Japan Exodus - Day 42: A Long Mission, Complete

This will be a special post for a couple of reasons. 

First, total cycling kilometers for the day came to a total of 166. Thats just over one-hundred miles on a fully loaded bike, or what is known as a century. There are double, and triple, century days but those are typically done with lighter with planned routes. Today is not the first day to go all this way in one ride, but centuries also don't happen every day. So when they do, its important to point it out and pat myself on the back. 

Also, for those of you keeping count, this post, the one you are reading right at this moment, is tallied as my over all 200th post! That is quite an accomplishment, yes? I did not think I would have logged on and spent so many hours chronicling all these adventures for us, yet here we are. In an off balance kind of way, I am happy that this blog will not end here. 200 is too round a number to land on believably for a journey which prides itself on keeping plans loose. In the end, we'll be around two hundred and twenty posts or so. Let the countdown begin.

A good feeling filled my body as I sped through the hills in the morning. All the climbing I had put in the night before to my campsite payed off in quick descents down into the following city. And that is certainly all there seems to be from this point out, city. City from Aichi prefecture where the large region of Nagoya holds many people, restaurants, industry, many ports, trains, and stoplights. 

Still, as I look back at my love/hate relationship with the Wakayama hills, the feeling is always grand when crossing into a new prefecture. Its a two point feeling, knowing that you have completed one defining area, and opening a new section. Much like that unique feeling of reaching that half blank page, the feeling of ending and beginning a chapter. And just like a book, sometimes it is good to stop there and take a brake or save some for later, and other times you cant help put keep on reading, unable to fight the suspense of the cliffhanger. 

The dividing line between prefectures cut across the river as well, making two of the one. Seems a little petty, to divide the territory over water like this, no? 

Maybe only two minutes after crossing over into the new prefecture was I hit with restaurants offering the famous dish of the land. Aichi is known, very well I should say now, for chicken friend pork cutlets under a sweet miso sauce reduction. 

I knew about the dish, I even marked it down on my paper map as to remind myself not to leave this place without eating the famous meal at least once. What I was not expecting is to see so many eateries making good on the promise of a delicious meal so immediately after crossing over the dividing line. The change was reminiscent of crossing countries rather than prefecture boarders. 

Oh, and the food is absolutely the best. Among all the dishes I will emulate upon finding a kitchen back in the states, I am very excited to try this one. There is also the very real possibility that this will be one of the more difficult ones to try, because miso paste can be finicky to reduce. It needs a controlled burn and constant stirring. 

Tucked away between the very busy streets of Nagoya city, there is an unmarked street where cars are no longer allowed to drive down. Be sure, that this road was around before the first thought of cars invaded the dreams of man. 

This street is hard to find, but not hard to believe when you stroll down the pristine walkway that you've walked your way into the past. Here, where a style of slow, pre-industrial revolution life is experienced, inside wooden homes you will find the very traditional gift shops and restaurants of Japan. Forget Kyoto. If you want a taste of "real" Japan, you go down one of these forgotten streets. But, there is something odd. Within all the expected pieces of traditional Japanese styles, there is here something I have never seen before. Traditional food served by older women to be sure, dressed in un-traditional Japanese garments. 

Japanese style tie-dye, "shi-bo-ri." This small street in this unsuspecting town found in a very large city is apparently the only place in Japan where the fabrication art is still practiced. I should mention that it was my mother actually who turned me this direction. She wanted a gift, and what better selection of gifts to give my hippie San Francisco mother than colorful pieces of tie-dyed scarfs, wrapping clothes, and blouses. Cloth from every fraction of the color spectrum is found all around these shops, each piece stained with its own individuality. 

After some very entertaining window shopping, I landed on buying mother this very nice table cloth setting. The tie-dye of flowers, leaves and vines is printed over a subtle first embroidery of rose flowers. If you can look closely at the photo, you can notice the darker blue stitching. An expensive Mother's Day gift, but it goes to show you one of my tenants in life. Ask, and you shall receive. Most of us are not mind-readers, so if you want something, make sure to be heard.  

Besides a little shopping for mom, today was spend completely on the bike. Down from the mountains, as soon as I hit the coast and started making my way around, I was hit by annoying city obstructions. Industrial smog, railway crossings, tour buses, and those unnecessarily steep jumps off sidewalk streets that give a walloping thump to my back tire before crossing the street. That is perhaps why I am so proud of today's effort. Cycling through the city can be annoying, to pull a century through it is worth at least a high-five. 

Part of the reason for the accomplishment is for reasons like this. Stairs make the veins in my head swell. 

Because this is my first time through this part of Japan, I figured I would just wiggle around the coast and make my way out on the other side OK. But when I was cut off a the second time from a route I could not cycle, I pulled out the Google maps and thought I was saved. There is a big difference however, between where a car can go, and where bikes can go. By-passes, for example. The Maps say by-passes are OK for bikes, but bikes are most certainly not allowed. If you choose the "walking" suggested route, Maps doesn't account for stairs. I am lucky here, that there is a slide to push my bike up and down. I only say "lucky" not because it doesn't suck to push my bike up and down the slide, but because sometimes there is not a slide, and I must resort to lifting, shifting, and dropping my bike up and down each, and, every, single, stair, one, at, a, time. UGH!

Too much bike for the pedestrian lane, not enough for the car's. 

Quick brakes when I was cycling with my sister consisted of eating sushi from moving conveyor belts. I really miss those breaks =) Today, I have refined my snacks to banana chips and raisins. Light, seemi-healthy, and quick, these are a really good fuel to keep you going on long days.  

I am still working out the menu of dishes I can pull off with this single burner stove and small pot. Tonight is my fist attempt at curry and rice. Was not the best dinner, but lessons learned. Currently brainstorming on how to improve this meal for the next time. And there will most certainly be a next time. 

If you take a look back at the map four photos up, you can see how I made my way around the coast of this city. However, two years ago, my friend Go and I avoided this route. Instead, we took a ferry across the bay, and kept on going through Shizuoka, the next prefecture. Thus, tomorrow, the route will be a little more familiar, since I technically have gone down this way before, on the way to Fuji - where I expect to be for my grand 30th birthday. 

Birthday cake love,

-A