August 25-29 Tourists in Kyoto pt1

We based ourselves in a campground north of Kyoto, which seemed to have some affinity with 'Gulliver's travels', and caught the train in for sightseeing. We thought it would be cheaper this way. It wasn't. Lesson learned.



We tripped around downtown Kyoto, visiting the International Manga Museum, the Museum of Kyoto, Avril yarn shop, ponto-cho, Kyoto station and the Nishiki markets. The covered arcades in these areas were fantastic to walk around and we could've quite easily gone shopping crazy here. Fortunately the need to carry everything on our bikes curbs our enthusiasm somewhat.




There were further forays into the world of Japanese food (Brendan wants to write a book called 'The Lonely Palate'. I think his Dad jokes are coming along nicely.) This time Japanese a pancake/omelette thing which I've forgotten the name of. I played it safe with some potatoes.



Brendan spent a lot of time looking at bike porn. Our walks around the scenic streets are punctuated with cries of 'Check out that bike!'



We've noticed a particular concern for things being in the correct place. Take this bin for instance. You take your soft drink in a cup, pour the leftovers in one hole, pop the straw and lid into the next and then finish off by placing the cup into the specially sized cup hole. I'm not sure what this says about the Japanese psyche...



Then we left our campsite adjacent to Lake Biwa-ko (with our newly posted tent in tow, thanks Maca) and cycled off.



It was great to be on the road again, observing the minutae [sic] of daily life - such as this fence made from walking sticks.



Some lovely men at a bike store on the way set me up with a new steel kickstand. Note to any potential cycletourists - don't bother with aluminium kickstands as they'll bend and be useless.



We stopped for some watermelon and who should ride past but three young shirtless Frenchmen. Must stop for watermelon more often...



They were nice guys, and we swapped the map info, email, blogs etc. before heading our separate ways.



The ride was gruelling at times for me with some fairly steep uphills - even Brendan said he felt it was slightly harder than normal. I checked the map afterwards, it barely rated as a hill in Japan let alone a mountain. *sigh* better than nothing. Lunch, as usual, was very enjoyable.



And then, success! We're in Kyoto, under our steam this time - almost literally. After a wonderful wash in the public bath we settled into our 'ryokan' for the night.



Our journey into the confusing world of Japanese language and writing continues. I'm a bit lazy in this area but Brendan's going great guns. He learns a new kanji every day! Today it's 'ichi'.

August 20-24 nothing doing

Fairly uneventful days. Mostly resting and saving some money while it rained around us.





Highlights included a foray into Japanese breakfasts...



...personally I was pretty pleased to wash it down with some pancakes and coffee. And stopping by a roadside fruit stall for some delicious pears, peaches and grapes. Thrilling stuff.

August 19 - Hikone Castle

Hikone Castle was the destination of the day. We eventually made it there after getting off the train one station too early and waiting another half an hour for the next train. The castle was beautiful, set high above stone fortress walls surrounded by a moat.





In what is becoming a trend, we almost enjoyed the castle museum more than the castle. It had an exhibition that illustrated how the Japanese observed the American fleet, led by Commodore Matthew Perry, arriving in Edo Bay in 1853 with their gunships and demanding that Japan open up for trade. The exhibition showed beautiful Japanese watercolour drawings, 1:1 drawings and scale models of the American cannons. In stereotypically Japanese fashion they were seeking to learn as much they could about foreign technology – and then make it better. 'Oitsuke, oikose' (catch up, overtake).

Moving around the exhibitions we looked at a traditional noh stage (a DVD was playing of noh theatre but we quickly moved on), sampled some green tea and cute sweets.



We marvelled at the armour of Hikone’s red soldiers. Well, Brendan marvelled, I just laughed at how the red armour of this heroically styled leader...



...became the exhibition’s logo.

August 18 Onward to Hikone part 2

Some things we noticed along our ride so far:



I'd have that expression too if someone jammed a stick there.











Drain covers.

August 18 Onward to Hikone

A long but productive day filled with rewarding snacks and meals. It began early, as most cycling days seem to, at about 5am. It took a little while for the legs to warm up (mostly for me) so we stretched a bit as we took in the scenery. Brendan patiently waited for me until my juices kicked in.





Pretty soon we had connected back up again with Japan Cycling’s Length of Japan ride (we’re travelling in the reverse order) at Sekigahara. At Nikko we’d learnt about a famous battle fought at Sekigahara so it was amazing to be there. It makes us excited about travelling to Europe as we know even more about the history there. Or North America even.







Now that we had a path to follow instead of making it up we relaxed and enjoyed the picturesque scenery we were riding through. This combined with some lovely long downhills made for the best cycling we’ve had in Japan so far. And the chocolate squares on bread was a big hit too!

Things slowed down a bit as we hit some uphills. I have to stop every 10m or so to let my heart rate drop so many inclines became frustratingly drawn out. We were rewarded by more long downhill stretches and, even more exciting, a dedicated bike tunnel adjacent to a main road tunnel. This is what makes cycling in Japan easy.







By the time we rolled into Hikone Castle area we were ravenous for lunch. The food was sublime. Brendan had chicken and egg with rice (oyaku don which means mother and child). And then another serve of the same. I had yakitori – chicken and spring onion skewers and seasoned beef with wasabi – and a bowl of rice. And then another serve of the same. Oh my god, wasabi beef, oh my god.





We were pretty tired and hot by this point so we were grateful to cycle to a lakeside campsite for the night.

Quick pregnancy update

Everything is going well! Haven't got a 'bump' yet, but things seem to be getting rounder :)

August 14 Being a tourist part 2

Phrase of the day: Ganbatte
GPS location: N 36°45.105' E 139°35.500'

Brendan again.
Today we went to more sights. Namely the memorial to the self immolation victims (apparantly these are people who commit suicide by burning themselves. We couldn't tell when or why as the writing once again was in Japanese).

This was one of the cool budhas.

Then we crossed the road to the Imperial Villa memorial Park. We thought this might be a park dedicated to the site of the old imperial villa but the villa is still there and man is it sprawling. This was the royal families summer residence up until the 1990's (or 1980's. Japanese text again) when it was given to the city of Nikko. The Emperor Hirohito (dude in charge during WW2) was evacuated here while the allies (i.e. America) set about making Tokyo a lovely collection of rocks. It was originally a small place but has been added to by the various emperors over the years until it fell into disrepair and was evetually given to Nikko City. The royal garage is now the carpark.






Some of the detailing in this place was amazing.

August 13 Being a tourist

Phrase of the day: Sore wa ikura desu ka?
GPS location: N 36°45.311' E 139°36.061'

Brendan here.
Today we went to the world heritage sites around Nikko . They have some fantastic temples here. I think you could look them up for yourselves. We took some photos.


















































This temple was apparently where the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkeys come from. The plaque is one of several describing the life of men. This one is for the child stage reminding us that children should see, hear and speak no evil. Beautiful really.

We also noticed this peculiarity with some Japanese detailing in that everything seemed to have a roof (it did make sense since this was snow country and it was raining a lot). The street lights, the fences, the signs, even the service boxes.















Even this floor beam that protruded past the eaves line.













Some crazy metal work to protect the nails (I think) joining the handrail to the balustrade (if you can call it that because I think it was also a post capping for the floor supports). Also the structure for the roof seems like it could be rationalised somehow.



The last image is of a stair and stream rolled into one. Why let a stream spoil your building desires. They can co-exist. Hot.