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Published: March 28th 2011
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By this time, Shikoku was drowning in rain and being whipped by hundred kilometre an hour plus winds. So was Kansai. The only way left to go was south, down to Kyushu. Nagasaki, a city I'd skipped on a previous cycle tour of the island, may be best known for being the target of the world's second atomic bomb attack but it doesn't appear to be any worse for wear. The museum on this subject is poignant and thought provoking but the city's history – it was the West's principal outlet to Japan from the 16th to the 19th centuries - is ultimately more rewarding. A reconstructed area featuring houses and gardens gives you an insight into life during that period and, in true Japanese fashion, can pleasurably be experienced riding an outdoor escalator.
Down by the port the central park seemed to unite gaijin cyclists visiting the city. I pitched my tent next to a Dutch couple that had pedalled all the way from Europe, while under a neighbouring tree lay an Irish lad that had been on the go for three years. That night we mellowed with a few cans of the marvelous chu-hi and bonded
over stories from the road.
The weather systems I had so far been successfully avoiding finally caught up with me in Kagoshima. It was time to call it quits. The ferries to Yakushima were cancelled due to the typhoon and after being battered all night by the rain and wind, I was having second thoughts about the whole camping thing. Did I really have to relive my trip of 2002 in every detail? I began seriously contemplating spending the night in the nearby public restroom. No need. I ducked into an internet cafe as much to avoid the weather as to check e-mails and the financial markets. My options had done well. Hell, they had done superbly! I had made twelve thousand tax free Euros in one day. I would offer myself some respite from the conditions. That night I slept in a hotel.
The following morning I was back to basics. The Euro was at an all time high against the Yen. Japanese made camera equipment was cheaper in Japan than New York for a change. 350 grammes of Aussie beef with miso soup, rice, limit-less green tee and ginger was the price
Pigging out
in an izakaya of a Big Mac on the Continent and I was back to my usual self. The Hiroshima youth hostel was a couple of kilometres from the train station. It was past midnight and I wanted to catch the first local train going east as soon as they started running again. Assembling and reassembling the bike again would be too time consuming. It was Friday night and piss-drunk salarymen that had missed the last rain of the day were crashing on the pavement all around me vomiting. I locked my bicycle frame to a post and joined them (sans the puke).
The White Egret castle was a tad bit bland to say the least and came as a rare let-down. Kudos for being one of only three to have survived allied bombing raids and fires in WW2 but it didn’t have the intimacy of, say, Kumamoto (my favourite) or Matsue, both rebuilt. Still, it was a glorious summer day in Himeji and families were out and about in the parks. Tourists were busy bussing in and out on one day excursions from Kobe, Osaka and other parts of Kansai and I cherished not having to deal with rain
and strong winds.
My juhachi kippu was due to run out at midnight and local trains could only get me as far as Nagoya by then. I racked my brain for things I may know about Japan’s third largest city, but besides the fact that Slovenian Zdenko Verdenik had once coached Nagoya Grampus Eight, I couldn’t come up with anything. With a couple of hours to kill before a night bus to Tokyo, I again made use of an ever friendly station tourist information office. The girl working the late shift seemed genuinely surprised that a foreigner would find her city of interest but nonetheless got me onto an underground train and heading for the giant TV tower. Brilliantly lit, it provided a nice backdrop to the water enclosed double glass roof of a nearby shopping centre. A quick dinner at a quaint izakaya and I was ready to return to the station.
With much sumimasen-ing and arigato-ing, I persuaded the bus driver to somehow maneuver the bicycle onto the bus. The trunk was a joke, being the size of a kitchen microwave, but we dragged it onto the lower level of the double
Fast food Japanese style
- ten times tastier and a hundred times healthier than McShit decker and squeezed it behind the last row of seats. Never mind that the passengers there now couldn’t recline their seats to sleep comfortably, they simply smiled and, probably, cursed the foreigner under their breath. What a wonderful culture.
Being dropped off outside a surprisingly deserted train station in the largest city on earth at five in the morning isn't everybody's cup of tea. But it was my third time in Tokyo and I took relish in the Sunday morning peace and quiet. I searched for a park to 'shower' myself in a toilet and get some much needed rest on a bench but the homeless were out in force. In fact, my fellow tent dwellers in Hibiya park were a rather repelling lot. They must have panhandled a small fortune the day before and gotten into a drunken stupor. The smell coming from the public bathroom was enough to drive a pig farmer away and I decided to head on to Shinjuku.
Years ago I spent a week camping in a children's playground at the doorstep of Kabukicho, Shinjuku's red-light district, where in a surprising twist in the battle of the sexes, men play hosts
Getting a room, correction, capsule
in Japan can be quite an experience and women splurge on them. A quirky phenomenon that was showcased in an award winning documentary titled
The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief. Rocking up on my ride, I was alarmed by shouts and cheers. Around the corner, coming right for the playground was a group of men and women carrying a portable shrine. It was a neighbourhood festival, one of many you can come across in the summer months and the crowd was as involved as you can get. When the burden of carrying the heavy wooden construction became too much, a friendly neighbour would be there to take another's place and pass them a drink. It was a jolly time, full of laughter and jubilation but the day was getting old and the festival had played out.
I mounted my steed and transported myself to the backstreets of Nakano where my favourite used camera shop had a 550 EX flash with my name on it. Back in Shinjuku, Map camera had an EF 70-200 f/4 IS at half the price to those in Europe and a quick side-by-side test against my non-IS version was enough to convince me to upgrade. I threw away the box and manual, rummaged the back alleys
Origami cranes
at the atom bomb memorial in Nagasaki for discarded boxes and packaged my bicycle for the Air France flight home.
When the customs officer at Ljubljana airport decided to have a go at me, he couldn't keep his eyes off my bicycle. What brand is it? How much did you pay? Did you buy it in Slovenia? Unknown, 120 EUR, Yes. His disappointment was palpable and for a moment I thought about taking pity on him and reporting the contents of my other bag. But he didn't sleep in parks with the homeless, he didn't shower in sinks in public bathrooms and he never suffered a typhoon just so he had some extra money to spend on his hobby. So should I pay import duty on my gear? Forget it!
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