One of the riders is determined to ride 20,000 miles this year. He knew this was his only chance to accomplish that feat. Since we didn't dare ship our bikes to Japan, he bought a bike for $60 so he could ride. Around 12km out of Kyoto he went to shift his three-speed internal hub only to realize he had bought a one-speed with coaster brakes. He arrived at our Amanohashidate campground at 11am on Sunday the eighth, showered, changed and headed off again.
Meanwhile, most of Odyssey spent our layover day hiking. There is a three kilometer long 100 foot wide isthmus which divides the Aso Sea from Miyazu Bay in western Japan. At the end of the flat isthmus people could start climbing to whatever height they desired. Some opted only to take the funicular railway to the first level maybe 500 feet up. Others kept hiking past the pagoda and the unstricken bell up to the Nariaiji Temple - "the temple where one has one's wish granted without fail if only one offers a prayer and makes a vow to the principal image of Buddha at this temple." A few people, including me, kept climbing UP Mt. Nariai to the highest panoramic viewpoint some 2000 feet above the water. One of the cultural habits on this mountain is the belief that one can see heaven from any of the viewpoints by bending over and looking between one's legs.
When I took the tour of the Imperial Palace, the tour guide pointed out the significance of the color of the cloth on the borders of the straw mats. Red was for the lowly and white the highest. That's why the vast majority of Japanese vehicles are white, and red is as rare as a country without a McDonald's.
Even more ubiquitous in Japan are vending machines. Vending machines dispense cigarettes, pop, coffee and tea (hot and cold), and ice cream. While an American vending machine might have four to six kinds of pop, a Japanese machine can have 20. The same holds true for the other kinds of machines. The only machine that had only eight choices was an ice cream dispenser which only sold Haagen Daz bars!
In the stores, it's very easy to find something with fish, but hard to find a normal cookie. I've been lucky finding a one-inch diameter Japanese copy of Pepperidge Farm's Milano cookie in a pack of 20 for 75 cents.
Amanohashidate is crowded with Japanese tourists and almost no westerners except for Odyssey people. When everyone I don't already know is Japanese, it becomes easier to notice individual features and see how many look like people I know back home. I actually did a double-take when one looked too much like my brother.
On Monday the ninth, rather than busing, some riders opted to spend big money and take the bullet train to Hiroshima. People who hired a bus to skip the beautiful Transkei in South Africa didn't want to ride in a bus in Japan so they're spending over $100 for a train, plus hotel and meal costs. Go figure! On our bus trip of Japan, we saw a LOT of terraced rice fields and a school building that looked like a cross between a nuclear power plant, a medieval castle and a conquistador's helmet. It really looked like an architecture student's wooden model of a fantasy design that NOBODY would actually build.
On Tuesday, the tenth we bused to Miyajima, an island off Hiroshima, but we had to stop on the way at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
"The damage done by the A-bomb was so catastrophic that the conviction that humanity cannot coexist with nuclear weapons - that their use must not be allowed - was deeply rooted in the minds of the people of Hiroshima ... and began its journey on the path to peace.
Atomic bombs are weapons that were used in war. To prevent their use a third time, they must be eliminated from the face of the Earth; the resolution not to fight with other countries is important. The path to peace begins with even the smallest steps."
Happy Trails,
Bruce