foreign tourists in Japan. Plus many Japanese, but by far not all, have obeyed and stayed away from too crowded areas, which means, that normally crowded areas aren't crowded at all, and I would say social distancing (about 2 m apart) is doable practically everywhere most of the time. 

So I used all this to ride up to Kyoto. The first part of the ride was a rather uneventful ride up the Yodogawa river, today on the left side of the river with a nice and strong tailwind resulting in a maximum speed of 39.2 km at some point. 

For lunch I stopped at the hanami spot where I passed already last weekend (and last year), and although the weather was much better today than last Sunday, there were still very few visitors, and picnic was officially not allowed. But a few people did very small picnics. 

I unpacked my rice roll and had my lunch under the cherry trees that start shedding their petals. Very romantic. 

After lunch I continued on a new river, which I am pretty sure I have never ridden before and came through an other very nice hanami spot while riding into Kyoto. The only thing about this bicycle lane is that the tarmac isn't very smooth.

I turned away from the river and up a small hill to Kiyomizudera, which was splendid today. Sakura in full bloom, perfect weather and few tourists. Couldn't have been better.

This picture has it all: Hanami, heron, pagoda, pond

Before leaving Kiyomizudera I had a small snack of these very fresh sweet gel-like "noodles", which I like quite a lot. 

And then on over a romantic bridge ...

... and through a neighborhood full of temples to Fushimi Inari. 

Fushimi Inari is definitely my preferred shrine in Japan. When I first visited it 25 years ago the torii tunnel left a deep impression on me. Japan had much less tourists then, and I know that I took some pictures very similar as today, with the tunnel of torii without anyone. Something that in normal times nowadays seems to be completely impossible, as this shrine has got so popular that it is incredibly crowded every day... except now with no tourists around. I went again a few years back (I think 2015) right after New Year and the shrine was incredibly busy with business men making their annual offering. This was also a very nice and unique experience. But I am very happy to have seen it again very empty. 

The one thing I did not know 25 years ago, is that those torii are not purely for decoration. They are offered by companies to the shrine for their success. And actually somewhere in all this forest of torii there is a price list for torii's. 

While the front of each torii only says 納奉, which probably means something like paid offer... 

... the backside of each torii says precisely which company (or individual) paid for the torii ... 

... and when it was erected. 

Down at the shrine itself, there were products of the main patrons of the shrine exhibited. Mostly sake, but it is not limited to this. There was also milk, snacks, chocolate, beer ... 

When we were here at New Years a few years back the shrine looked much more like a supermarket than a shrine with all possible offerings, including kleenex tissues... 

At around 17:00 I left the shrine. Actually quite late, knowing that the way back was still over 40 km and that the wind was against me. But I had a back-up plan. I could hop on a train somewhere along the Yodogawa and get back to Osaka, if I got too tired or it got too late. 

But after struggling a bit against the wind before the Sakura spot on the river confluence, from there onwards down the Yodogawa it was much less windy. Looking at the strava map it seems I went in a quite perfect straight line, so wind should have been strong on Yodogawa as well, but maybe it turned or was channelled by the parallel mountains along the river in some other way. 

I reached the sakura spot shortly before sunset.

Which inevitably means that it got dark along the way down to Osaka as it is still about 30 km from there back to Osaka. But weather was nice and I was making good progress along the river, and I did not need to search for my way (which at night even with garmin isn't that easy as the screen continues to go dark) so I made it back all the way to Osaka and to "my" onsen in Naniwa where I relaxed my tired legs in the hot water and had dinner afterwards. 

At that point I was at 95 km... So now I had the ambition to make it to 100 km today... but it was only about 3 km from there back to my apartment... so after the bath and dinner I took a small detour to see some night sakura along the river.

