Hiroshima

I remember talking with another traveler during the Kumano Kodo who highly recommended visiting Hiroshima as he recalled it being a special place to visit. At the time, I had no plans to visit and so I took note and quickly moved on in our conversation. While my initial plan after Kyoto was to head North for some backpacking around the Japan Alps, a large typhoon threw a wrench into that plan so instead I headed south towards Hiroshima.

I didn't spend too much time in the city though I found it to be quite charming. My main highlight within the city was walking through the Peace Memorial Park at night a park in the center of the city extremely close to the epicenter of the atomic bomb. Walking through at night with few other people was a special experience walking by the monuments to victims as well as the A-Bomb drone: a distinctive building which has been left in its original state after the bombing as a memorial to the blast.

The next morning I went to the museum which while a very somber experience was a very important and moving museum to attend. It was hard to not be emotional walking through the museum reading accounts of the victims, both those who perished in the initial blast, or those who dealt with the fallout for decades. I'm very glad that I was able to visit the city and see the museum. After the melancholy of the museum it is refreshing and uplifting to walk around the lively and charming city that Hiroshima has become.

In the early evening, while doing some research I noticed several people come into the hostel and start setting up a game of scrabble right by the table I was working at. After asking an employee I learned that it was "English Night" where locals trying to improve their English could come at chat with some English speakers. I thought it sounded like fun so of course I joined! Lets just say that I am my father's son and I dominated the scrabble game we played hahaha. Ok well that is expected but it was a really fun time and I enjoyed meeting with everyone and learning about their lives. They gave great tips for places to visit and I was able to return the favor dispensing some advice to a high school student planning to attend university in the USA.

Before the scrabble session while browsing the internet I found out about this bike route that you can do crossing Japan's inland sea. I thought it sounded like great fun and after a few more hours of research, thought it was achievable. Its incredible how last second you can plan when you have a tent!

Shimanami Kaido

So the Shimanami Kaido bike ride passes over 6 islands of the inland sea with each island crossing having its own cool bridge to cross with some of the bridges being huge. Pictured above is the direct route which is a roughly 60 km (38 miles) bike ride one way. Bike rentals are available at both sides with some of them offering one way rentals to make it much more reasonable. While some people will do it as a one day route, I was convinced by several articles which recommended instead to divide it into 2 days so that you can see more of the area. As such, here was the 2x longer route I intended to follow.

With all the exhaustive research and assurances that there was a camping site halfway through the ride as well as bikes available, I set off the next morning on my next adventure! I would soon discover that I *may* had bitten off more than I could chew.

It was pretty easy to get to the start point from Hiroshima. At the train station I dropped off most of my stuff in a luggage locker (Japan's luggage lockers are my favorite thing), rented a bike, took a ferry, and got started! The start was a little bit slow because I had not ridden a bike in 2 years. I was especially hesitant biking in the streets, luckily there were wide side walks and after an hour or so I had left most civilization behind and was on the open road!

The bike ride for the first island was nothing short of phenomenal. Similar to the Kumano Kodo, it was exhilarating to be relatively alone while traveling through stunning views. The coastal roads I took had me going through rural Japanese fishing villages, passing beaches with beautiful inland ocean views. Its times like these that I had have to pinch myself and say "is this real life? How cool is this !?"

After biking through the first island I was ready for my first bridge pass. The cycling infrastructure is awesome here and there is a standardized 3% incline leadup to every bridge, usually a kilometer or two which will lead you onto the cyclist path over the bridge separated from cars which was delightful. However this was my first clue that my casual bike was not excellent at inclines. While I was able to make it through without the need to stop, I could tell that it was a bit of a workout and that this bike, especially weighed down by all my camping gear, could not handle much steeper grades for a long period time. With my much relaxed biking schedule after crossing the bridge I stopped along the path for a sweet treat:  "Hassaku Daifuku" a delicious mochi filled with an orange slice. This was alongside the best orange juice I've ever had.

With the first island conquered in good time I was feeling great and headed onto the next island. Due to the train schedules, I wasn't able to start early. I am now biking at 1pm with 90 degree heat and extremely high humidity. Here is the uphill I am unknowingly about to tackle.

Remember me mentioning that my bike isn't well suited to uphill? To get up a 10% grade I think the bike needed a -4th gear because even on the 1st gear it took all my strength to move the bike even just 20 feet and I would consider myself having some strong legs! Needless to say this combined with the heat and sun was one of the hardest physical challenges I've faced in quite a while. Even walking the bike up the steep hills was hard! This was where I realized that my strava route was made by an actual cyclist with a proper bike and extensive training for such uphills. What I read online about this being a reasonable challenge for even beginner bikers was talking about the DIRECT route and not the one I had chosen. Yay for me!

The first island took me just under 1 hour while the second island took over 2.5 hours!! Luckily well placed rest station as seen above were a great chance to take a break in the shade. I suddenly became very aware of the dangers of heat exhaustion and made liberal use of them, especially considering I still have many more miles of biking ahead of me. This was one of the few spots where I started to doubt my decision.

After the hill from hell I was able to get a good break at a convenience store for some lunch and "Pocari Sweat" the very popular Japanese sports drink that quickly became my go to for the rest of the ride.

Feeling a bit deflated on the rest of the bike ride after my exhausting past 2 hours I was a bit worried about getting to the campsite while there was still light. I still had one more island to traverse before arriving at my accommodation. Thankfully the road evened out and I was able to churn through the kilometers! Along the way I stopped for some well earned gelato (again being the sweaty exhausted biker in the middle of a quaint shop), and a Japanese temple which told me they closed 5 minutes before I arrived (still bummed about this it sounded really cool).

