12/04/2014 Ishinomaki – Minamisanriku Today would be a deplorable mess with some half-arsed personal planning doused in a contingent of anti-social roads. Traipsing the Oshiku Peninsula regrettable. Situated just 45 miles away the Peninsula makes it the closest part of Honshu to the epicentre of the 2011 quake and again would make this one of…
Author: dsd_uk
Part time adventurer and full time slave to the wage.
Touring the Sanriku Coast – I
11/04/ 2014 SENDAI TO ISHINOMAKI The notion to be pragmatically angry at a botched night’s sleep, especially a paid for botched night’s sleep would I genuinely feel have been warranted. But as soon as I was packed and on the road muscling my way through the inner city traffic and out towards the coast I…
Down in the Land of the One-Eyed Dragon
In the 17th Century there lived a Daimyo with balls of steel, a guy so hard that when he came face to face with the smallpox as a juvenile he plucked his own eyeball out giving him the nickname of the “one-eyed dragon”. That Daimyo’s name was Date Masamune, and as he grew he became…
The Fallout of Fukushima
History dictates that Japan is no stranger to Mother Nature’s wrath, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, torrential rain, landslides and typhoons have all blighted Japan’s islands for millennia. Situated precariously along the so called Pacific Rim of Fire a number of the earth’s tectonic plates converge enabling islands, mountain chains and volcanoes to formulate. It is here…
A Tale of Snow & Piss
I awoke early from my slumber knowing that today a formidable task lay ahead of me. One that had been lingering in the back of my mind intrepidly for some time. For today I would attempt to tackle the Bandai-Azuma Skyline, my greatest feat thus far. The road traverse’s for some 30km through the Azuma…
The Murder Stone
Nasu to Nasu-dake A thin layer of snow had settled over night giving me the perfect excuse in which to build some snowmen. I hated how cold it was in the mountains yet the sight of my snowmen over breakfast gave me some warmth and encouragement. The 8km climb up to Yumoto Park today from…
A Spring Winter’s Day
Approaching Nasu should have been a straight forward affair. I made sure it wasn’t though and spiced things up by taking a country road that would essentially lead on for an eternity and further on into oblivion. Things always get a little nervy when you haven’t seen a road sign for a town for at…
A Return to Nikko – II
I awoke the following rainy day having had an odd dream, to clean my bicycle chain I use a toothbrush, a very oily toothbrush I might add. In the ethereal realm and against the science of hygiene it appeared to be perfectly acceptable for me to use this toothbrush in order to clean my teeth. I…
A Return to Nikko
The ascent up to Nikko was a steady one, yet despite all the training over the past week or so I found it surprisingly draining. I think every now and then the body just needs to recharge, all the physical exertion obviously taking its toll, which is exactly what I planned to do upon arrival…
Gyōza Town
Utsunomiya, vibrant, sensual and quite simply just rammed full of gyōza! Embedded between a number of swanky café’s and bars dotted around town you’ll find a number of gyōza joints offering up various adaptation’s of the Chinese dumpling. Legend has it that a number of Japanese soldiers during WWII obtained Chinese dumpling recipes whilst occupying…
Tokyo to Tokyo 