Holy crap a castle！

On another ferry, this time to Himeji, site of a world famous original castle.
Shodoshima was pretty unimpressive, despite vigorous promotion. although the soft serve ice cream at Tsukudani was the best ive ever had.
Apparently the japanese dont eat raw carrots, and even mentioning it to the onsen desk guy prompted him to offer me some corn. it came sealed in plastic, and i think he boiled it in the bag. ate with the last of the butter mom bought.

seeing siena today！<3

also every time i take a ferry i think of the"Im on a boat" music video.

Okayama

Had some good experiences in Kurashiki and sme mild disasters in Okayama. The hostel owner and other guests in Kurashiki were amazingly friendly and taljative. the town itself has a pretty meiji era district with a canal and a great art museum.

Okayama is supposed to be the original location of the folktale Momotaro, and there are statues everywhere. it also has Korakuen, one of the three best gardens in japan. pics to come.
lost my shoe somewhere on the way to the ferry to shodoshima, which i wouldnt have caught in time anyways. ended up back downtown at a business hotel but it wasnt so bad.
now on the ferry to Shodoshima.

It sucks to wake up to rain. Its supposed to clear up by the afternoon, but it makes everything more complicated.

Anyways, I have some pictures and stuff.


Here is my mom in front of the Miyajima Otorii at high tide. This is considered one of the three greatest views of Japan.



This is the castle at Iwakuni. There are a lot of reconstructed castles in Japan.
Getting to Iwakuni was a terrible suburban slog, but the historical park around the castle was lovely. There were three stray cats lying in the road when we arrived.

This is the famous Iwakuni bridge. Built in the feudal era after several previous bridges washed away, it was reconstructed in 2004 using traditional techniques.

Blogger keeps inserting pictures at the beginning of the post instead of at the cursor. Grr.

We didn't make it all the way to the next town, but camped in a small town on the way. I:d post a picture if i weren:t getting sick of this computer.

Next was Tsuwano 津和野,　which is famous for a heron festival, a street with carp swimming under it, Christian martyrs, and an Inari shrine with tunnels of hundreds of torii.
Next was Hagi. It's got castle ruins, but mom has all the good pictures.


After that was some lovely countryside and twisty forest roads to Akiyoshidai, a limestone plateau with that Karst (had to look it up too) and caves.
The sign says "Hell Plateau," I think because the Buddhist hell has lots of pointy rocks. I took a picture of the full sign to translate later.

Here's the entrance to the cave. Most of my pictures inside the cave are blurry, but highlights include Mt. Fuji and "1000 plates."

I already posted our best picture of Shimonoseki. I think I'll do our Kyushu adventures a little later.

Back in Hiroshima. Saw mom off on the bus to the airport, and I haven't gotten a desperate phone call so I think she's made it safely to Tokyo. I'm contemplating my next move and realizing that I don't quite yet have the patience to go through my pictures and write all about the past few weeks. Maybe when I make it back to Osaka.

I've done a small loop now, from Hiroshima to Kyushu and back again. Soon I'll be closing the loop with Osaka. This is kinda cool.

Went to a Jamaican place for dinner, which was pretty good but not amazing. It's charming that a Japanese family would create a Jamaican restaurant. Then I went for a second dinner because kids in the hostel invited me and that's what you do.

Contemplating my next move, and what to do with the next few days. It'll depend a little on how long it takes to clean my bike tomorrow morning. And when the bike shop opens (I hope it opens in the morning). But i'm pretty sure now that i'll head to Okayama, and take a bike path to Kurashiki.

Oh, and today i went to the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary art. It was really cool, especially their exhibit on "the uncanny," really about ghosts and goblins and creepy things. I especially like this guy Nishio's drawings of ghost women.

Northern Kyushu is gorgeous

Caloriemate comes in a yellow box that does not look like it would contain food. Inside is essentially shortbread. i have been using them like energy bars, or at least trying. the last one was potato flavor.

Kyushu is lovely

Kyushu!

Kyushu is a great island. Unfortunately we have to be back in Hiroshima by Friday, so we can:t go too deep in.
Anyways, the roadside fruit is delicious, the tonkotsu ramen (Fukuoka:s famous dish) is phenomenal, and the people are very friendly. Oh, and the scenery is lovely.

It did suck to ride in the suburbs in the rain, and to try to shepherd my mom with her bike in a bag through the train station. I fell once before the rain started, too, and my hips are still a bit sore.

