Entries this day: Hakone Lunch NihongodeGoramade Tadaima zzzz

Hakone

11:37am JST Thursday 14 April 2005

I'm just about to leave for Hakone on TJ Bike.

I have my tent, sleeping bag, computer, GPS, banana (*), air pump, and map. I think that will be sufficient.

This is my first TJ Bike trip during which I'm planning to stay overnight. I don't know how long it will take to get to Hakone, but there are pretty clear highways for the route. I plan to go down along Tsunashima Kaido to Highway 1, then turn right and go until I get to Hakone.

I have marked Gora on my GPS, but it may not be particularly easy to use that since the roads will be all curvy around the mountains.

(*) an actual banana for eating purposes

Lunch

11:37am JST Thursday 14 April 2005

First stop for lunch. Got a tad lost around Yokohama station, but made it out unscathed. About 40 km from Odawara now.

10:05am

10:58am

12:22pm

14:04pm

NihongodeGoramade

11:53am JST Sunday 17 April 2005

自転車で元住吉から箱根の強羅に行った。元住吉から強羅まで６６kmです。

箱根湯本駅で人力車を引いている人を３人見つけて「強羅はどこ？」と聞いた。

Tadaima

5:55pm JST Thursday 14 April 2005

Gora station. So tired.

3:23pm Hakone Turnpike picture. Probably 4pm I talked to rickshaw guys. Damn. Two hours up that hill.

zzzz

8:49am JST Friday 15 April 2005

Last night I lay awake for a while reliving all the moments of my trek then realized I could record myself with my video camera. It was too dark for visual recoring, but I (hopefully) recorded my voice which I'll burn to CD and send to janette for her birthday. Ooops. Secret!

I'm near a Catholic Church, here for the night. It took 9 hours or so to get here from my house. Two of those hours were spent climbing the last hill from Yumoto station to Gora station.

There was a speed trap on Route 1 near Hakone Turnpike; I went by a little thing that looked like a flash for a camera. Around the same time I saw three police cars parked down by the river. I thought, "how cool for them to have the police station right near the river." They obviously weren't just sneaking off by the river to smoke weed; no one was in or near the cars.

I got there and there was no police station, but a couple cops and a couple cars, and I thought there must have been an accident. They blocked traffic to send a car out and then popped a car in, because basically every car was speeding.

Except for me and TJ Bike. We were not speeding, but we were going down that hill pretty fast. But on the sidewalk side and not in the actual street. I'm glad about that.

I decided not to ask them for directions cause they were obviously busy. I went and looked at my map and was like, "I hope that's the road to Gora" as indicated on the map. I went back up the sidewalk a bit to see if the sign indicated the name/number of the road. It did not; plus I couldn't turn TJ Bike around cause there were rails on both sides of the sidewalk. I got off and followed him backwards out of the sidewalk back to the speed trap ticketing area and the cop nearest my age came up and asked if I needed any help.

I was like, "yeah; I'm trying to get to Gora." She asked a different cop and then she gave me directions, but they were Crazy Wrong. Though she did give them to me in English, so maybe she got "left" and "right" mixed up. But I confirmed her statement in Japanese and she was like, "yeah... maybe"

And I'm like, "maybe???" and she goes, "I'm sure." But she should have left it at "maybe" or switched it to "April Fool's!" cause the only left turn was the entrance ramp for a TOLL ROAD that specifically said No Pedestrians, No Bicycles, No scooters under 1500 CC in Japanese, English, and graphics.

I was on the left side of the road which was dead ending into construction and I was like, "ugh" and had no energy. I just decided to quit. But I rolled back down the hill a bit to a Family Mart convenience store on the other side of the street.

I parked beside two motorcycles and ate corn cream soup using the hot water thing from the store.

So I kept going straight and made it to Yumoto station and I was like, "awright." I didn't get a picture, which would have documented the time I had arrived, but I had gotten the picture with Hakone Turnpike in the background.

