NAGAHAMA JR STATION

Image by kansaikate via Flickr

I'll have to go back to Nagahama. It is much more interesting than I thought. The first time I visited there, I rode my bicycle into town late in the day along an unpleasant, busy highway, searching with increasing desperation for a 'HOTEL' sign. I never make reservations on bike trips because I never know how far I will ride. Besides, 'playing it by ear' increases my sense of adventure. I finally found a hotel but I remember the room smelled funny, and I left at 5 am the next morning, before anyone was even up and about (don't worry, I paid when I checked in!)

On my recent ride around Lake Biwa, I put my bicycle in station bicycle parking every night and traveled home on a JR train to Kyoto, returning the following morning. So this time I noticed Nagahama's JR station. It's an impressive building. Still fairly new, it was opened in October 2006. Something that is quite unusual in Japan is that the architect successfully designed the building to resemble Nagahama's Historic JR Station (pictured below.) Of special interest to me were the beautiful stained glass windows. Nagahama is famous for glassware production, so stained glass windows seem a very appropriate decoration for the station.

The style and quality of the station building caused me to revise my previous impression that Nagahama was just another dull country town, so I did a little exploring before continuing my ride South along the East side of Lake Biwa. I'll write about my findings in a future post.

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WINDMILLS IN TAKASHIMA

There's no getting around it - Japan is a really random country. You find the strangest things in the most unlikely places. A Brazilian theme park on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. A vending machine selling huge bags of rice in a small country town. A festival celebrating huge penises. Works of art on manhole covers. Monkey gangs robbing convenience stores in a tourist resort. Ugly concrete tetrablocks on beautiful surfing beaches. I'm continually surprised, occasionally shocked, often delighted and charmed.

On my cycling trip around Lake Biwa I found Takashima held a number of surprising finds. Just outside JR Omi-Takashima station there is a large statue of Gulliver. Why Gulliver? I looked for a reason or explanation.
I studied the station map but it didn't offer any clues at all. Later I found out that there is a recreation area called Gulliver Park nearby.

Not too far down the road I found a beautiful area with lovely old traditional Japanese houses surrounded by rice fields. There were ornamental carp swimming in the clear water flowing through irrigation ditches beside the road. This was Harie, and apparently you can have a guided tour of the houses (but no English.)
A sign said "Prirate School Ruins." Do they mean pirates? On lake Biwa?! Perhaps not...  following the tantalizing sign I only found what looked like another country shrine. No more English.

Further along the road I found a beautiful Chinese style garden called Yomei-en - open to all, and free to enter. That's pretty unusual in Japan. Most places as beautiful and impressive as that garden charge an entry fee. I wanted to know the story behind it. Who built it? Why is it there? I discovered that it was created as a symbol of the friendship between former Adogawa town (now a part of Takashima city) and Yuyao city in China.

A little later at Shin-Asahi I found Dutch style windmills, and a pond with swans and geese. There were ticket booths but they were broken. I put in money and it fell straight through, so I went in for free. Geese waited expectantly by a vending machine dispensing food.. An extraordinary children's playground nearby held a castle, a pirate ship, and giant geese and mushrooms.

Then, on apparently empty land beside the lake, a very European looking brass mermaid statue.

Like I said, random!

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• Cycling Around Lake Biwa (eatplayrove.blogspot.com)

WATCH OUT FOR THOSE BEARS!

Some of my friends already know my bear story. I overloaded my poor little folding bicycle and rode it from Amanohashidate in Northern Kyoto around  Tango Peninsula, camping for two nights. I read on the internet, and was told by a friend, that you can camp anywhere in Japan. (Possibly that's changing, because I saw many "No camping!" signs all around Lake Biwa.)

Tango Peninsula is pretty remote,so there are plenty of beautiful and deserted spots. At the end of my first day cycling through the picturesque fishing of Ine and along the Eastern coastline of the peninusla, I found an abandoned rice field surrounded by forest at the top of a small hill. I set up my small tent on what appeared to be level ground (but wasn't) and crawled inside as the light faded from the sky.

It was dark! I was miles from anywhere. There were no lights. There was no traffic noise. I was all alone, isolated in my hot mosquito-infested little shelter. I discovered that summer is too hot for camping in Japan.
Exhausted from cycling all day, I tried to go to sleep. Suddenly a branch cracked loudly in the forest nearby. Maybe a tanuki, I thought. Then I heard an animal growl. Ummm... fighting tanukis...? And then I heard the bear. I never even thought about bears before. There are no bears in New Zealand. If you go camping in New Zealand the most dangerous things you meet are sandflies. I was so scared! I texted the outdoorsy friend who told me I could camp anywhere and asked "Should I be worried about bears?" but he didn't reply. I put all my food inside plastic bags and tied them up tight because I remembered reading that bears are attracted to campsites by the smell of food. Then I sat and flicked my flashlight on and off in the hope that it might resemble a campfire.
The bear didn't approach my tent. I didn't even hear it again, although I heard a lot of other strange and frightening noises through that long and almost sleepless night. The next night I paid 2000 yen to camp in a beach campsite with cold water showers, smell rubbish bins and lots of mosquitoes. Never mind - there were no bears.

