Japan keeps calling me back. It has undergone a massive influx of visitors due to a poor currency and the ease of getting about on their slick rail system. And then there is the politeness, the calm, the amazing food and rugged mountains. I’ll venture North on my bike to some familiar, some muscle easing Onsens, like the historical Sukayu Onsen and then a ferry to the more remote Hokkaido island. Trying to stay clear of the cities and enjoy the rural towns and slower lifestyle.

  Well no one is flying via the Middle East, you couldn’t pay people to go to the States, and it’s cold in Australia (where I live) so if you don’t want to stay in a grass hut in some cheap and cheerful Asian resort it only leaves Japan. Actually Japan is in my top five places to visit worldwide. Why ? Difference. Every day they will bewilder you, surprise you and fill you with humanity. But with that comes a price, Tokyo is currently teeming with tourists ticking off another famous city but the real Japan is still there hidden a short local train ride from Tokyo. I say local train because the Shinkansen has allowed the more adventurous tourists to spread along the famous Shinkansen lines. But a few more stops on a local line and you’ll only see locals unaffected  by the foreign influx. So for all the buzz sty in Tokyo but I was out of there the following morning only venturing back to fly home. We all travel for different experiences.

                   He’s on another holiday I hear you collectively groan. Yes, I have not a care in the world except that my holidays occasionally need some micro managing. On those days it feels like work, if I remember correctly.  On full alert and in twitchy mode I’m awake before the alarm. Downtown Tokyo is just outside my hotel and a million unknowns in an unknown country could derail my day. I wont relax until I’ve navigated a few trains and have my bike reassembled. When it’s just me and the bike, back in control of my own destiny, talking to myself and anyone else within earshot.

          My hotel room too has its own logistical problems. There isn’t a millimetre of unaccounted space in a Tokyo hotel room (that I can afford) so I find myself dancing around the bike bag sitting like a plump sumo wrestler in the middle of my room. I was lucky to convince them to let me take it to my room. 

          Sometimes I have this dream of arriving somewhere and having a man in a cap (preferably a bike mechanic) bow and hand me a ready to ride bike. It’s an alluring and repeating dream. I bow, he bows, careful not to spill the contents of a small oil can he is holding in his white gloved hands and I pedal off. Instead I have a bike bag, a bed, a shower/toilet cubicle and me all on top of each other.

           The Japanese breakfast is as much an allure to my eyes as my stomach. Plates of fish, bubbling pots of soup besides perfectly rolled noodles ready to plop in. Of course I go the familiar muesli to start but it’s the slurping soup with submerged whiplash noodles that will finally satisfy my stomach and set me up for the morning. And then there is the bowing to all and sundry. Reception, the attendant taking my breakfast ticket, the lady cleaning the tables, the locals emerging from the lift, repeated in reverse on the way out. I finally venture out into the early morning throng towards the Main station without the burden of my bike and get my train tickets. 

            It always feels like half of the world’s population are at Tokyo Main station, people scurrying everywhere, all knowing where they are going except me. I luck in and amazingly find the correct ticket office immediately and there are amazingly few inside. That’s because it’s too early for inquiries on the Japan rail pass. Ten minutes later I have tickets for today and future tickets firmly in my paw. So sooner than I thought I am wrestling my bike into a special Japanese bike travel bag and lumping everything else into a sports bag. 

            This is where things get tricky. I roll my no longer needed plane travel bag down to hotel reception. The earlier receptionist’s smile fades to a look of concern. My bag is too big for them to store. I imitate squeezing it up and tying it into submission. No one else is as enthusiastic as me except for a young hotel cadet. He immediately scurries off to find a ball of ribbon and together we manage to at least show our best intentions. I think his puppy dog enthusiasm won over his manager in front of me. I wonder where the bag will be in a few weeks, not in his office is my guess. 