Right on the bridge over the Yodogawa I then completed my second ever 100 km ride. (the other was last year September in the Netherlands. )

100 km - お疲れ様でした。

Spontaneous auto-repair

Bicycle: 13.7 km

Route: Shin-Osaka to Bicycle Repair shop

Total riding time: 1:06 h 

Total ascent: 60 m 

Average speed: 12.4 km/h

Weather: Cold, slight rain drops, 12 C

On Sunday on the last part of my ride downwards Yodogawa, something started to sound really bad in my bicycle. Like a small stone being inside the front wheel. I tried to see if I could understand where it is and how to remove it... but to no avail. As I want to ride this weekend again, I decided to bring it directly to a brompton repair shop to see if they could fix the problem. Only that about 3 km into the ride whatever it was that caused the sound, had popped out and the problem fixed itself. I anyway rode all the way to the shop, just in case they could understand what the problem might have been. Which well, they couldn't... fair enough, there was no longer a problem when I arrived at the shop. 

The only interesting thing to report about this ride, is that I came by a big shrine (which I didn't visit) in Tenma... which I will visit some day in the future. 

Up and down Yodogawa - 淀川に沿って

Bicycle: 85.0 km

Route: Yodogawa and Kizugawa

Total riding time: 5:55 h 

Total ascent: 241 m 

Average speed: 14.3 km/h

Weather: Sunny, cloudy and a chilly strong wind, 11 C

After the rain yesterday, today it was mostly sunny, a few clouds, but also quite windy. Headwind in the first half of the day, but tailwind cruising back down the river to Osaka. 

I had decided to make a ride from a leaflet I had picked up in an onsen (the same where today's ride finished) last time I was in Osaka. The ride in pink at the bottom right going to Uji... only that I added kilometers at the beginning to even get to the starting point, cut kilometers from the ride by not actually riding into Uji and then adding again kilometers by riding all the way back to Osaka. So well, I did a quite different ride, but I did see the place that had caught my attention on the leaflet, Japan's longest wooden bridge:

Only that currently it is off-limits, not due to Covid-19, but due to restauration works! So I have a reason to ride there again. Actually riding up Yodogawa and then transferring to Kizugawa means one can ride all the way to Nara from Osaka along a river... but it would be quite a long ride. 

Riding along the Yodogawa isn't specially scenic...

... at least not until one reaches the confluence with Uji River and Kizugawa, at which point there is a hanami hot spot. In order that it does not become a Coronavirus hotspot, there were only minimal hanami activities today, much to the contrast of last year. But it is also fair to say, that it was very windy and quite cold there, so it wouldn't really have been a good day for a proper picnic anyway.

Top: 2019 (warmer weather and no virus)
Bottom: 2020 (quite cold and Covid-19)

What I always find surprising is the cherry trees in really ugly locations. As a European one would think that it only makes sense to make an effort to plant cherry trees in a location that is at least somewhat nice, but not so in Japan.

In my very personal analysis, this is a very important difference between Japan and Europe. In Japan the details are admired, but there is no (or at least not a lot) of importance given to the overall picture. It is like Japanese are born with a build in zoom lense, admiring each small detail of the item to admire, but not having any spheral vision to see the surroundings. This is manifested over and over again, when one visits outstandingly nice Japanese places, often it is very hard to take a picture, as there is something really ugly somewhere around. E.g. electricity cables, old buildings, old signs...

Last year I had asked some cyclists at the confluence of the 3 rivers, if one could ride down also on the opposite side, i.e. on the side of Oyamazaki, and they told me know... so I rode down again on the same side I had come. However also last year, I just tried riding UP on the Oyamazaki side of the river, and came really far, so I knew that at least from a certain point onwards there was a cycling lane. And today I can report that there is actually a cycling lane pretty much the entire way from the confluence to Osaka on both sides of the river. However the one Hirakata side is definitely more popular, but I don't really know why. The ride on the other side was very similar. Only getting over the river to the starting point, well, isn't the nicest place of Kyoto:

So I saw a nice bridge and an ugly bridge today.

