Goodbye Japan



Curiously enough the Japanese don't use "sayonara", as it basically means a final goodbye!

Our complete Japanese trip



So we have only a day left in Japan. Tomorrow we pack the bikes up ( more on that later) and get the bus to Hiroshima airport, then to Tokyo and from there to Bangkok and lastly Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

We have spent the last 6 days or so in Hiroshima, mainly because the weather has been somewhat autumnal, which in this part of Japan means wet. Fortunately its allowed us to get a few things sorted out and do a bit of planning for Thailand. First problem to overcome was a very poor bit of planning on my behalf, which was to assume that we got 90 days visa exemption in Thailand. Oops - it's only 30 days. Fortunately we can extend this, but the old saying that assume makes an ass out of "u" and "me" holds particularly true.

Our bikes came out in bike cartons that I begged from Halfords, who, bless them, always had a good stock of them and happily gave them away. The bloke that claims that they are readily available in all countries doesn't appear to have visited Japan, as we have not had much luck, despite trudging some miles around Hiroshima asking at local bike shops. We have therefore bought "Rinko" bags, soft bags designed to cover and protect that pack up quite small. Tomorrow we cycle the bikes to a pre scouted area in front of Hiroshima station where we get to find out if our bikes will fit inside them!

We visited Hiroshima a couple of years ago, and of course one of the main draws of the place is the tragedy of the first atomic weapon being used here. There is a museum and of course the well known remains of the trade centre that serve as constant reminders of this event. On this occasion we found another building, the old Bank of Japan that also survived the blast, but also houses a pretty graphic exhibition of drawings made by survivors very shortly after August 1945. Somehow it is even more poignant than the museum: there are marks everywhere that bear witness to the violence of the explosion. Both here and in the Peace museum there is no blame ascribed to either side- just a plea to remember what happened here some 72 years ago.

We had a "favourite things" discussion today, and the results are as follows.

Favourite place. This has to be Tsuwano, a samurai town that we visited on the way south across the hills from the Sea of Japan to Hiroshima. It's a museum piece- they have even buried all electric cables under the streets and has a fabulous main street with lots of old shops. Either side of the road are little drainage ditches in which live the most marvellously coloured and huge koi carp. It's great fun to buy a 100Y bag of food from the little honesty boxes and feed them. We stayed in a great value little ryokan, and went for the recommended half board. Dinner was in the kaesiki style (lots of impeccably presented small meals) that just kept on coming, and was a great way of learning about traditional ingredients, including devils tongue ( a jelly made from the root of a local plant), and salt baked sweet fish, so called because the flesh has a slightly sweet taste. Not sure I could discern that though.

The main street leading away from Tsuwaro

Colourful, and indeed hungry carp



Favourite campsite- Kotohiti beach where we stayed for a couple of days, complete with hot springs on the beach.

Favourite moment - any of the moments when we got brought presents of food by the locals, invariably when we were wild camping.

Lovely lady who brought us goodies

Home made Ongiri ( rice cakes with seaweed outside, buns, freshly cooked eggs complete with a little foil container  of salt, kit kats and two bottles of tonic liquid)


Favourite wild campsite - Our last night by the Sea of Japan by Masuda. Gloriously warm and a soft red glow when the sun set, followed by the sea lighting up with all the lights from the squid fishing boats.
Masuda 

Difficult to capture with an iPhone, but squid fishing boats


Favourite food from convenience stores - a close run thing between the 100Y for two pancakes and the fried chicken on a stick.

Oddest sight. A book devoted to cats photographed with strange things on their heads.


Most disappointing bun: This - a bun that appeared to be chocolate chips, but turned out to be dates. And I hate dates!


Biggest let down.

This picture shows a whole load of very keen Japanese photographers. On asking them what the event was, it turned out that they were waiting for a special train. I assumed that it was some ancient steam train, but in fact it turned out to be a very ordinary train, but just painted with cartoon characters.



Cutest things: The animal shaped ubiquitous barrier holders anywhere there is roadworks.
I'm not sure that the positioning of the area for holding the lower scaffold pole was thought through thoroughly enough.

We also saw bears and pandas.




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