            Before they change their mind I whip upstairs and grab everything else and lump my two large bags out the hotel door. It’s a short walk to the Shinkansen which will get me half the way to Tochigi, then a local train to Kiryu, my starting point. My concerns were more about finding the correct platform amongst the sea of illegible directions. I find my platform with help and Japanese kindness. My Shinkansen pulls in as we all stand obediently in our designated lines waiting to board. Inside the train the cleaners are given exactly ten minutes to wipe every seat and tray table, replace every headrest liner and in a final gesture the seats are rotated to face the new direction of travel. A bow and they turn and leave. I feel like shouting “Yes, yes a new world record on platform 9.” Instead I quietly plonk myself down in my seat after finding a home for my bike bag. Then I let the calmness and quiet of the Shinkansen wash over me as we flash in a blur across the countryside. 

                  Mid morning I am on a local line to Kiryu just in time to find the restaurants opening for lunch. All I have to do is rebuild my bike and bow as I enter the restaurant. I spend the afternoon peddling about the town. Kiryu has more than its share of small artisan type businesses. Little shopfronts with someone at a sewing machine, maybe a hand printer covered in paint selling posters or someone making leather handbags. The list is long yet the town is quite small. I spend a night with Gabriel and Yuko at https://www.okiyaguesthouse.com/ . It wasn’t by luck that I chose to start here. I have stayed in their guest house  previously and it is beautiful. A very old but well maintained historical timber home. It was once owned by a geisha (some terrific framed photos of its history) and the present day warm hospitality you receive is worth sidetracking for. 

                    Next morning I wave goodbye and start my over ambitious schedule. Just under 1000 kms in two weeks. I set the distances so there is only me to blame. At least the Spring mornings are bright blue with no cloud. I don’t realise then but my only constant for the next few weeks will be rice planting machines. With winter finally gone all hands turn to planting rice in the flooded fields. Oh I’d love to have a crack at wading one of these spindly machines loaded with boxes of iridescent green seedlings out into the quagmire. Wheels turning, seedlings plopping in perfect Japanese lines. Every piece of available level land is used. 

                 After quite a few Japanese hotel breakfasts I should never be surprised at what is on offer. The more rural you venture the less the English language, the fewer hints. So I’m sitting in front of what is described in some hip Australian cafe as ‘foraged.’ Ok, from the forest, I get it. What is in front of me, colour coordinated from milky white to deep earth brown are bits of things that you come back from a hike stuck to the bottom of your boot. That’s probably being a bit unfair but they were certainly foreign to me and to my unwavering trust. Fearful of losing face I tucked in. It’s never what you expect, usually it’s the texture I am unprepared for. Some morsels are so subtle as to wonder if the object had fallen off your chopstick half way to your mouth. Today I proudly ate predominately plant based things… to a point, then I realised I was still starving. 

                 Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a chef standing at his serving table. I imagined omelettes freshly served out of the pan but no people were queuing for his masterly knife-work on almost ten varieties of glistening fresh fish. The Japanese alone will fish the seas to extinction. I think even crusty old red starfish aren’t safe from this lot. After all my slurping, face pulling and concern over what I had allowed to slip down my throat I finished in a very righteous Western way by slurping a cafe latte and a croissant. The day could now officially start.

                 The familiar sights of previous trips start to fill my days. The trusty Japanese convenience stores, Lawson, 7/11 and familymart have saturated this country and I doubt there’s a local who doesn’t visit one at least twice per day. They are part of the fabric of local life here and a cyclists best friend. Not just a resting place but a place of experimentation and dare. With not much in English to guide you I have made some interesting and questionable purchases but am here to tell the tale. So as good as their egg sandwiches are every time you enter you need to venture deeper into their amazing offerings. There is probably twenty varieties of iced coffee alone to scratch your head over. Soon enough you’ll have your favourites and your never to returns.

               It’s late in my day and I have just clicked over one hundred kms, I have twenty to do when I roll through a small town just as school finishes. Suddenly I am caught up in a swarm of youngsters on their bikes, all in school uniform, full of bravado and the joy of escaping the classroom. I veer from the footpath to avoid them and one takes this as a challenge, then another and another. A slow rise in the road up ahead says I should shake them as I turn my much longer legs. But local knowledge also means they know this hill like the back of their hand. Voices rise, they are out of their seats pushing and reducing the distance between us. I am starting to blow air, puffing like a steam train but something inside says no. These cheeky buggers aren’t going to beat me to the crest… even if it kills me. The wheezing has got raspy, there are droplets of sweat on my helmet and I search ahead for the top. It could have easily finished with five young boys staring down at an old bloke dead on the edge of the road. Instead I rolled over the summit waving back in triumph but only just. 

