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…
Tag: Tokyo to Tokyo
Yakushima: Land of the Giants
Yakushima 28 miles As my ferry from Kagoshima approached the Miyanoura harbour, I was greeted by some unusually clear skies, for in this part of the world – the locals will often joke – it rains 35 days of the month. The island’s topography consists of a wild and rugged interior, dominated by a number…
The Legend of Pokémon Yellow
Kamae Oaza Kusumotoura – Miyazaki 91 miles A couple of trucks arrived late and left their noisy engines running, whilst a parade of drunk girls stumbled about in the car park, screaming and shouting, seemingly in search of some trucker cock. At around 4am, a man was outside my tent, chucking his guts up, it…
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….
Meeting the Locals of Miyajima
Hiroshima – Shunan 74 miles Typhoon Halong, which I had been bracing myself for, never made it to Hiroshima, a front of heavy rain passed, but a brunt of the storm passing up through Kyūshū and Shikoku, wound up heading east – colliding heavily with the Kii Peninsula where it would cause widespread damage to…
The Shimanami Kaidō
Matsuyama – Onomichi 72 Miles Matsuyama was a breath of fresh air, when compared to the other three capital cities of Shikoku. The largest of the island’s cities with over 500,000 inhabitants, it’s a city beautified with an abundance of green space, pilgrimage temples, a steep hilltop castle and the rather special Dōgo Onsen. The…
Typhoon Cycling and Other Jilted Memoirs…Part 1
Kochi – Matsuyama 89 miles No longer considered a typhoon, but still an unprecedented threat, ‘Severe Tropical Storm Nakri’ – as it would become known – was bang on course for Shikoku. According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, it could well be with me by lunchtime. This would lead to a change of plan, as…
The Warm Shower of Kochi
Tokushima – Ikumi 65 miles I slept well in Miguel’s air-conditioned apartment; recuperating handsomely from the previous night’s lost sleep. Having a late’ish lie in, I left Tokushima at around 8am. By 8:10am, the furnace of the sun had reduced me to nothing more than a fleshy puddle of sweat. An hour or so later,…
One Thousand Rice Paddies
Mitsukejima – Kanazawa 111 miles I’d managed to survive the night without being coerced into any deep crevices; in fact, as I left surrounded by a spooky sea mist, I could hear my camping neighbour snoring contentedly. If I wasn’t so eager to push on, then I may well have been jealous of his sleeping…
The Japanese Alps – Part 1
Ueda – Norikura Kougen 65 miles Judgement day pulled closer; apprehension and dread becoming a commonly frequent fixation of my latest dreams. All because of the Norikura Skyline, a road that scaled the roof of the Japanese Alps at some 2,715 metres, officially making it the highest road in Japan. But not the highest public…
Tokyo to Tokyo 