Japan Exodus - Day 31: A Day's Work

A little sadness comes attached to the morning after a night such as last. A solid bath, a hearty meal, new laughs and new faces...all are gone in the morning with each of us going on in our own different ways. For the next few days my muscles become ever slightly more sore each day, my skin and clothes a little more dirtier and rough with each intersection crossed.

Relatively of course, these are small sacrifices to pay if I could even call them that at all. Yet, I wouldn't do what I do if I didn't enjoy doing it. Yes? And neither ought you. Time to keep pushing through the country side. Even after an ideal night, a new day beckons.

OK - todays plan seems a little far. Keep in mind that 160 kms are 100 miles in the US. I arrived in Masuda still cycling fresh, my legs ready for more. The trick to doing long days is to just keep chipping away at the larger distance by keeping smaller goals. I'll cycle to this location-ish, rest, and them aim for a next small town or scenic view. That is how I can justify the 3000+ km grand Japanese cross country total.

Crossing prefectures today! Knowing that I will likely make it into a new prefecture on the map is one thing, actually crossing the boarder and seeing sings like these fills me with young enthusiasm and vigor.  As I do, my legs charge with testosterone and I start to sing Queen's Another One Bites The Dust loudly at motorists who surely must think I am crazy. I find it very rare to find someone talking to themselves here, very rare to hear anyone sing alone.   

Breakfast of champions - bananas and coffee is how I got through Berkeley in the mornings and I still continue the pairing today. The reason for this might be due to the transitive property. Coffee and chocolate go well together, as does chocolate and bananas. Most people will not fight you on that. Morning time is not always the place for chocolate however, and just alone these do manage to do the morning meal justice. In addition, bananas contain a 0.87 tryptophan to protein ratio. That means with the coffee, my system finds a perfect harmony.  

Can you see him?! There is another cyclist on the road! True! Though, he must have taken a turn off from me because once I made it to the top of this ascent, I couldn't see him, and lost him for the day. Maybe he was faster than me - is what I thought at first. But, I managed to catch him up this mountain, and he didn't pass me so I likely was matching or bettering his speed on the morning. Well, for whatever reason, this pairing was not meant to be. A little sad again, I think it would be cool to cycle with another for a while. 

A colorful lunch, as always. The rest could not be long, I have a lot of km to cover today!

I bought these banana bread coffee cake dessert things because I keep seeing them everywhere and was so curious as to what they taste like. Now I know. (The regular bananas carried over from breakfast).

Checking the map as I go....

Damned if an old man didn't just help me out with a few canisters of tomato juice before I left. There truly is an honest gift giving culture in Japan, more so than any of the Burning Man's I attended. Except that last time, that was pretty awesome... 


Later on in the day, some unexpected rain drops caught me in the middle of a town. The forecast mentioned no such rain, and yet the drops were getting bigger and more frequent the higher I climbed this small mountain. Better stop, and wait ten minutes, is what I reasoned. Good thing I listen to myself sometimes, the rain came and came down from the mountain tops to put a big ol' dent in my km mark for the day. We'll see how long this retched rain continues. 

Unexpected rain brigs unexpected friends. This little guys was crawling up my sock unnoticed for I have no idea how long. I felt him once he crossed over to my leg. there is some rule about harry caterpillars, like you shouldn't touch them because their hairs can contain poison or some unwanted irritant. I couldn't be sure and wanted to be safe. So, I used a paper to move him off my leg and pointed him in the direction of the nearest side shrubbery.

You have probably heard me say how well onigiris work as a cyclist's best snack. Small, edible with just one hand, and healthy ingredients you can fill with anything you like. Because of the seaweed wrap (nori) the rice must be at room temperature or cooler, less the nori shrivels up and looses its crunchy consistency and ability to really hold the whole thing together. However, today a woman ploped this in my lap, and this strange new onigiri has changed everything I thought I knew. 

First off, its warm! The only time I ever had a hot/warm onigiri before was when we once grilled them on the bbq fire pit to see what they would taste like. This time the warmness of the snack was much more intentional. More than that, a type of red rice is used and infused with delicious grilled beef meat. Yum! Honestly on a rainy day, this little gesture shifted my perspective on waiting out the rain. Suddenly it didn't seem so bad. 

Ha! Weird Japan. This cool mural is an advertisement of sorts for an abandoned liqueur store.

Making a descent down the last hill for the day, I caught a glimpse of the beach I would try and camp at. Or, I should say rather, the giant wind mills that I would try and camp under. There was no way I could have known these humongous electricity generating propellers would be where I intended to stay, yet now that they are here I am a little intimidated. Cant be any worse than sleeping under a bridge, no?  

With my tent as my hotel, and my bike as my transportation, I really only spend money on food. At the current conversion rate, my daily allowance works out to about twenty dollars a day. Which, I feel is average. Maybe a little on the expensive side but only when you figure that I am not using a stove and buying cheap groceries as some people do.

I think twenty dollars a day is cheap. Why did I spend those night eating white rice and curry in my apartment back in Tosa? They way I figured it out has all to do with balance. When I had a place to live, I ate cheap. And now that I don't have a door of any kind, I splurge on food because Nature doesn't charge rent =) 

No, I did not eat everything you see here. This was the spread at what I thought was an all you could eat buffet. 

Don't worry, this restaurant really is an all you can eat buffet, so I stocked up on all the goodness and sat back down at my table....

...where this huge pot of goodness was waiting for me. Apparently, when you get the all you can eat buffet package, the meal comes with a huge pot of nabe too. Holy sheez. Good thing I am hungry. Finished the plate of food I served myself, and the entirety of the soup, and even went back for a little more rice and shrimp tempura before drinking my complimentary hot cup of coffee that failed miserably in combat against the post food coma war. 

I have some vague semblance of a memory of putting up my tent in the dunes that night, I was honestly so tired that I didn't even unpack all my things that night or brush my teach. As soon as the tent was up and sturdy, I "tested" it out to see if I would hear any thing from inside the tent. I remeber closing my eyes, and waking up this, the next morning. Well, alls well that ends well they say. To feel tired at the end of the day is to acknowledge an accomplishment.

Sandy love,
-A