                Fukushima ? isn’t that where the nuclear power station melted down after an earthquake erupted and a huge tsunami crashed against the shores ? When was that, I ponder. Turns out it was 2011 and I’m glad it happened in Japan and not one of a hundred other countries or the accident would have not been treated quite so well. Fifteen years on and in bright sunshine it’s hard to believe the photos I saw back then of the panic and pandemonium, sirens blaring, people running. Today the city has been transformed, beautiful water features circle the city. I have a feeling that the Japanese government threw a lot of money at the city to help it forget. Twenty thousand died, tens of thousands were evacuated never to return but slowly things seem to be recovering. I peddle on serenely wondering what it must have been like in the centre of the storm. Something most Japanese live with due to being the most seismically active country in the world. 

                       So after all that seismically talk it shouldn’t be a surprise to tell you that later than day I arrive in Sendai. A bustling city and a place where one restaurant or bar after another turned me away for not being Japanese. I was about to give up, five bars or restaurants and counting when a smiling waitress offered me a stool at the bar. Five other bar stool customers lifted their heads from eating or drew another deep breath  from their electric cigarettes. After 128 kms I was starving, I could have said “I could eat a horse” and there it was on the menu. I chose some skewers and a deep bowl of wet noodles with murky bits of sustenance floating about. The tankard of beer that arrived was substantial. Others around me nodded, I’d been accepted. I tried to tip the tankard without a rush of Sapporo beer drowning me. I mostly got it down my throat. 

                    Towards the end of my meal all of the phones in the restaurant began flashing, mine included. I looked at the screen ‘earthquake warning’ take shelter… all around me people picked up their phones then put them back down. A eerie silence fell over the place. The walls started to shake, the floor, my beer sloshed about. I looked around for some guidance, no panic but no joy either. For five minutes no-one spoke. And then it appeared to be over because someone nearby said something and everyone returned to smoking, drinking and slurping their meals. I wandered back to my hotel room which was too many floors off the ground, I wasn’t happy about that after the bar experience.

                      I had checked my itinerary  numerous times but obviously not enough. I had made a rookie error and in planning had missed a resting town completely. Now 100 kms /day I can somehow manage but 200 kms in this hilly country, forget it. The only answer was to ride to a station and take a couple of trains to get to my booked hotel as planned. It entailed an early start Sunday morning with doubts about accessing the trains with my bike again being returned to its travel bag. 

                       Thankfully a ticket collector with early morning time on his hands was able to help me punch my requirements into the wall of ticket machines. I would have to get another ticket for a different train company further on. Fifteen minutes later my personal ticket man is back at my side, “I can get you a discounted Sunday ticket all the way !” Fine, I think, but I’ve ready bought the ticket. No, he announces shaking his head I will give you a full refund and start again. I doubt this would have happened anywhere else on the planet. He was actually prepared to lose face to admit there was a better option and then help me, it was beyond the call. As my second train, a dinky two carriage diesel snakes its way ever higher into the mountains to a place called Yuzeonsen. I thank whoever is looking out for me that I didn’t attempt this leg on the bike which is sitting quietly next to my seat. I also know that tomorrow morning I have to continue 100 kms further into these same mountains so best I have a second beer with dinner. I should have made it three. 

                        I arrive completely shattered at my accomodation, the slow steady climb over 25 kms has done me in. The two girls at Sukayu Onsen reception bow towards me, They think I am acknowledging them but the truth is the top half of my body is bent from exhaustion, that moment before el collapso. I hold my passport in my unsteady hand and evidently I check in. A hotel guide is called to show me around as no one actually speaks a word of English here. Best to show not attempt to explain. He points out the male only Onsen, the mixed Onsen with the seperate entry bathrooms and then he ushers me upstairs to my room. 

                   I was good till then, half smiling, half nodding but as my legs went to lift on the stairs there was a revolt. Not complete mutiny mind, just a wobble and lack of surety. Somehow I got to my room and he turned and left. I looked around the sparse room confident that prisoners back in Australia have far more comfort. A table, two low chairs, a mattress so thin it could be folded in three with a duvet and pillow atop. I tried to slide steady down onto the chair but of course it was much lower than my brain had calculated, thump. 