In the final 5 miles of day 1 I finally had to confront the problem most people had warned me about: a sore butt. Before I embarked on my bike journey I had asked my much more experienced cyclist friend Alex Smedley if 80 miles in 2 days with zero biking training was achievable and he said certainly. It was only after I finished the ride that Alex revealed he had neglected to warn me about the soreness because he was afraid it would scare me off the ride.

Just as my legs started to cramp up (my legs are built for 1 rep max squats not all day endurance), I came into view of my campsite. Initially the check in desk didn't seem to want to let me pitch my tent so I did my best to play up just how tired I am (when the lady got her boss she I was sitting off to the side in my own puddle of sweat). Who could be so cruel as to turn away such an exhausted biker as I? After taking pity on me in my decrepit state and an expensive camping fee I get to setting up my tent. I forgot all about the camping fee when I saw the campsite.

The campsite and surrounding area as I found out is kind of like the Outer Banks for the Japanese. Its called sunset beach as it faces the west and has a lovely beach with beautiful views, a beach side restaurant (which of course closed before I got there), and many happy families playing in the water. After the day I had I couldn't ask for a better place to jump in the water, cool off, read a bit of a book, and watch the sunset.

Similar to the Kumano Kodo and what I'm realizing in the moment about rural Japan is that all food sources CLOSE AT 5 PM. That's still insane to me. The only place close enough for me to eat (and I am starving at this point) is a 15 minute bike ride away, which is the last mode of transport I want to take.

However my starvation wins over my soreness and I bike there as sunset is fading and get to the restaurant. However when I get there it doesn't seem like a normal quiet Japanese restaurant but instead like a rowdy pub. I walk in and its packed like a house party with a bunch of young people drinking beer and having a good time. Immediately about 1/3 of the room turns to me and CLEARLY I don't belong there. I try to ask if the place is open to eat at. Luckily one guy my age speaks a little english and explains to me that tonight is members only. Its like a reunion I think for all the young locals of the island.

I probably looked so defeated as this was the only food option within biking distance. Upon seeing my crestfallen face he reconsiders and suddenly laughs and then puts his arm around my shoulders and said "tonight you are my guest!". He escorts me to the kitchen and helps me order some chicken, rice, and beer. And so I eat my meal while the youth of the inland sea party and chat around me. Most ignore me as I don't speak Japanese but every few minutes some of them will come up to me and make short conversation. My new friend who let me in chatted with me in broken english for a while asking about the USA and drunkenly teaching me a few Japanese words (from our incoherent conversation I believe he was teaching me how to hit on Japanese women). I was just content to eat my food and watch the festivities. At the end of the night they ask me to take a group photo of everyone which I gladly did and afterwards everyone yelled and told me to get in the photo too!

I would always hear these solo travel stories and think them so outlandish and improbable and didn't believe any of it would happen to me. But now after having a few of these types of stories myself I realize its just par for the course. When you're by yourself you're forced to interact with the world around you (unless you spend your entire time inside hotel rooms), and then these interactions just happen after awhile! Also as a solo traveler the many kind people I've met always seem to want to go out of their way to interact and help you which is how these stories pop up. It really is such a great way to meet people that you would never in a million years interact otherwise and I think I'm starting to get hooked on it.

Day 2

The second day is mainly dominated by the following thoughts: "Ow sitting on this bike seat hurts so incredibly bad", "ok my legs are cramping again", "I'm over this", "if there is another uphill I'm going to cry", and finally "I wonder how much money it is to get a taxi to pick me and my bike up and drop us off at the end".

This day was just about finishing and getting back to Hiroshima to catch my train to Tokyo the following morning. This can be seen by the following suggested vs taken route.

Along the way I stop at a local history museum with a cute rose garden and excellent air conditioning. Much less stopping for photos now. I make my way through the islands. At long last I cross the last (and longest bridge) with nothing left in the tank. The sun is now high in the sky, I'm low on battery and spent. Unfortunately the last bridge is not the end point and the bike drop off point is still another 6 KILOMETERS UPHILL away. I think I stopped 3 separate times during this last leg of the trip. At last though I make it to the bike shop and collapse in the air conditioning to recover.

The ending town is not very interesting and I have no interest of being stuck there so I buy some water and cheetos before taking a bus back. As it turns out this bus back across the inland sea is incredibly busy during this time. I was incredibly lucky and thought that I would check out the bus station 30 minutes before the bus arrives to which I already find a massive line stretching out of the bus station. I get in line not entirely sure that there's any way a bus has this long of a line. Well thank goodness I got in line because I was the 2nd to last to make it into the bus, avoiding a 3 hour wait. It's a funny bus ride that takes just 90 minutes to drive the same path you just took 2 days to bike. I promptly passed out onto the man next to me waking up almost missing my stop, which of course is still another 20 minute walk and ferry ride back to my original starting point.

At last my shambling, dirty, sweaty form finds an open ramen restaurant for an excellent meal before taking a train back to Hiroshima. It was a packed 2 days of adventure which I'm so glad I did. Its funny to me that I was so bummed to miss hiking in the north but do to the typhoon, I got to do this awesome trip. I guess thats the upside to being so flexible (aka not planning anything)!

To fill in the gap before the next blog post, over the next two days I take the bullet train to Tokyo, then metro to my old hostel to pick up my international drivers permit that was so nicely mailed there (thanks mom!). Then I take the train to Narita airport for my next adventure! No rest for the weary.