房総半島 Boso Peninsula

In Japan every year during spring there is a week that contains 4 national holidays which normally amounts to a full week of vacation called Golden week. It was our luck that this year most of those national holidays fell on weekends so that we have two long weekends instead of a solid week off. My two friends Ezra and Ben and I decided to use the first three day weekend and go explore the most southern part of the Chiba Peninsula a two hour train ride away. This is the story of our three day bike tour adventure.

The coast where we landed, at a train stop called Onuki, is just a two hour train ride east but as I live in the outskirts of Tokyo, a two hour train ride in the opposite direction brings major changes. To set the scene, spring in Japan has alternated this year from windy rainy days, to winter cold days, to sand storms daily, so we were incredibly lucky to have three perfect 70 degree sunny days in a row that corresponded to our vacation days.

Our first real memorable moment came to us after taking a side rode searching for an elusive Café Sigle for which we saw a road sign proclaiming a café and gallery. After pushing my bike up a hill, missing the sign, and wandering around a bit asking for directions we found a closed café. As luck would have it though, at that same moment of disappointment (which was not so disappointing because we were standing atop a hill overlooking the beautiful ocean) Tajima and her husband pulled up to their home next to where we were standing. Tajima proceeded to ask us simple get to know you sort of questions which led to us entering her garden, which led to us being given parsley, cilantro, wasabi leaf, lettuce and a bag of summer mandarin oranges to aid us in our journey. It was our first taste of the curiosity and generosity of people whom we would encounter on our route. Having bikes overflowing with camping gear and being three strikingly handsome foreign men helps to attract people ́s attention.

The only brush with potential disaster occurred right after this meeting when we tried to follow a seaside cement path. I was following Ezra on his small folding Brompton bike and when unexpectedly the path became completely covered in sand, enough to stop a bike flat, I ran square into his back wheel and almost flipped. Luckily we were able to bend his aluminum fender right back and no real harm was down to anyone.

We continued on our route that day which led us south passing through many unexpected little pit stops. One of which took us to a very convincing recreation of Shakespeare’s childhood home. Another led us to a taco stand in Tateyama where we met a elderly couple that had lived for 17 years in the United States between LA and Indiana, and came back to start a taco shop which advertised with pictures of their gargantuan and very drooley Bermese mountain dog. Another stop led us to Café Concord which Ben had discovered during pre-trip research. The owner, Sakuma, is apparently a world expert in a certain type of tube amplifier. We had a beer May 1/2013 and talked with the 70 year old wise-man who was crazy enough for me to think him wise. He asked me what music I liked. He seemed to be an expert in jazz so I felt funny saying jazz, and my Latin American music preference always leads to questions that I don’t really know how to answer yet in Japanese so I responded that I like music but that I don’t know much about it. He said that I must devote all of my energy to woman and laughing and winking, said that he does too. We rode away and when we were about to turn the corner two blocks away from the bar we heard a yell, and turned around to receive our 70$ change that we had forgotten to grab from the bar. Another 気お付けて (take care!) and we were off on our last leg of the day where we cut inland at sunset and had a most pleasant ride on star filled, car free, frog percussion rythmed, wisteria scented roads.

One of the funnier moments was when we had just arrived in Tateyama and went to the information center at the train station. We found it closed but very quickly and nice woman who worked there walked past and answered our questions. While we were describing in broken English and Japanese what we were doing Ezra said that we were “hugging the coast”. He went on to explain that in English we say “hugging” to mean following and he held out his arms and the woman thought that he was trying to hug her and was very confused and a bit intimidated. It was a great scene of cultural miscommunication and although Ezra was able to explain the whole thing in his very nice Japanese there was definitely something that was lost in translation there.

We really had no idea where we were going to sleep for the night arriving at the southern tip of the peninsula and had only a vague idea that there might be a hot spring there to bathe. We inquired at a large hotel and they told us that we could use their bath which is always the best way to end a day of cycling. We bathed up and asked about places where we could potentially camp. We were told that we would have to ride another 7 kilometers which none of us wanted to do. We opted to check out a 道の駅 (michi no eki-roadside station) which normally includes a place where they sell vegetables, and they have a bathroom and a big parking lot. They are like the Japanese version of a big roadside stop on a highway in the US. We are new to this whole camping in Japan business so we were basing our information off a Wikipedia article that said that camping anywhere that was not private property is not complexly illegal and not so frowned upon, so we gave the cement to the side of the station a shot for the night. We only had a two person tent in which snorey Ben and I slept, which left Ezra to construct a shelter out of my tarp bike bag, two light sleeping bags and a zip- up mesh hammock inside of which he slept. Apparently he slept just fine, as did we.

Day two.

The next morning we awoke and packed up camp and gave some of our cilantro to a very cute Korean family who had slept in the parking lot in their big van. Our breakfast that morning was on the seaside eating the salad we had received the day before.