                And that’s where I sat for an hour till something inside summoned me to venture with hope in my heart towards one of those rejuvenating long soaks, the rejuvenating mountain onsens are so famous for. First the self infliction of squatting down low on a milking stool and dousing myself with water, soap, more water and another rinse for good luck. But how to get up from this tiny plastic stool without cries of mirth from the other bathers ? I almost had to pull on the probably scalding hot tap set to get momentum. If that was me in the reflection of the mirror, how sad. Tall, wet and naked I strode confidently into the onsen like it was an everyday event. I don’t think the regulars were fooled for one moment. 

                   Did I feel rejuvenated later ? Kind of, but the truth is what I was looking for, no demanding, was a miracle. I’d been promising my legs, punished on those climbs some relief once we got to the Onsen. Judging by the age of the others here, all quite late in life, they too were hoping some soaking in hot mineral springs was going to strip away the aches, the pains and possibly 20 or 30 years.  

                   Sukayu Onsen is an old, old building thick heavy beams, dark wood. It has a feeling of sturdiness and so it needs to as 17 metres of snow falls annually here, the most of anywhere in Japan. No wonder the natural background music is the thunder of water cascading down from the surrounding mountain tops. There is a story that hunters found an injured deer soaking in the warm mineral waters attempting to heal itself 250 years ago. Since then locals have been coming here for its healing qualities and this classified building goes back almost 100 years. 

                After breakfast I get this crazy idea that a walk up to the nearby Mount Hakkoda will get my legs pumping. I pack a bicycle bag with water, snacks, hat and puffer jacket and head off. Of course it’s upwards and I stride along enjoying the crisp air and pounding sound of cascading water. Once I step into the hiking path  and over a layer of snow it is obvious where the noise is coming from, the snow melt is in full swing. 

              I pass three elderly Japanese women in full adventure gear, walking poles clicking. Out of my way ladies please… I leave them in my wake. At first I dance around the biggest puddles in my trainers. But slowly it gets wetter and wetter. The rough steps in front of me are like a cascading waterfall. I have to turn back, I don’t like turning back but my feet are already drenched. I know I will soon meet the three ladies fitted out in their goretex everything and sturdy poles. I know they will be muttering whatever the word for pussy is in Japanese. They are right, I nod, they nod, I move on with much less swagger. I’ve checked out the word for pussy in Japanese… pusshi which means I would have clearly heard it. They were too polite of course. 

              Early the next morning I leave the mountains and fly down towards the coast. 75 kms and only the first of it with any climbing. I’m feeling good when I reach the ferry terminal at Hachinohe. I have six hours to kill before my overnight ferry to Tomakomai. I go to buy my ticket a small bunk room on the ferry for  A$150, not bad for transport and hotel. I reach for my passport, it’s not there. I tear into my few other bags and come up with nothing. Oh dear, I check my emails there is one from the Onsen, all in Japanese. I google translate “your passport is at reception” I get that sick feeling inside. I handed my passport over on arriving but exhausted I didn’t realise it hadn’t been returned. I can’t ride 75 kms back up that hill then return to the port before the ferry leaves. I send a message ‘if you cannot get it to me here in Hachinohe tonight I am on my way to pick it up.’ The reply is simple “We cannot” 

             I am back out the front of the ferry terminal, I’d spotted two taxis sitting quietly when I arrived. Now there is only one, he is staring straight ahead wondering how long till he goes home without a fare. I thrust my phone on translate through his window “How much to take me to Sukayu Onsen and back ? He starts doing some sums. I don’t like his mathematics but in all honesty he made an initial mistake, it was an eye watering A$5000 or half the cost of his old taxi. He finally gave me a more realistic ball park figure. 

            I jumped in and we were away the meter flicking madly. He made great time back to the Onsen. I ran in they handed me my passport with a bow. I had time for a pee but the meter on the taxi was running. All up the exercise took just over three hours. Good driving in good time by my taxi driver. I had calculated it was going to be around A$3/km based on the flicking numbers. So around 150kms X A$3, sadly it was a little more, A$475. Gulp. But I had my passport and had already paid for my future accomodation so that’s the price you pay. Just a shame the Onsen is in such a remote place or other options would have been available. I rolled my bike into the ferry and was asleep before the ship left port. Emotional fatigue. 