Currently at an international hostel in Fukuoka, and it:s nice to hear people speaking in English (even with a New Zealand accent), about their adventures hitchhiking in the 70s. I:m thinking about spending the next few weeks at international hostels in Osaka and Kyoto, seeing all the gardens and temples and making 1 or 2 day trips to Ise and Amanohashidate.

Shimonoseki 下関

These statues comemmorate the Genji-Heike battle of legend, in the 1100s. The bridge goes to Kyushu.

Internet at hostel here is some open source thing that breaks when i use blogger. will post pics from last week soon, i promise.
on to Kyushu today. excited but will be nervous until i get the map book.

lots of good sights and fun riding these past few days. mom distracts me from posting every day, but next computer ill post some pics.
saw limestone caves today and rode along a karst.

Kintaikyo bridgd

Hiroshima

Hiroshima is a wonderful, cosmopolitan city. I really enjoyed taking a break from the riding and hanging out there. I really love Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, which is a grilled thing with layers of batter, cabbage, soba noodles, some other filling, and egg. Way better than Osaka style. ;P I also had tsukemen, which is a Chinese-influenced cold-soba dipping thing, and today at Miyajima I had the local anago eel.
The Peace Park is very moving. I could just imagine the bomb exploding over the park, and looking at the pictures and diagram of before and after is so intense. The Sadako monument, aka the children's peace monument, was the most moving for me. Sadako was a girl who died of leukemia 10 years after the bomb, and she became a symbol for the anti-nuclear movement at the time, as she tried to make 1000 paper cranes before she died.

We finally got on the road today, although it was all a suburban slog with trucks, until we got all the way to Iwakuni. This is a historic town with a famous wooden bridge with a bunch of arches. We're staying at the youth hostel here, since we went so slow today, what the with rain and taking my mom to Miyajima. Tomorrow we're heading north towards Nichihara. I'm guessing that's about as far as we'll get.

Utsukushima

One of the three most beautiful views in japan.
〓

Had a crazy day. i need to learn to take it easy.
i decided to go all the way to hiroshima today. figured it wasnt that far, but didnt count on the hills or the heat or the crazy suburban roads. i ended up too far from anywhere reasonable by sunset.
lucky for me theres plenty of room at the miyajima youth hostel. i even ended up taking a train cause it got so late.
the best part of today tho, was a country lunch place that was so charming and had delicious food. they were so excited to have a foreigner. it was hilarious.

So i dont forget：
the lady who works at the cafe looks like Liza Minelli, and powdered creamer is called Creap.

Made it to Onomichi yesterday, which turned out to be really cute.the owner of a coffee shop all about author Fumiko Hayashi waylaid me and gave me free oj and offered a place to stay. i didnt take him up on it until i got to the campsite and freaked out about squatting. ill have to get over that eventually but right now im eating a delicious free breakfast.

End of shimanami

Now taking the ferry to Honshu

Halfway through the Shimanami kaido, the trail through a bunch of islands between shikoku and honshu. loads of great views and archaic tourist attractions.

Day 3:102 km

I am covering much more distance than i expected.
crossing the mountains was really cool, though i took the tunnel and skipped the 2nd pass.
several cute cafes, edelweiss as a morning siren, and great luck at getting a campsite. the restaurant/onsen has an adjacent playground i can use if i stay out of sight〓
the only bad parts today were losing my map book when zipping downhill and the final 20 km through stinky suburbs

Today is my mountain climbing day

On tv, a japanese obama impersonator just did the best ever at biking across a narrow floting strip wo falling.

Day two

Took it easy today, but got everything done.hopefully ill sleep better tonight.
currently at a restaurant on rt194

My first day was pretty cool, except that it rained all afternoon.i didnt make it to the campground until after dark, which meant no washing up. its not much of a campground, just a park with space and level ground.
didnt sleep well so ill take it easy today

best part of first day was chatting with other travelers at a rest stop.

シュッパーツ！

Heading out tomorrow

The weather looks kinda bad but im still trying to go about 115 km (71 miles) from here to 高知 Kouchi tomorrow. Itll be along the coast so im pretty sure i can do it. The next concern is finding food along the way, and then finding an onsen and the campsite at the end.

After that its mountains, so wish me luck.

WWOOFing has been okay, but im pretty sick of tomatoes. i def dont want to be a farmer when i grow up.