Osaka to Shimonoseki

15th May 2018
Suanbo Saipan Hot Spring Hotel, South Korea
24c and raining
Y150 = £1

I'm not very good at this blogging lark this time around.  Ten years ago I was writing almost daily but not this time.  Hey ho, it's either in your or it isn't.  Since my last post we've been to southern Japan and southern South Korea, so let's start with Japan. 

We flew into Osaka on a cold and rainy evening in April, we were reminded of the UK immediately.  The first challenge was arranging for the transport of two boxed bikes from NIX airport to our accommodation in the suburbs of Osaka.  Transporting bicycles anywhere in the world is not easy when they are boxed, but in Japan particularly difficult.  NIX is on an island and you can't cycle on the bridges.  There are companies all over Japan transporting baggage for tourists but most of them have a size and weight limit.  After much consultation on FB and the interweb we ended up going to the KABS company where for a whopping Y9000 each our bikes were transported to our hostel in Osaka.

The next challenge was getting ourselves to our hostel, we felt like a pair of rabbits caught in headlights at NIX railway station.  There are always adjustments to be made when arriving in a new country but land borders and ferry crossings seem a gentler way of easing ourselves in.  Coming in on the big silver bird means covering huge distances in a short space of time (great, but ....), so the weather, language, culture can all be hugely different.  A shock to the system no matter how experienced a traveller you are.

We're not used to having to deal with transportation issues as we usually have our own, so it's daunting, particularly so in a country where the language is so alien to us.  We finally worked out where we needed to go and which train to take, and with a little help from Mr Google we managed to buy our tickets, we felt like a right pair of Gringos.  By the time our train arrived, and we were 20 mins into our journey to Osaka, we realised one of my panniers was missing.  I then realised it was the pannier with ALL my clothes, the sleeping mats and our Helinox chairs, my new contact lenses and several other things I couldn't even remember.  I felt sick.  When we arrived at Gate 80 Hostel it was 1030 pm, we were soaking wet, freezing cold and very fed up, not a great start to Japan.  However, to the rescue came the fabulous Yuti, who, at 11pm managed not only to track down an actual person to talk to about my lost pannier (imagine THAT in the UK) but the actual person who had my pannier!  I was elated.  In London the Bomb Squad would have been called in and my pannier would have been toast.

The following day we returned to the airport station where we found the man who had my pannier, he also had a list of EVERYTHING contained within (slightly embarrassing but could have been a lot worse).  It was like The Generation Game, I had to recall and write down everything in my pannier, while he checked it off his list.  He let me off the last few items (a hard skin scourer, a penlight and a bag of elastic bands) and insisted I check through the bag to make sure it was all there.  It's true what they say, it's very safe in Japan.

We had all but missed the Sakura (cherry blossom) but I managed to find one tree in full bloom in the park near our hostel.  It's amazing what illusions you can create with a camera.  Our first few days were very cold but luckily we had anticipated the drop in temperature and liberated some warm clothing from the recycling store at Tree in Lodge.  Even so, it was a shock to the system having to wear socks and a second or even third layer of clothing.

Talking of layers, had we stuck with our original plan, going north to Hokkaido, we would have been heading into snow.  That's when we decided to go south and into South Korea first, where the weather is much kinder to cyclists.  From Seoul we can take a cheap flight direct to Hokkaido at the end of May when, hopefully, the weather is warmer.

Once we were back on the bikes the weather definitely perked up, so much so that within days it was 30c and while we couldn't understand what the newsreaders were saying the images of clear blue skies, with bright sunshine and much mopping of sweaty brows, meant the message was clear.    It was unusually hot for this time of year.

First stop was the lovely Kyoto.  There is a cycle path which takes you all the way from Osaka to Kyoto and what a fantastic wildlife corridor it is.  Between the cycle path and the river green spaces are used for golf, baseball (very popular here), foraging, keeping fit, picnicking and general relaxation.  It's also a great place for cyclists to wildcamp. 

There are literally hundreds of official free camp sites in Japan and they are mapped in a group on Facebook called Free Camping and Hot Springs. In our experience the camp sites are very clean, they have toilets (with toilet paper) BBQ and fire pits, many of them also provide the cleaning products (washing up liquid and gloves!) but there are no litter bins so everything has to be transported out and disposed of elsewhere!   Also included on the map are the Michi-no-ekis (rest areas) where it is also possible to camp.  They are designed for motorists and as such the larger ones have great facilities; wifi, cafes or markets, heated rooms with tatami mats for a lie down, and some even have showers.

Kyoto is where you go to see all that is traditional in Japan.  It's popular to rent a kimono and have your photograph taken at the temples.  You can visit the traditional wooden houses, you may even see Maiko on their way to an appointment.  You can take part in a traditional tea ceremony and see a show, but this comes at a price and we were told the price is very high. 

Japan is expensive when compared to South East Asia, however, once we got over the initial shock it's actually not that bad.  Accommodation and transportation are very costly and seeing as we camped most of the time and we have our own transport it hasn't been too expensive for us.  We were there during Golden Week, when several national holidays coincide so that by just taking an extra day or two of leave you can get a whole week off work.  We camped in several free camping sites that week and it was lovely to see Japanese families and groups relaxing, laughing and joking.  Most of the time we felt everyone was very reserved and shy, except for the lovely gentleman in Hiroshima who, when we told him we were from England, started listing everything English he knew, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, James Bond etc ........ as we were pulling away from a set of traffic lights he was singing 'Satisfaction'.  I'm really not sure what the Japanese people around us were making of that.

From Kyoto we made our way south through the urban sprawl towards Kobe from where we took a ferry to Tokamatsu.on the island of Shikoku, where eventually we would hit the Shiminami Keido, an expressway with a cycle path that runs from Imabari to Onomichi, 80kms across several islands.  I had no idea the islands would be so beautiful, surrounded by clear, blue seas, beaches of white sand and practically deserted.  One of my favourites was Ikuchi, an island where citrus fruits are the main crop.  The orange blossom was just starting and the air was full of perfume, it reminded me of a walking holiday in Majorca many years ago.  In fact the weather in Japan and South Korea is very European-like, we can lurch from a hot summer's day to a cool spring morning in hours.

We visited Hiroshima, a very sombre place, where some of the images of what a hydrogen bomb can do to humans and earth are indelibly etched on my brain.  It's where we met the lovely Drew from California and it was also Dave's birthday, so a picnic and a beer in the park was the order of the day.

Vending machines selling cigarettes, drinks, beer, noodles and coffee abound, these coupled with the millions of convenience stores means we're never far from food and drink, or wifi.  We discovered we can also buy WINE, oh yes, a reasonable Chilean red for Y400/Y500.  Sushi is also very reasonable as long as you stick to the vegetarian variety but, just to confuse us, buying rice to cook for ourselves is very expensive and there's no cheap Indian or Thai rice to be had either, unless you go to a shop that deals in foreign goods, but there you'll pay a premium.

Eventually we made it to Shimonoseki where we would take the ferry to Busan, in South Korea.  More adjustments and moving onto South Korea would be no different, however, it was the number of permed heads which took us completely by surprise!

Laters