Aroooound the bay and back again!
Minority and I and our little bicycles made it all the way to the tips of the Mikawa Bay peninsulas and back again to Nishio, safe and still friends, last weekend ^_^ (And also just in time to watch the recording of the Super Bowl with our friends... big disappointing end to the day >_<
It was about 130 kilometers, a challenge and the hills almost did me in... hills and a certain failure to turn, which led us over an extremely huge bridge with lots of wind that spanned the whole ocean I think... but we persevered... Minority let me use his bicycle sometimes ^_^ He looked so cool on my cute little schoolgirl bike :D ha ha. And we also encountered some lovely and/or amusing people along the way ^_^
Here's our start: outside Hananoki Elementary School, Nishio. With our trusty Super Mapple!--marked with huge assistance from our friend Al Capone (ありがとうね！arigato ne! thank you!）Our first day was about 50 kilometers. And we sort of took it easy.
We headed south, through Kira and then over the hills of Kota. Can you see how far UP we bicycled? That town at the bottom is Nishio / Kira. >_<
In just an hour we made it down to Gamagori. We stopped off at Takeshima, a tiny island shrine with a huge bridge stretching out to it. Minority hadn't been there. Beautiful as ever.
Oh! Well, I always look at the wishes at shrines now, ever since my friend (Roba) found one that was really funny ^_^ Today, someone hopes he can be a jockey some day ^_^ Awesome. And he/she mispelled jockey ^_^ ちょう かわいい。 cho kawaii. so cute.
And then we biked for about 10 minutes and stopped at the fish market at Laguna. Yummy! They give you tons of free samples and stuff... but Minority doesn't really like fish. Right. Why did he come to Japan?? But I really enjoyed myself ^_^ It was really 懐かしい。natsukashii. took me back to when I first came to Nishio. ^_^ My student/friend took me there maybe my first month in Japan ^_^ This picture is of a big pile of seaweed.
Turns out that although Minority hates fish, he really likes raw fish. Weird guy. So we ate lunch here. And I also noticed the dialect this time! The fish vendors were saying "Maido!" along with the general "Irashai mase!" or "Welcome! Please come in!" "Maido" is what they say in the west, Kansai dialect. Like in Osaka, the big city in the west of Japan. But they use some Kansai dialect here in Mikawa area, too. I figure it's sort of mixed with the peculiar dialect here... Mikawa dialect. Apparently, Mikawa dialect sounds pretty country to people in the city ^_^ My friend's son is going to University near Nagoya, and she says he tries not to speak in Mikawa dialect because it makes him sound so country ^_^
After lunch we continued on our way... getting a liiittle lost.. adding another hour or so to our trip >_< but we finally made it to Tahara.
It was just getting dark and getting so cold when we made it to Tahara. Sooo lucky that Al Capone had looked up a internet cafe for us to stay at. We asked for directions at a Sugi Pharmacy (love Sugi!) and the pharmacist printed us out a map and everything ^_^ Tahara people are nice ^_^ Turns out we were a block away from it
It was the best internet cafe ever! The name is Aprecio and they have cafes all over Japan... I think I'll look them up next time I go somewhere. So.. in Japan, net cafes, or manga kissatens (mangakissa) are really common. You can pay per hour to sit and use the internet, read manga, drink free drinks--because ours was so awesome they have karaoke, place to do your laundry, massage chairs, other awesomeness. And they also have night packs so you can stay all night.. pretty cheap lodging.
We got 10-hour night packs for 2200 yen, about $22.00 (And thank God they had showers here for only an extra 100 yen. I was so happy.) And they had this amazing free breakfast in the morning! It was a really, really nice mangakissa. Quite comfortable. I had never stayed at one before... only used the internet at them, but Minority had. Lol the gappers are just too poor ^_^ (Our pads were side-by-side.. we have the door open in this picture.)
We were so cold and frustrated trying to find a place to eat in the dark, but by an error in kanji reading (which Minority was humiliated for the rest of the trip ^_^) we happened upon a lovely little restaurant with people so overly-accommodating in helping the gaijin-san navigate the menu (which we could read quite well enough and which was also highly saturated with photos to guide us if we couldn't..). "Gaijin-san wa tenpura ga suki deshou?" "Foreigners love tempura, right?" Yeah.. so I ended up with the tempura. Even though I almost never get tempura anymore. She gave us this stamp rally map though (if we eat at enough of the restaurants we get some free food or something..) and a survey to fill out. LOL. That was fun to figure out. They enjoyed having us I guess, and we had fun. And we got free dessert out of it, too ^_^.
The next morning, after our luxorious breakfast....
...we headed out to the tip of the Atsumi Peninsula. Our second day, we did 80 kilometers. We were supposed to catch the 9:50 ferry across the bay... but we sort of misjudged the distance and got there just in time for the 11:15 ferry :o The area after Tahara was beautiful. Mountains and farms. It really reminded me of Indiana heartland, except for the mountains ^_^ Then we hit the ocean, and it was really beautiful. The ocean is still quite captivating ^_^ I'm still not over how big it is yet ^_^
Irago, at the tip of the Atsumi peninsula, is famous for strawberries and melons. We stopped and got these 花火苺 hanabi ichigo fireworks strawberries ^_^ so delicious!
The ferry ride over was lovely. Nice to sit down in a comfy seat for awhile (and here awhile equals 40 minutes). Here, we are taking our bikes out from below. We, of course, sat up on the deck.
On the other side, on Chita Peninsula, we ate some ramen for lunch ^_^ The city name is Morozaki. It was Morozaki specialty ramen... which Minority got not realizing it was loaded with all his most-hated sea creatures.
We enjoyed riding by the sea for quite a ways. After awhile, we were just driving through towns, and they got to looking quite a bit like we were driving though Nishio for hours. But still interesting. And our road became impossible for bicyclists, so we had to find a new way around... Minority says, "Oh well, if you weren't with me, I would try it." Yeah Minority, and you'd be dead soon. Or someone else would be. :o >_< (Note the "no rickshaws" ^_^)
Then we rode and rode, until Handa, where we found the No Sumoking Bar :D
...then crossed through the Kinuura Tunnel under the bay between Handa and Hekinan, and came back to Nishio ^_^
We made it back to central Nishio about 5:30. Obviously, we made a lot better time day 2. Still, we didn't even push it that much.
I highly recommend this route... it wasn't too hilly. You can see even by the terrain view on Google maps that this area is relatively flat. The view wasn't stunning until we got down to the tips of the peninsulas, and then it sort of turned into hours and hours of Nishio again after we left them ^_^ But still interesting, and totally doable in 2 days. I think next time... I'd like to try taking the ferry to another city... We can go across the harbor to Ise and Ise Shrine! Maybe it'd be worth it... ^_^
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