I saw three rickshaw guys at the bottom of the hill near Yumoto station and thought if anyone knows about using muscle power to Gora, they'll know. They were like, "where did you ride from?" and I told them Kawasaki. They were like "wow," and I asked them how to get to Gora. He indicated the road next to which we were standing. But, he assured me, it wouldn't be easy; I'd be pooped by the time I reached the top.

I pointed to my TJ Bike sticker "全然大変じゃない" he read it and laughed approvingly. Awesome.

But, I stalled, which side of the road is preferable; which side has a sidewalk?

In a non-answer, he said, [the road is very narrow.] (i.e. There is no sidewalk.)

I pondered a bit. Am I ready for this?

He goes, "GO!"

Okay, Go!

- - - -

So I started heading up the hill. Soon after I started, I saw a woman on a touring bicycle like TJ Bike. I had seen dudes with racing bikes and huge quads wrapped in spandex, but she was the first person I had seen with bags on her bike. She looked at me and did a double take, and I looked at her and double tooked and it was almost like, "hey man; you wanna talk? You wanna hang out?" but she was turning left down a hill I wasn't going down or anything. We both headed our separate ways. I looked back over my shoulder and she was looking back over her shoulder, but that was the extent of our affair.

Going up the hill was tough. I nearly gave up a 10, 20, 5 thousand times. I sang "Just keep swimming just keep swimming" cause I had seen Finding Nemo a couple days before. A couple times I flat stopped. After a bit, I was like, "okay, at least, walk" so I could make some positive progress. So I generally did that.

On one side of the curvy mountain road is the mountain and leaves and trees and fencing holding it all together. On the other side is a valley. Occassionally on the mountain side of the road small statues silently blessed my journey, as they had been doing for years to all who passed by.

At times the hill was just really steep: not like "oh my god steep" like Mt Fuji was, but TJ Bike was heavy. Loaded down with sleeping bag, tent, computer, digital video camera, but no clothes (I forgot to bring socks and underwear) except for sweatpants and sweatshirt. And I wondered what it would be like to not have all this weight; would it be easier?

I had seen a guy trudging along the highway with just a backpack, and as I flew past him on TJ Bike (ffsheww!) I wondered if later in my traveling career I would choose to hike instead of ride.

For a short period, I was just able to sing that song and was able to get into a meditative state where I wasn't thinking about anything. Just in the number 1 lowest gear on TJ Bike. It definitely helped to just sing that song, because after a while I basically looked up and saw a sign for a road that goes to Gora. I had debated earlier which road I should take, when looking at the map, and I was like, "this is the one that I had hoped I was at a fucking long time ago! But that's good because that means it's not all that much farther."

I was using the map I had picked up at the Family Mart, so I saw "aight; *this* road is definitely more direct, and it went down for a ways as opposed to the torturous uphill climb I had been doing for so long." So I went down the hill flying in top gear at the same speed traffic would have been, had there been any traffic, so I was in the lane as opposed to in the dirt and sticks and grass.

I ended up in this little valley and was like, "fuck, gotta go up again," cause there was nothing to eat, nowhere to stop, nothing to do but give up or keep going. I was like, "crap. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming."

I just started to go up the hill in low gear again. Just go go go as steadily as possible. And the hill wasn't as long as the last one, but it was still hard and I ended up walking TJ Bike up the hill and then I saw a sign.

Gora 300 meters.

Hell. Yeah. I know how far 300 meters is. I can walk 300 meters. I cracked out my GPS and it confirmed Gora was 348 meters away. But that was straight line 348 meters. This hill was a side street and even steeper, but I was just like "rar" going up this hill. The hill sidewinded back and forth. I could feel my energy like near passout mode. Not 100% pass out, but I was like, "I could rest now. I could sleep."

Then I got to another sign.

Gora 300 meters.

The GPS said 200 something meters. But I just started to count left footsteps, guessing they were about 1 meter apart.

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