Very soon after we started a peddling we came across a festival. I was immediately drawn to the band performing which consisted of an American singer backed by a Japanese band. He was an incredibly talented singer who was singing perhaps the worst possible American “WOW that’s what I call music” collection of songs. I quickly abandoned him to look at the very interesting assortment of art and food that the festival provided. The highlight was definitely being roped into buying a 7$ jar of fig jam by a very interesting older Japanese woman who grew up in Connecticut and later lived in Chicago who now picks the fruits that grow in the valley by her house and makes jam with them.

Our next stop was a very cute café called Strawberry pot which had a window overlooking a garden and the blue ocean. The place could and probably has appeared in design magazines and had a perfect mix of simple antiques and thoughtful details. The owners where very kind and were very curious about our adventure and we were happy to sit and answer them while drinking our coffee and soaking up the atmosphere.

As may be evident by now, we were easily distracted by anything and were not so dedicated to putting on miles every day. Every day we only did about 50km but had very fulfilling days and I feel like we really appreciated every place that we passed through. We certainly could have stopped even more as this part of Chiba offers an amazing display of culture from very hip coffee shops, to beautiful beaches to traditional shrines and temples.

Again, in Kamogawa city it was very difficult to pass up so many interesting, eco café ́s and we did end up stopping at one called Earth tree café where Ezra had a great time entertaining the owner ́s 4 year old daughter while I looked at a tree house magazine and Ben sipped a coffee. The place was all wood on the interior overlooking a pine tree forest and I particularly took a liking to the full tree trunk used as a two story support beam and the wooden latch, recycle wood bathroom door.

My favorite part of day two was a mile or so stretch of road that broke away from the busy road that we had been following the whole day and hugged the ocean. Apart from a man walking a very short legged dog, we were the only ones on the road with a mountain to our left and the open ocean at sunset to our right. And as if that image wasn’t perfect enough, a hawk was flying beside us as we took it all in cruising up and down mild hills.

We arrived into Katsuura well after dark and were tired and wanted a bath. We asked the first onsen we found and were told that it was full but that there was one in the next town. We checked the iphone and got a hit a couple of blocks away which turned out to be wonderful surprise. The sento (public bath) was placed on a little road that just barely fit one car in a residential section of the city. You opened the wooden sliding door just under the broken lit up sign and walked directly into the changing room. That means if someone leaves the door open any one walking past can look right into the changing room and bath filled with very naked people. It was a very charming, very old place frequented by local families and it was a great place to soak up the scolding hot water and some local culture.

We again had no idea where to sleep, so we wandered around town looking for a place to eat and ask for suggestions. This led us to a sushi restaurant which was closed so we just ate our already somewhat stale baguette with our fig jam, listening to Bob Dylan under the stars. It was a delicious uncomplicated meal in unsophisticated surroundings, spent reflecting on the day. It was followed by a drink of absinthe at a simple jazz bar filled with possible Japanese gang members and a guy in a sweater vest reading a book. Afterwards we were directed to a random dot on an iphone map where we were told maybe there was a park where we could sleep for the night. It turned out to be nothing, but we did find a shrine atop a hill which provided for perfect lodging for the night. It overlooked the ocean and was in a quiet part of town so we assumed that it would be alright for us to sleep there for the night. We were afraid that a monkey might steal our squid that we had bought, or attack Ezra in his makeshift shelter but luckily nothing happened during the night and we were awoken by the sun early in the morning right before a woman came for her morning prayer.

Day three.

In the morning we had a very nice chat with an older gentleman and then while looking for a place for breakfast and water we discovered that the town was having a great farmers market complete with 90 year old, bent over woman selling their carrots and a purple haired, leopard pant wearing 70 year old woman who sold us some delicious cod on a stick. We also ate “biwa” for the first time which apparently is famous in the region. It was delicious but sadly not worth the 10$ that Ben spent on 6 of them, treating us. Thanks Ben.

We got back by the sea, cutting through small town and getting lots of こにちわ(good mornings) and waves as we road through. Eventually we arrived in this gorgeous beach town called Odjuku, filled with surfers and families enjoying the three day weekend. We had an extra hour to kill so we somewhat inappropriately changed in the parking lot into our bathing suits (read: got naked behind our little travel towels right next to the road while people walked and drove by) and ran across the white sand into the surprisingly cold water. It was good for a three minute swim and now I understand why the only ones in the water were surfers in full body wet suits.

Our last real “moment” of the trip was our final road which cut back away from the coast and up and down some forest hills until we coasted into the most spectacular valley. Right now a plant called wisteria is in full bloom which I had seen for the first time while in Spain. Wisteria is this wonderful brown vine that supports dangling purple chandelier flowers that grow in bunches about a half meter long and give off a scent reminiscent of lilac. These plants have grown twisting up the other trees in the countryside so the whole background is bursting contrasting light and dark green with stunning purple accenting it all. In the valley we witnessed a family planting rice by hand which is very surprising and interesting to see in 2013. It would be similar to seeing someone plant a corn field by hand in Wisconsin. In that valley no car passed, and we could just listen to the birds sing and breeze blow those beautiful colors around and warm ourselves in the sunlight. All that was left to do afterwards was drink a coffee, miss a train and get home feeling sore, hungry and satisfied.