Fukuoka – Shimonoseki 75 miles Leaving central Fukuoka, was slow and tedious. Traffic lights, busy three lane highways, clustered and bumpy sidewalks and of course a cutthroat contingent of guileless mamachari. The weather was overcast, yet extremely humid, the vast throngs of heavy traffic and exhaust fumes only adding fuel to the surrounding stickiness. Eventually,…
Tag: Kyushu
Into the Neon
Tosu – Fukuoka 30 miles With a population of close to 1.5 million people, Fukuoka City is some 5 times larger than Saga City, making it not only the biggest city in Kyūshū but the 6th largest in the country. From Tosu it would take me just over an hour to reach downtown Fukuoka. The…
Sleepy Saga
Nagasaki – Tosu 96 miles Leaving Nagasaki, I cycled back on myself for a short time, as I headed north-easterly – returning to Isahaya momentarily before branching away toward the coast of the Ariake Sea. There, I meandered around the hazy foothills of Mt. Tara, passing through a number of laid back rural villages before…
Journey to Sata Act II
Kagoshima – Minamiosumi 35 miles I trailed southerly alongside the shores of Kagoshima Bay, its lilac blue waters as calm as a grave. Reaching the tourist resort of Ibusuki, I would round Mt. Uomidake, its cliffs rising abruptly from the road side. The sun shone so brightly that I could barely look up towards its…
Journey to Sata – Act I
Miyakonojo – Kagoshima 52 miles It was a steady rise up into the Kirishima mountain range, away from Miyakonojo, where I would shortly cross into Kagoshima Prefecture. Gliding down toward Kagoshima Bay, which nuzzles itself in between the prefecture’s two peninsulas of Satsuma and Ōsumi – I saw the symbol of Kagoshima filling a triumphant…
The Mountains, Yakisoba and the Hangover
Beppu – Kamae Oaza Kusumotoura 81 miles It had rained during the night, the ground still wet, stripping the atmosphere of its humidity. A temporary affair however, as by lunchtime the climes had scaled back up into the 30’s and I was beginning to feel quite sick. The previous night’s alcohol consumption clearly had not…
The Bloody Hells of Beppu
Shunan – Beppu 57 miles The early morning ferry across to Kyūshū was a bit of a bruiser: rustic, noisy and completely battered. Only myself and a small handful of other fellow humans would be risking passage to Oita Prefecture’s Kunisaki Peninsula – a remote area of farmland stemming down from the foothills of Mt….
Tokyo to Tokyo 