I was reminded of my brush with a bear on my recent bicycle trip around Lake Biwa. I wasn't camping this time. Instead I left my bicycle at train stations overnight, traveling home to Kyoto and returning next morning to resume my journey. On the second day I rode from Omi-Takashima to Ranten right at the top of the lake. I was planning to ride over the scenic driveway. I arrived at Ranten about 4:00 pm and saw that the driveway was closed overnight from 8:00 pm. I knew it would get dark about 6:30, but my bicycle has lights. I didn't feel like riding for 2 hours back to Makino where the last train station had been, so I decided to press on. I slogged up the steep slopes for about 30 minutes, passing a group of workmen and a couple of policemen doing something to the road. One of the policemen followed me up the road, and told me I shouldn't continue, especially because I was alone. He said there were bears in the hills and it was too dangerous. Needless to say, I took his advice.
There are still a lot of areas of Japan that are very wild and remote. There are monkeys and deer and wild boar and tanuki and BEARS in those hills!

Related articles

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CYCLING AROUND LAKE BIWA

Image via Wikipedia

Over the last two weeks I rode my bicycle around Shiga Prefecture's Lake Biwa. Lake Biwa is the largest lake in Japan. It is just over the hill from Kyoto, only about 15 minutes from Kyoto Station by JR train. The lake dominates Shiga Prefecture and is a popular but seldom crowded area for boating, fishing, wind surfing, and swimming in summer. There are a number of interesting and historic towns along its shoreline. The road around Lake Biwa is 235 km, and you can also circumnavigate it by JR train. In fact, you can ride the train completely around for the price of one stage (180 yen)! You just get off one stop before the place you started at. It's perfectly legal. Japan Rail even advertises it.

It was my second ride around the lake. The first time was about four years ago - a very special memory because it was my first multi-day bicyle trip. It was then that I discovered how much I love - absolutely LOVE - biking through the countryside. On that occasion I spread the journey over three days, spending two nights in business hotels at Omi-Imazu and Nagahama. 

This time I went a little slower, taking five days. I wanted to explore some of the places along the way more fully, and I planned to take a lot of photographs. Rather than staying in hotels I left my bicycle in train station bicycle parking and went home to Kyoto each night. That worked out really well, because the train fare was much cheaper than hotel tariffs, and I don't much like staying in hotels anyway. Home is much more comfortable. It also meant I could take "break" days. I'm no superwoman. I'm not even very fit. I'm usually pretty tired after two days on the road, and three days in a row is about the limit (although I'd like to increase that limit.)

The only downside to heading home each night was not getting an early start. Time lost travelling back to my bicycle meant I was seldom on the road before 10 am. The hours between 6 and 9 am are always beautiful in the countryside. The road is quieter and the light is great for photography.

You can see a map of the area here. From Yamashina (bottom left of lake) I rode over the hill to Otsu, then up the West side of the lake to Omi-Takashima on the first day. The second day I explored Takashima, then went as far as Ranten (top of the lake) but had to return to Makino. After a rest day I continued on to Nagahara, exploring the beautiful countryside around the top of  the lake. The fourth day I started late and rode to Omi-Hachiman. Then after a two day break for other commitments I completed the journey back to Kyoto.

I will write more posts about the journey soon.

OVER THE MOUNTAIN

Today I rode over a mountain. The mountain in question was Hieizan, between Kyoto and Otsu. I wanted to find alternative route to Otsu and Lake Biwa than the one I usually take, along Gojo Street and Highway One. But after biking up a lot of hills on the edges of Yamashina, and finding only dead ends, I crossed to Otsu by Highway One anyway. 
 I turned right toward Sakamoto and somehow I found myself climbing the road for Hieizan. The sign said 4 kilometers. So what if I'd been riding uphill for two hours already, and the sky was threatening rain (at least I couldn't get sunburnt in the rain!)

Typically of minor mountain passes in Japan, there was no bicycle lane. In fact, there was no verge, no side of the road, only a white line and about 10 centimeters of seal. Most of the road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other, and there were buses and trucks as well, so in between flattening myself against retaining walls, and jumping in and out of ditches I made slow progress. But the traffic wasn't too heavy, the rain only lightly sprinkled the road, the heavy vegetation covering the mountainside breathed cool air on me, and just when I was feeling slightly desperate a pet memorial park (?!!) provided a clean toilet - with paper.

 I reached the top of the pass at about 3 pm, having set out from my home at about 11:30 am. I'm really not one of those super fit types, and I was feeling a little shaky by this stage, so I sat down on the kerb to get my breath back, and popped off a few shots of the entrance to Hieizan Driveway - no motorbikes or, I presume, bicycles. Huh!
A little way down the hill there was a convenience store so I replenished my energy with an onigiri (rice ball) and a double shot espresso iced latte. I bought a chocolate bar too, but it's still in my bag.

I love riding downhill. I'm no speed-freak, but it's always such a wonderful relief after slogging uphill. But it turned out that I had to keep stopping for photo opportunities. The road descended beside a beautiful mountain stream with weathered rocks and pale sandy bottomed pools. Waterfalls cascaded off the slopes into the stream, and a graceful white spotted deer bounded into the trees, started by my sudden appearance. A lovely old villa, abandoned to slow decay, rose out of the tangled growth beside the stream. A newly painted red brigde invited passers by to cross and follow a mysterious path through the maple trees. A radium onsen (hot spring) loomed over the road. A glade full of mossy stone statues demanded my attention. Finally my camera battery expired. I take too many photos, really I do. But I need to share the wonderful surprises that are why I love biking in Japan. I haven't found anyone who will come with me yet...

Entrance to Hieizan Driveway

Then, quite suddenly, I was in Kyoto City again. The stream, Kita-Shirakawa, flowed into captivity between straight concrete walls. The close-packed houses closed in around the road. Dusk fell as I rode along Philosopher's Way and a temple bell and chanting sounded from the hillside. At Keage the rain finally began in earnest, so I sheltered a while in a tunnel of old red brick. But it was still so warm I decided rain didn't matter, and I headed for home.