Pasta!

I keep meaning to write about Hetalia, a new sensation in the anime world. Its about the anthropomorphizations of various nations, particularly Italy and Germany,and its hilarious. Siena and i saw posters and other stuff all over Akiba.
Go look it up, im tired of typing on my phone.

Henro

I should explain that henro is a pilgrimage to 88 temples around shikoku, and an ohenrosan is someone making a pilgrimage.
harvested today. back is tired. afternoon
cycling is fun tho

行見

Ikumi is apparently famous for its surfing. its nice and a lot different from farmland in the US. Saw an ohenrosan yesterday.
ive decided to bike from here to Hiroshima instead of starting in Kyushu, and then we can loop thru the south together.
Typing on a Japanese phone is hard.

到着。

Gorgeous mountains and coastline. Went to onsen right after picked up. farmers are two young guys who seem pretty cool.

ADVENTURE 時間

I am on a bus leaving osaka for SW Shikoku. I know not what I willfind when I arrive. the elderly couple across the aisle have wonderfull rural-sounding accents

TESTING POSTING FROM PHONE

One week in

So I'm in Osaka tonight, chilling out after an exhausting journey from Ueno in Tokyo to Moriguchi. It was exhausting both because it was an all-night bus ride, and because I had to carry my bike on my back through various train stations at both ends of said bus ride. I need to stop carrying my bike and start using it, or at least figure out how to arrange it in the special carrying bag so that it doesn't poke me in the spine.

Anyways, this week was pretty awesome. We had a variety of awesome food from around the world (the Japanese do wonderful pasta and pastries, not to mention yakitori and tonkatsu), saw some wonderful sights (Minato Mirai in Yokohama and Odaiba are both great futuristic date spots with Ferris wheels), gawked at bizarre outfits in Shibuya, and shopped in famous places. There were a few other great miscellaneous things, too, like some quite successful purikura pictures and acquiring a cell phone.




Oh, and we went to Tokyo Disneyland. Siena will probably do more on that since she's a big Disneyland fan. It was my first time at a Disney resort since I was like 5, and it was pretty fun. Everything is designed to be fun to look at, and of course it's exciting to see my favorite Disney characters parade by. I read an essay on Tokyo Disneyland back when I took Japanese history, but I just have to say, the quintessential symbol of Tokyo Disneyland is the Mickey Mouse shaped manju (steamed pork buns).

I'm always coming up with regrets and anxieties but generally overcoming them. Every once in a while I wonder if I forgot some crucial item while packing, or remember how I failed to contact any previous host families. Or I wonder if I should have just started biking through Kyushu instead of working on a tomato farm in Shikoku for a week. But every once in a while I get really excited about hitting the road, like when I met up with Oliver and heard some of his stories.

First day in Japan

So today was one of those incredibly long days, because that's what happens when you fly west. I got up at 5:30am, came up with several last minute things to worry about which were of no consequence, and got on a plane to Newark. It was pretty cool to land and see Manhattan and Liberty Island looming out of the fog.

Anyways, Continental has a pretty good selection of classic movies. I watched Edward Scissorhands, the third Matrix movie, and Chinatown. I was pretty disappointed with all three. Oh, and I finished Obama's Challenge which was pretty good reading.

But yeah, then I landed in Japan, and moved through immigration and customs pretty quickly, and found myself in Siena's arms. We rode the slow train to Ueno, checked into our really cute and tiny foreigner's hotel, and set off for Mosburger and Conbini snacks. I'm not going to dwell very long tonight on the glories of Mosburger (Siena discusses her current favorite sandwich here) or Japanese snack foods (Green tea teramisu kit-kat, anyone?), but suffice it to say that I am very happy to be here.

I haven't opened up my bike suitcase yet, but I'm going to assume everything is okay. And now I'm going to sleep.

My sweet ride

Here's a picture of my sweet bike with panniers. Eventually I'll load it up with everything and take another picture but I didn't feel like strapping the tent stuff to the back.


Here's my cute custom label. It makes me feel cool.

First!

So this is my new official public blog, chronicling my three month adventure in Japan. I'm leaving in a week, and I'll likely write about my preparations. At this point I don't know how often I'll have access to the Internet while I'm in Japan, but hopefully I'll at least be able to get a cell phone and post via email there. Or I'll copy things from my notebook whenever I get the chance.

Anyways, I'm currently in the process of gathering all my materials. I've got a sweet custom-made folding bike from Bike Friday (the Pocket Crusoe), and super light tent and sleeping bag from REI, not to mention really nice, nearly new panniers that were pretty cheap on ebay. I also want to give a shout-out to Kanji Sono Mama, a program for Nintendo DS that will serve as my language dictionary. It's great 'cause you can use the touch pad to enter kanji you don't know, removing the biggest language barrier.

Just a quick preview: I'll be spending my first week in Tokyo with Siena, who will be on spring break. Then I'll work on an organic farm in Shikoku for about 2 weeks. Then I'll start the cycling in earnest, beginning in Kyushu and working my way North. I'm generally following this route but with lots of detours.

For the past few months I've been soliciting recommendations for places and people to visit - let me know if you're in Japan and anywhere near where I'll be. In the meantime I'll be freaking out and riding around with dictionaries in my panniers.