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.
Perhaps for the same reason, I enjoyed the Terminator 2 show the most. The two-faced co-ordinator who kicked things off was wonderfully over the top, guiding us through the Cyberdyne presentation, and her reaction to the 'signal hack' by the Connors was perfect. That was just the intro - after which we had giant robots, rappelling actors, nicely orchestrated 3D screen/actor transitions and of course Arnold and the T-1000 and it's ilk battling on screen. Fun. The best ride was themed around some cartoon I've never heard of, but the moment you burst out from the launch station into what looks like a twinkling star field and your stomach drops is really impressive. Hozumi liked the Waterworld show, with it's back-flipping agile actors, real jetskis, boats and fiery explosions. Spiderman, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Jaws and Sesame Street were all great, with only Backdraft being a bit dull. The Starlight Parade was a fitting finale, especially the quarterstaff-wielding Aladdin-themed dancers. In retrospect it was kind of weird experiencing all these things in Japanese. Even the roles given to caucasian actors were dubbed or lip-synched.
Still in Osaka, Tatsuya took us to the outskirts of an airport. Huge planes coming in directly overhead, quite an experience.
Taking advantage of Tatsuya's hospitality we left everything in Osaka and took the train to Kyoto to visit Hozumi's younger brother, who doesn't have parking space by his student flat. We spent the day hiking around, and went to the Fushimi Inari Taisha, a small part of which is pictured right. My third or fourth visit to the place, so it's lost some of it's impact, but the thousands of torii lining paths that meander around the mountain are still pretty cool. As an added bonus, I found the out-of-the-way spot where Jeannine, Evan and I drank whiskey and camped out on our hitch-hiking trip many years ago.
Hozumi's brother was busy composing music, and after ignoring us for a while he went to a friend's house to stay the night. Not a bad guy, just very awkward - funny how different the three siblings are.
My second visit to Arashiyama, but first walk through the bamboo grove (left). Second visit to the monkey park, but this time it was interesting to note how it barely registers in Japanese guidebooks and websites, but remains a feature in English ones - a difference reflected both in the nationality of the few tourists we saw and Hozumi's reluctance to pay money to see a bunch of monkeys. I still really like the place for the view and the free roaming monkeys. Noticing that some of the monkeys were both aggressive towards and scared of one of the 'keepers' I struck up a conversation. Apparently they have to maintain that 'dangerous' status to do their job of ensuring visitor's safety. There's no way to insert themselves into the monkey hierarchy, or befriend them, so they remain close but aloof, and glare at any wild monkeys that get uppity.
Love hotels have a reputation for ensuring customer anonymity, but I seem to have a knack for getting stuck talking to overly helpful cleaning staff. I'm fine with explaining that we're not after any old room and are holding out for an interesting one, but Hozumi doesn't appreciate my glib attitude!
Finally we left Osaka and headed to Himeji, featuring Japan's largest castle. Unfortunately it's undergoing repairs that will take a few years, so it wasn't looking nearly as splendid as the photo on the right. I enjoyed the tales of the piecemeal construction - a woman donating her millstone and only source of income to a lord short on stone, another lord using slabs from buddhist temples. The view was lacking, but we could walk around most of the place and it really was impressive in scale. Unlike many other castles the interiors weren't all clad in concrete either, which made a refreshing change.
On the way there, though, we had an interesting encounter. The road unexpectedly forked in the middle of a town, and while I was checking the map a guy cycling past stopped to offer us directions. We said our farewells, navigated the mess of one-way roads and got to the campsite an hour later, only to see him motor up shortly afterwards in his leathers! Nice bloke, but not really sure what he was after as he stayed for a while to chat while we set up our tarp and tent but left shortly after. If we'd been carrying any food we could have invited him for dinner but... The camp manager was an interesting character too, doing his best to introduce everyone who arrived to us, even leaving a note pinned to our tent one day with a new arrival's details.
The nearby Japan Toy Museum featured heaps of toys from around the world. We enjoyed the hands-on stuff more than the exhibits. Mexico has the best toy vehicles.
On the way to Tottori it rained hard. Riding in the rain is miserable, especially when your rain gear amounts to a thin layer of cheap water-resistant polyester. Coming out of a tunnel the cars in front braked hard. As I came to a stop Hozumi slammed into the ground and skidded to a halt behind and to the left of me. Thankfully the truck behind us stopped in good time and both Hozumi and bike remained in our lane. While traffic backed up behind the truck we got the bikes to the side of the road and checked things over. Hozumi's bike lost a mirror, indicator, a centimetre of housing on the headlight and a chunk of the brake lever. The rev counter had been sheared off and dangled by it's wires and the front wheel twisted left. Hozumi was shocked and her overalls, glove and jeans torn but otherwise only bruised. We had to get out of the tunnel and off the road, so we switched bikes, made it to a nearby car park and called Red Baron to pick us up. Makes it sound like we turned to a WWII fighter pilot for aid, but it's actually the name of the nationwide second-hand bike shop we bought ours from. They have a free pickup service for accidents while touring, and their repairs are fast and cheap, if a little makeshift at times. Unfortunately the local store was closed for the day, so we had to wait for a truck from a place one and a half hours distant. That also meant I had to follow the truck for an hour and a half of increasingly torrential rain.