             The ferry pulled into Tomakomai port at exactly 6am. I was first off. I was still smarting over the passport but would eventually have to let that go. But where to get breakfast in a town that hadn’t woken up ? So what does an elite, yeah right, athlete eat before they embark on a 100 km ride finishing in the far off mountains ? Two spicy fried chicken things, a banana, a donut filled with a surprise red bean paste all washed down with a sizeable iced coffee. I was full but equal parts sluggish. I pushed off. I had time to work off breakfast because my route didn’t take me near another town until I had reached the 90 km mark. Finally I got to sit outside a shop eating a take away bowl of rice and chicken when a young girl on a triathlon bike rolled up. She returned from the store and began shovelling in a similar meal. “How far are you riding ?” I asked. 150 kms she replied and with that she leapt back onto her sleek carbon fibre racer and was away. I crept up the nearby hills like a tortoise for another hour. Eventually I circled the beautiful Lake Toya to find my rather swish hotel then slumped into my room. A bit of a pattern is forming. The view out over the lake was stunning or so they say. I am unsure whether it was my fatigued vision or the low lying fog, so I just nodded and stared in the general direction.

                It’s only two more days back to Hakodate, another port town and gateway back to Aomori. I’ve seen no other bike packers since I started yet on my second last day I spot three and then two more at my guest house. I meet the two Irish cyclists after returning with my supplies for breakfast. I’d seen the cycling shoes in the entry but hadn’t heard a whisper. We trade stories of getting to where we currently are. They have another week of riding and had worked their way up from Kyushu in the Deep South. It was their first bike packing trip and they had bitten off a big one. Top to bottom of Japan, nearly 3000 kms with minimal training. Oh to be young with fresh legs.

               My navigation app, Komoot is equal parts friend and enemy. This morning I was slowly grinding my way up a quiet hill when suddenly it showed me turning into a farm. It wasn’t really a farm once I got nearer, more like some huge animal factory. Most of the animals are kept inside due to the harsh winters so managing their food, cleanliness and waste is a real issue. I’ve rolled past literal mountains of slightly steamy cow dung, my nose confirming,  my eyes watering. But that’s beside the point, Komoot sent me down this farm path which of course became a track and then petered out into a forest. Then I startle two deer minding their own business. They take flight not expecting humans here, I need to read their presence as a sign. I’ve been down this path before and ended up lost and injured so regrettably I turn and march my loaded bike for an hour back uphill till I’m firmly back on bitumen. Back at the top I could see where Komoot was trying to take me but no one had used that forest path in years. 

             I peddled away unscathed and just around the corner near the edge of the forest I come across a forest fossicker or is that forager ? A lady of undetermined age dressed in green trousers and a bright red coat, shouldering a bag sprouting long lengths of evidently edible greenery. Her morning harvest from the forest. I stopped and attempted to talk with her. She wore the face of a person always in the elements plus back breaking hard work. But it was the bells and horn slung over her clothes that had caught my eye. Her bear protection, I pointed and shook my head like that’s not gunna work. She squeezed the horn, I couldn’t see any hungry 300 kg brown bear running from that sound but I bet they would somehow leave her alone.

              I sit in my hotel bed in Hakodate tired but happy that I have been able to execute my plans for this cycling trip North through Japan. I love this country, the landscape so rugged and fertile. The people especially. I say it often but there is still civility here, politeness and process. Even though I speak few words of their language the process is strong. If you simply think what would be the right thing to do in this situation you are almost always right. They generally follow the rules, give each other space even in a heavily populated cities and show legitimate courtesy to each other. It’s not perfect I have witnessed their xenophobic ways myself. They are one of the purest of races. We too could go a long way to being a better society if we followed some of their fundamentals. Let’s be honest the real world is a melting pot today.

                And just like that I am whisked back to Tokyo airport for an overnight flight home. Breakfast in Melbourne, the whole thing already turning to a dream. I shall return Japan, where exactly next time I am unsure.