Okinawa and the end of our tour.

This is the picture I was searching for, my 'I drove to Okinawa!' shot. Nice location.

Okinawa

25 hours on the ferry to Okinawa, spent mostly dozing, reading manga and marvelling at how tricky it was to get any food while on board. If you missed the 20 minute window of opportunity to order breakfast you had no choice but to wait 2 hours for the shop to open, then you had 10 minutes to buy cup ramen before the harassed-looking lady closed up shop again and bustled off.

Yakushima

As expected, now I have tons of free time and no pressure, I'm not getting around to writing anything. Anyway, back to where we left off, about a month ago:

The ride to Kagoshima was miserable and terrifying in equal measure. We set off from Miyazaki around 3am to be there on time for the ferry so it was dark and none too warm. Two thirds of the way there the drizzle turned to rain and mist and visibility dropped to almost nothing. Riding double on a small bike at 40kp/h, cold, wet and peering through a misted visor isn't fun.

Miyazaki, Takachiho and Nagasaki

It's cold! Much colder than we thought Kyushu would be, and not helped by the typhoons that seem to be blowing through with alarming regularity.

Neil's place is a big, cosy haven with internet access and a beautiful sea view. A good place to watch storms go by.

At a party hosted by a friend of Neil's we met a really awkward unfriendly flight attendant, an equally awkward quiet one and the rather more lively girlfriend of the pilot host Oliver, who extended to us an invitation to visit his farm (and wife!) in France next year. Hope we can take advantage of that offer.

Shikoku to Kyuushu

Ito-san (remember him?) advised us that it was possible to get back to the mainland from Shikoku via the scooter/bicycle bridges spanning the islands between. We got shouted at. The highway for us then, and another chunk of change from our dwindling bank account.

Oyamazumi shrine on Omi island made for a mildly interesting stopping point. It features 80% of the military national treasures from the feudal era, including swords of almost 2m in length weighing in at 5kg! How anyone wielded those things in battle is beyond me.

Shikoku holy site tour abandoned, aka we fail at pilgrimaging

Creepy faces side-by-side with kittens and flowers on the ceiling.

Cold and with a forecast of yet more heavy rain we make use of free temple lodging for the first time. A garage, featuring a wailing shutter-of-the-damned and the occasional cockroach is to become our home for the next two days. Both nights walking pilgrims share the space, though a couple more with tents opt to camp nearby instead.

Shikoku holy sites, day 9 + Tengu highlands

A man-made waterfall?

Shikoku holy sites, day 8

Statue for recovering alchoholics.

Shikoku holy sites, day 5 + Ryuuga caves

Temple #25 is the ugly duckling of the tour, refurbished and concreted. We still wrangled a good photo out of it though.

Shikoku holy sites, day 4

The map seemed to indicate that this temple could only be reached by cable-car. We rather foolishly take the walking path as far as we can by bike... less than 2m wide, covered in leaves and dirt, wet and treacherous with a sharp drop-off. Even so we end up hiking most of the way up. We arrive to find a car-park and swarms of nursery-school kids on an outing. D'oh. Still, we got a taste of what the walking pilgrims go through every day of the 40 day+ route!

Shikoku holy sites, day 2

Majestic pines and a variety of statues lined the approach, but this chubby fellow won the coveted '12th temple' prize. The prize being having your photo taken next to Hozumi's fingers.

Shikoku holy sites, day 1

A photo blog, since we finally got our photos uploaded, yay!

Tottori to Shikoku

Tottori's biggest draw, and the reason for our visit, is the Tottori sand dunes. Covering about 15km by 2km, it's the closest thing Japan has to a desert. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but it was every bit as impressive as the picture here implies. I enjoyed both marvelling at the sand flowing at our feet and whipping over ridges and bounding down the steepest side of the dune like a big kid.

Osaka to Tottori

Hozumi had a fairly serious crash, but escaped with no more than torn clothes and bruises. It's been a while since my last entry though, so I'll start from where I left off: Universal Studios.

Much more entertaining than I expected, perhaps because it didn't all revolve around cartoon characters I dislike (see Disney) but rather a bunch of films that were actually quite good.

Tokyo to Osaka

Forgot to mention that at the National Museum of Nature and Science we discovered that the monster in the woods of Tohoku was probably a キジバト, or Oriental Turtle Dove. I swear it's call is scarier than the name suggests!

Setting off from Tokyo at 3:30am we made really good time, but as we drove through the mountains to our next camp site we both ended up freezing and tired, especially since we rather stupidly didn't get more than about 30 minutes sleep before setting off. After a few wrong turns and some glimpses of Mount Fuji from the road we got to the mountain pass in Yamanashi prefecture.

Still in Tokyo

A few days relaxing and sightseeing was all we'd planned on, since we didn't want to out-stay our welcome.

We extended our stay by a day since we needed to get our boots repaired - mine was split at the toes, Hozumi's zip needed replacing.

We then extended it another day when we arrived back from central Tokyo too tired to make the planned 4am departure.

After a full day lounging around and sleeping, we were loading up our bikes when we realised Hozumi's wouldn't start...

Sendai to Tokyo

Ito-san's family. An amazing experience! The old couple are in their eighties, overwhelmingly hospitable, and liable to talk the ears off anyone who'll listen for as long as they're present.

We'd barely got past introductions before we'd heard about their research on and conservation activities regarding fireflies.

Hokkaido to Okinawa, the Tohoku leg.

No pictures yet, most internet cafes don't like foreign memory cards with all their mystery data, so I'll make do with as many links as I can.

We boarded the ferry in Hakodate on 8/6 and arrived in Oma shortly after. The winding coastal road, much improved since my last visit, took us past Hotokegaura, pictured right. We arrived at the campsite pretty late, and the campsite manager was overjoyed that I'd kept my promise, made over a year ago, to return with my girlfriend on our trip round Japan. Lovely bloke.

The tripping continues

Actually too many great pictures and cool stuff going on this summer, and I'm far too lazy to keep up with blogging it all. Meantime here's the lake created by Torizaki dam, and the nicely hidden waterfall further down the valley.

Further road tripping

The remarkable statue that stands in the middle of a totally overgrown courtyard, with nothing and no-one around to appreciate it aside from the shrubbery. The shuttered and boarded-up temple nearby is inaccessible unless you scramble through bushes too. It's just weird because it looks like major tourist attractions look like in my head, but obviously something didn't work out from the local point of view.
While blindy stumbling through clouds looking for the noisy sulphuric vents on Mt. Esan I eventually wandered all the way to the summit. The dense cloud cover gave the whole place a very spooky feel, which was enhanced by the total absence of anyone else for the entire hike. The not-appearing-on-my-full-memory-card vents were pretty special too.
This hot spring bubbles out into the sea, and to my surprise didn't taste the least bit salty. One of the more interesting onsen I've been to.
I felt sorry for this geyser, trapped behind walls and capped to prevent people rubber-necking from the road. It would have been cool to see it before it was caged, but at least the foot-bath was nice.