Fortunately the twisted wheel was simply due to the suspension being knocked out of alignment, the mirror and indicator were replaceable with parts they had lying around and the rev counter still functioned when strapped back on the frame. After all that there was no way we were going to camp, but another guy getting minor repairs done on his bike had a book listing cheap lodging so we made our way to a really old, grotty hotel in which we were the only guests (the other two places we tried were full!). On the plus side the natural hot spring bath we had all to ourselves, and they were very accommodating when we asked for space to hang all our dripping gear.
The next day was still drizzling, but we set off back towards the crash site and our intended camp site. The place was free and lacking any kind of supervision, but featured a surprisingly beautiful waterfall and best of all a completely enclosed, spacious, lit, clean and dry building in which we decided to set up camp. The student who arrived later - Kouji, 22 - reminded us that there are plenty of people travelling considerably rougher than us. Kitchen gloves for riding in the rain, wooden boards strapped to his bike for extra carrying capacity, camping at free sites only and a diet lacking any vegetables or ready meals.
This entry is getting way too long, so I'll cut it here.
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.
Perhaps for the same reason, I enjoyed the Terminator 2 show the most. The two-faced co-ordinator who kicked things off was wonderfully over the top, guiding us through the Cyberdyne presentation, and her reaction to the 'signal hack' by the Connors was perfect. That was just the intro - after which we had giant robots, rappelling actors, nicely orchestrated 3D screen/actor transitions and of course Arnold and the T-1000 and it's ilk battling on screen. Fun. The best ride was themed around some cartoon I've never heard of, but the moment you burst out from the launch station into what looks like a twinkling star field and your stomach drops is really impressive. Hozumi liked the Waterworld show, with it's back-flipping agile actors, real jetskis, boats and fiery explosions. Spiderman, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Jaws and Sesame Street were all great, with only Backdraft being a bit dull. The Starlight Parade was a fitting finale, especially the quarterstaff-wielding Aladdin-themed dancers. In retrospect it was kind of weird experiencing all these things in Japanese. Even the roles given to caucasian actors were dubbed or lip-synched.
Still in Osaka, Tatsuya took us to the outskirts of an airport. Huge planes coming in directly overhead, quite an experience.
Hozumi's brother was busy composing music, and after ignoring us for a while he went to a friend's house to stay the night. Not a bad guy, just very awkward - funny how different the three siblings are.
Love hotels have a reputation for ensuring customer anonymity, but I seem to have a knack for getting stuck talking to overly helpful cleaning staff. I'm fine with explaining that we're not after any old room and are holding out for an interesting one, but Hozumi doesn't appreciate my glib attitude!
On the way there, though, we had an interesting encounter. The road unexpectedly forked in the middle of a town, and while I was checking the map a guy cycling past stopped to offer us directions. We said our farewells, navigated the mess of one-way roads and got to the campsite an hour later, only to see him motor up shortly afterwards in his leathers! Nice bloke, but not really sure what he was after as he stayed for a while to chat while we set up our tarp and tent but left shortly after. If we'd been carrying any food we could have invited him for dinner but... The camp manager was an interesting character too, doing his best to introduce everyone who arrived to us, even leaving a note pinned to our tent one day with a new arrival's details.
The nearby Japan Toy Museum featured heaps of toys from around the world. We enjoyed the hands-on stuff more than the exhibits. Mexico has the best toy vehicles.
On the way to Tottori it rained hard. Riding in the rain is miserable, especially when your rain gear amounts to a thin layer of cheap water-resistant polyester. Coming out of a tunnel the cars in front braked hard. As I came to a stop Hozumi slammed into the ground and skidded to a halt behind and to the left of me. Thankfully the truck behind us stopped in good time and both Hozumi and bike remained in our lane. While traffic backed up behind the truck we got the bikes to the side of the road and checked things over. Hozumi's bike lost a mirror, indicator, a centimetre of housing on the headlight and a chunk of the brake lever. The rev counter had been sheared off and dangled by it's wires and the front wheel twisted left. Hozumi was shocked and her overalls, glove and jeans torn but otherwise only bruised. We had to get out of the tunnel and off the road, so we switched bikes, made it to a nearby car park and called Red Baron to pick us up. Makes it sound like we turned to a WWII fighter pilot for aid, but it's actually the name of the nationwide second-hand bike shop we bought ours from. They have a free pickup service for accidents while touring, and their repairs are fast and cheap, if a little makeshift at times. Unfortunately the local store was closed for the day, so we had to wait for a truck from a place one and a half hours distant. That also meant I had to follow the truck for an hour and a half of increasingly torrential rain.
Fortunately the twisted wheel was simply due to the suspension being knocked out of alignment, the mirror and indicator were replaceable with parts they had lying around and the rev counter still functioned when strapped back on the frame. After all that there was no way we were going to camp, but another guy getting minor repairs done on his bike had a book listing cheap lodging so we made our way to a really old, grotty hotel in which we were the only guests (the other two places we tried were full!). On the plus side the natural hot spring bath we had all to ourselves, and they were very accommodating when we asked for space to hang all our dripping gear.
The next day was still drizzling, but we set off back towards the crash site and our intended camp site. The place was free and lacking any kind of supervision, but featured a surprisingly beautiful waterfall and best of all a completely enclosed, spacious, lit, clean and dry building in which we decided to set up camp. The student who arrived later - Kouji, 22 - reminded us that there are plenty of people travelling considerably rougher than us. Kitchen gloves for riding in the rain, wooden boards strapped to his bike for extra carrying capacity, camping at free sites only and a diet lacking any vegetables or ready meals.
This entry is getting way too long, so I'll cut it here.
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