Day 176 in Japan - Epic Bike Ride!

With Jodie staying over, we all woke up a little late today. I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in bed for a while, and it turns out Jodie was listening to her audio version of Deathly Hallows in bed waiting for us to wake up as well! We hung around the house for hours chatting before we decided to make a move, and actually ride the bikes up to Jodie’s place in Gakkuentoshi. According to Google maps, the route was about 12 kms, so about midday we decided that we needed to make a move if we wanted to get there and back before the sun set. Checking the weather report, we realized that we might be idiots for attempting it today, but convinced ourselves after our pastry-based brunch that if we were too uncomfortably cold, we could always turn back.

We actually had a really pleasant ride through Nishi Akashi, the northern outskirts of Akashi, through western Kobe, then up through north Tarumi to Gakkuentoshi. I have chucked up the map of the path we rode below. With a quick conbini stop for toilets and extra foot warmers, it took us about 2 hours to ride at a fairly gentle pace. IT was nice to see some new territory again, and we were rugged up enough to not notice the subzero temperatures. The only real killer part came at the end, when we had an enormous hill to climb to get to Jodie’s apartment block. We all got off and walked our bikes up, and were rewarded with a nice view over the valley that Jodie’s base school (Itawdani kita?) site on top of.

Sam and I realized that we didn’t have long to spend at Jodes’ place if we wanted to make it back home before the sun set at 4:30 or so. We scarfed some of Jodie’s Almond Chocolate (Cadbury!), and then started the ride home. The wind was against us, and it seemed to have gotten about 5 degrees colder while we were inside, and Sam and I just kept our heads down and pedaled until we hit the outskirts of Kobe. Once we were on the main road, and had a bit of shelter from the buildings around us, we started to enjoy ourselves again. We found a HARD OFF – a second hand hardware, software and audio shop, and spent a really enjoyable 15 minutes warming up while marveling at Japan’s awesome second hand games and consoles. Sam bought Sonic 1 for 105 yen, and a spare Mega Drive controller for 200 yen.

By the time we reached the outskirts of Okubo, it had started to lightly snow. It was such a beautiful sight to see the orange sun dropping low in the sky with tiny bits of snow floating around in our hometown! Of course, I stopped to take about 30 pictures.

By the time we got home, it was 6 pm on a Sunday, and I hadn’t cleaned, shopped, washed or done any of the usual weekend chores. I was also completely buggered, having just cycled for about 4 hours, so I chucked on a quick load of washing, made toast for dinner and didn’t do any housework. I had a bunch of marking to get done for my Science English classes, so Sam finished Sonic 1 while I corrected speeches about current scientific topics. And it was marvelous.

Food Highlight of the Day: Cadbury chocolate after a 2 hour ride.