It had rained a lot on Friday and yesterday, so some parts of the cycling lane was very much inundated. and somewhere there, already quite close to Osaka, something strange must have happened. At least now my bicycle gives a very strange noise, as if a small stone found its way inside the bicycle. I'll need to go to the local brompton shop and get a look at it.

Riding into Osaka I got this nice night view, before retreating for the next hours in Naniwa no yu, a super sento I have already visited several times. 

Rain & onsen 雨の日に温泉

Bicycle: 30,2 km

Route: To Itami airport and back

Total riding time: 2:05 h 

Total ascent: 67 m 

Average speed: 14.5 km/h

Weather: a few drops or rain, more rain and real rain, 9 C

In the morning some shopping in a nearby supermarket, where I bought enough should the government in Kansai region decide to put a lockdown, to survive for about 3-4 days. And more crucially I got toilet paper. A rarity right now due to Covid-19. (Apparently in Europe it is impossible to get right now and also in Tokyo it was not a common sight... but in Osaka there is no immediate shortage. A bit less than usual, but no shortage. The only shortage here seem to be face masks... but still all Japanese seem to have a stock somewhere hidden as most of the people on the streets are walking around with masks. 

This isn't all toilet paper. I only bought 8 rolls. I swear!

With the coronavirus pandemic I decided to do only local rides, starting and finishing from my doorsteps. For today I had decided to try this route https://www.strava.com/routes/11610963, however I started quite late in the afternoon (maybe around 15:00) so it was clearly impossible to do the entire route. But I still wanted to go out cycling a bit and the river part looked nice, so that's what I did. Cycling up the Ina river without a specific goal in mind, except a soak in an onsen at the end.

Ina River is one of the typical Japanese rivers. Highly damed and totally unnatural. This one, for most of the part I cycled, flowing through a industrial neighbourhood.

So this was probably the "nicest" it gets:

There were some sakura along the way, but still not in full bloom. And actually where I shot this picture there was a very strange, sweetish, chemical odour. This combined with the rain, cold weather made that not even Japanese were coming out to do hanami picnics.

When I came up to Itami airport (which is still operating, although for sure at a much reduced intensity than normally), it started to rain more, so I threw the red cape over me and started my descend through the rain back to Osaka and my onsen. In which I happily soaked for the next hour or so, had dinner and was happy again.

Bye-bye Tokyo, Hello Osaka 東京さよなら、ハロー大阪

Bicycle: 5.0 km
Train: 550 km

Route: Tokyo to Osaka

Total riding time: 0:23 h 

Total ascent: 241 m 

Average speed: 14.3 km/h

Weather: Dark, no rain, and surprisingly warm in Osaka, 17 C in Tokyo and 18 C in Osaka

Today was my last day in the Tokyo office and it seems I "fled" from Tokyo just in time before the partial lock-down (well, not really lock-down, just friendly request from the government to stay at home on the weekend). Here in Osaka so far the government is not planning any lock down measures. 

So I said goodbye to my nice hotel in Tokyo where I am now greated and treated as a regular customer (stayed there so far 3 times and always in the exact same room, which I happen to like a lot), jumped on my bike (in my office outfit), cycled down to Shinagawa station, got myself a ticket for the next shinkansen and jumped on a very empty train. Normally trains between Osaka and Tokyo are quite full, but now with Covid-19 in each row there were maximum 2 people (instead of 5). I tried wearing a mask, but I really cannot breathe with these things. So I affronted the danger of virus contamination barefaced. 

In Osaka I unfolded my bike, and rode down the street to my monthly apartment, which happens to be also again the exact same apartment as last time. Slightly far from the office, but actually a quite nice apartment and with a bicycle parking lot. 

From now on, more cycling in Kansai region!

BTW, if you are wondering if I can put all my luggage of 10 weeks of business trip to Japan on my folding bike... well, no. But that's where Yamato Kuroneko is playing its part.