Eric's Wacky Tales

Biking in Japan

Today the weather was pretty nice, so i did the Kibi bike route as recommended in the guide. The route entails taking the train to an outlying area of okayama, then renting a bike at the station where you then follow a recommended bike path to Soja where you can then drop the bike off. Pretty nice change of pace to tour the area on the bike. It was sort of a weird area cuz it was almost rural in the sense that there were rice paddies everywhere. Half the bike ride is pretty much in the middle of rice paddies. Theres a few temples and shrines along the way, as long as some people burial mounds, however I visited a major one that supposedly looks like a keyhole from high up, but it was more or less just a hill with lots of spiders and mosquitoes! (Im starting to get eaten alive out here! )

So about midway through the trip i discovered "hey, they gave me a girls bike!" Then, after observation for the last 4 or so hours, i discovered all the bikes out here are girls bikes (with the bar angled down from the steering column as opposed to straight across). Other thing i noticed is that many bikes are in fact locked in a way. Basically theres this little bar that can be slid in between the spoke preventing someone from just riding away with your bike. Its pretty subtle though...

So the bike ride was about 15km and took about 3 hours to finish. I then took the train to Kurasaki which is famous for it historical quarter in which it preserves a number of old building styles (which have all basically been converted to souvenir shops or restaurants). Some parts were pretty nice, but on the whole, there was a lot of construction work going on, and on top of the cars sometimes parked next to the buildings, the spider web of electrical lines running about all the buildings detracted from the effect of an "old historical town".

Returned back to Okayama by about 2 and, with some time to kill, ventured out to the Sega "Joypolis" and a budget mall next to it. Nothing all too thrill, so im just chilling now at an internet cafe.

Ah, thats right. I didnt go over yesterdays event....lessee. Visited Okayama castle which is called "Crow" Castle because of its black exterior. Didnt go in considering the number of castles ive already been to. Right next to it are the Koraku-en gardens which are 1 of the big 3 gardens in Japan (one other being in Mito and the other in Kanagawa). It was a pretty nice garden with just about everything...lawn, forest type settings, fruit trees, ponds, even had an aviary where they kept some birds (egrets?) for display in the pond.

After that, i just wandered through the entertainment districs (amazingly similar to all the others..gaudy flashing lights, multi storied, etc) and the outdoors shopping arcades.

Met a swiss guy in the Hostel named Stephan who was pretty interesting. Hes an avid traveler and did a 2 yr round the world trip about 3 yrs ago (he was going through the ME during 9/11) and it was his first time in Japan. So he was a pretty hardend traveler with all sorts of stories about getting his pack stolen in South America(he fell asleep on a bus) and such, but stuck to the guide a surprising amount..it sounded like he probably read it 3-4 times as he knew about all the places id been to even though he didnt visit them himself. He had an interesting story about a hostel manager out in Kagoshima chewing him out for not calling ahead, and then proceeding proceeding to follow Stephan in his car pulling over twice to continue to chew him out! Guess im pretty lucky i havent run into any of those types!
(Although there was a guy in the train station today screaming and yelling at apparently nobody, taking a few steps, and then beinging to scream and yell again...)

OK, random thoughts and Q&A time since ive got another hour of internet time....

Fruit in Japan. Holy cow its expensive! An apple or peach costs about 2 bucks. And I saw some really, really expensive melons.....Theyre called Musk Melons. I dunno why, but they were about 12,000 yen in a nice gift box. They had some as cheap as 6,000. Only fruit that seems reasonably priced out here are bananas.

...
Baths

Well, what can i say? It seems to be a very japanese thing to do with everyone from the young to the old doing it. It really aint so bad, although its also not really any different than just soaking in a hot tub (WITH a swimsuit) back in the states. The hot springs, with there added minerals, are supposed to have added thereapeutic value but who knows? The beppu guide actually has a list of ailments with a list of hot springs that are best for treating them! Ive actually run into many foreign tourists in the hostels who have, surprisingly, gotten into the onsen thing as well. The guy i just met, Stephan, was the only one so far who was like "Onsen? Hmmm..i still have to try...are you like, naked?"

....

Changing Money

Oddly, the ATMs or the CCs havent been giving extraordinarily good rates. Theyre actually quite comparable to the rates ive been getting changing TCs (except for the last time). Weird thing is that cash gets a worse rate than TCs; most other countries ive been to have been opposite. Unfortunately, lots of the ATMs here do NOT work with foreigh issued cards, so ATMs end up being a little less convenient than TCs. And many places dont take CCs...

Ok, tomorrow off to Matsuyama on Shikoku! Oh yeah, and ps, saw some info on the earthquake today in Hokkaido, but im waay far from Hokkaido right now so everything's ok. Hard to believe i was just there 11 days ago though!

Posted by eric at September 26, 2003 01:35 AM