Friday 10th August Mimasaka to Kori Daily Total 58.22 km Trip Total 23376.92 km And we’re back on the trikes, cycling again. It’s been a fab workaway but time to move on. It’s an uneventful ride as we retrace our previous tracks back towards the coast. However we do make one slight detour. Remember the nice man who picked us up outside Okayama one night, took pity on us and drove us all the way back to Mimasaka? Well we…
Saturday 28th July Last night, returning from Okinawa, when our coach pulled in at Minasaka we’d been unable to reach Kuzumi and get a lift home but within 5 minutes we’d managed to hitch a lift. Over the next 4 days we do various chores including weeding, masking and sealing walls the walls in the house and other various chores. We catch the tail end of another typhoon with some high winds and torrential rains. To Crip’s surprise I quite…
Tuesday 10th July Sumo day!!!! This morning we’re up at 4.45am to buy our tickets at the Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium, situated in the castle grounds. The ticket booth opens at 7.45am and there are only about 100 tickets sold each day of the tournament. There were tickets available online on 24th May for this tournament that runs from 8th to 26th July but firstly they’re more expensive and secondly we weren’t really sure where we’d be and whether getting to…
Tuesday 26th June Kori to Kamikayama Distance: 52.30 km Total Distance: 23301.35 km A pretty uneventful day cycling wise but we do arrive at our workaway. There’s Crip (well Crispin), he’s been here in Japan for 30 years but originally he’s from Alton in Hampshire. He’s married to a Japanese lady, Kazumi, and they have a 6 year old daughter, Emma. They have a small holding and originally we were to live there, in a shed, offgrid, whilst they live…
Tuesday 12th June Toyohashi to Ise Distance: 55.31 km Total Distance: 22731.04 km Yesterday, despite the typhoon forecast, it was a lovely sunny, windless day but we stayed at Aaron’s just to catch up on the blog and do some work on the trikes; fitting a second mirror, a new flag pole for me and changing the oil on the Rohloff hubs. Daz cooked with Aaron last night and we discovered gazpacho and how delicious it is. Then Aaron…
Saturday 2nd June Takamatsu to Hiroshima After breakfast in Mr Donut by the railway station we board the train for Hiroshima, via Okayama again. Since Sapporo, Daz and I have been hankering for some more cheese pies, which are absolutely delicious. When we come out of Hiroshima station we see a queue around the block… it’s only a cheese pie queue. Daz joins the queue, and we go and get coffees and wait and wait some more. It’s a…
Tuesday 29th May Toyohashi to Himeji by train We’re off to meet Brett and Kate! We get a lift from Aaron’s neighbour to the train station. We’d looked at getting a cheap train but with 4 connections and 6 hours of travel we opt to use the bullet train, 1 hour 20 mins direct to Osaka!! We need to go to Osaka first so we can buy a 7 day JR pass for the railway, which for us is only…
Tuesday 22nd May Hommoku Makado to Hadano Distance: 44.65 km Total Distance: 22369.74 km We’ve received a message from Rich and Joan, warmshower hosts in Hadano. They’re going to host us for a couple of nights which is great because we’re in desperate need of some down time for laundry, bike maintenance and to publish the blog etc. And the forecast for Wednesday is rain. The ride is pretty unspectacular although it’s entertaining when we discover we’re not allowed to…
Saturday 21st April Hirake to Hirosaki Distance: 9.42 km Total Distance: 21452.38 km This morning we’re out in the garden again. More soil sifting! And of course there’s the usual admin frenzy; blog, make video, publish, FB posts etc. In addition, after months full of good intentions, we finally get a translation prepared – thank you Tama. Now we can show people our translation so they understand what we’re up to. Around 2pm we leave – we knew Tama…
JAPAN Sunday 1st April (Easter Sunday) Narita International Airport to Matsuko Distance: 9.61km Total Distance: 20681.57 Despite a landing time of midday the cabin crew intent on torturing their economy passengers put the cabin lights on around 5am and start offering a drink of juice and then serve breakfast. I noticed the business section was still kept in darkness. We land and at immigration we’re given a fingerprint scan and are issued a 3 month tourist visa – no…