Osaka-Nara-Kyoto: A Three-Day Tour

Our biking career in Japan began as no good things do: with a phone battle with FedEx.  After an interminable with customs involving much use of the futuristic Japanese technology of the “fax machine,” our bikes were ours, which meant we were once again reunited with Gladys and Sally.  Then, of course, there was much celebration and a rousing performance of that great cyclist pantomime, “Goddamn Those Bike Shop Fuckers, I Can’t Believe They Charged Us for Shitty Work Like This.”  And thus was another of the world’s bike shops added to the Gaijin Shit List (joining the likes of Lawrence Cycle Works, Aeon Bicycles in Oji, and Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love).

A few days of hurried preparations followed, interrupted only constantly by torrential rain and many, many beers with friends.  This would be a trial run over somewhat familiar territory -- we had explored Nara and Kyoto with visiting family and friends many times by now -- with the end of ensuring that our equipment was all shipshape and ready for a long haul.

Shipshape-ish, anyway.

The first leg of the journey would settle a score of ours: our only previous bike experience in Japan was fixed to the Yamatogawa river, the one we had passed over on our daily commute hundreds of times, the one that wound its way up to Nara prefecture between Shigi-San and Mountain I Didn’t Bother to Look Up.

We started, as usual, late but in high spirits.  Our loads seemed to have exploded since we had ridden last, and this took a fair amount of getting used to; altogether our pace had slowed from “enthusiastic turtle” to “snail in no particular hurry.”  By the time the sun had mostly set behind us, we hadn’t made it quite as far as we would have liked, still on the Osaka side of the mountains.  We stopped at an anonymous, abandoned park along the side of the river: this would be a perfect chance to try free camping again, an activity we were only brave enough to attempt in the US on a foggy, pitch-black park dozens of miles from anything at all.  “This is Japan!” I reminded Jenn when she expressed concerns about being disturbed or axe-murdered in the night.  She helpfully reminded me of this, too, when I jumped at the sound of every blade of grass and ladybug fart in the night.  It was now, at about 6:00 on Day One, when we remembered the first thing we had forgotten to pack on this trip: a “coat.”

The river had dragged tons of litter into the trees, giving it a sort of haunted forest feeling.

Day Two began promisingly: in our haste to abandon our campsite before we were discovered by a Japanese person unafraid of confrontation (or another such mythological creature such as a Sasquatch), we were off and on our way at a new personal best of 8:30.  Then, of course, we had breakfast of Lawson, which has quickly become my new favorite diner, hardware store, coffee shop, and iPod charging station.  We passed through the mountains, passing farther to the east than we had ever been on our bicycles (if you ignore that California and Missouri are east of Japan).  The passage was none too difficult on the highway, and soon we were flying along the back roads of Nara Prefecture.  Imagine our dismay after hours of furious pedaling that we had only made it 30 kilometers.  We took the gathering clouds overhead as a sign from the Travel Gods that we really should break for a pizza, and took the deluge that followed as a further sign that we should take shelter at a hotel for the night.  Enigmatic, those Travel Gods.

Evidently we misinterpreted the signs we were given, for the next day we were given a bike path direct to Kyoto and a headwind that was matched for suckiness only by the 7° high for the day.  We pushed and grunted and pedaled all day down the dedicated bike path, chomping on Clif Bars and hydrating constantly, and for all the work we did we made less progress than Miss Gulch in a twister.  At last, the sun nearly gone, the air getting colder and the wind showing no signs of abating, we began to get desperate for somewhere warm to spend the night.

We found it in the southern end of Kyoto, hidden by a little-used train station in a tiny bedroom community: a ryokan, or Japanese-style inn, seemingly abandoned on the third floor of an old building above a supermarket.  I went in alone to scope it out: a tiny old woman, bent almost in half, walked the wide, dusty hallway alone.  She called to me, inviting us to stay the night for only ¥5000, quite a steal anywhere in Japan.  I agreed enthusiastically and rushed down to summon Jenn, who was busy minding the bikes and shivering.  We spent a good half hour lugging the bikes up a flight of stairs with everything still strapped to them, then securing them for the night.  A warm room, a restaurant across the street, and a hot bath -- clearly our prayers had been answered.

When we left to go to dinner, our charming old hostess asked for her payment.  “That’ll be ¥10,000,” she hummed.  I protested as strenuously as possible given all the life had been sucked out of me by that headwind, but all I got in return was, “OK, fine, you can leave.”  Realizing that there were no good options left to us, we paid and discussed the horrid old crone over dinner.

The next morning there came a frail banging on the door at 8:55.  I got up from breakfast and answered it, and the proprietress snapped at me that the room was only until 9 a.m., and that we had to pack up and go, for she had a bus to catch.  Incredulous, I agreed and closed the door.  Jenn reminded me of the woman’s age, but the more I thought of it as we shoved our things back into our bags, the angrier I grew.  I marched out into the hall to confront this crooked innkeeper (something for which six years of Japanese lessons had left me distinctly unprepared).

“Listen, we paid double what you quoted us at first!”  I began.

“There’s no time to argue, you have to leave right now,” she said.

“But...you’re being mean,” I tried (as far as I could tell, anyway).

“I’m not mean, get your things and go!”

Clearly I had her on the brink of capitulation, but Jenn stayed my wrath and we hurriedly carried our bags and our half-finished cups of yogurt down to the first floor, where we ate on the stairs and I fumed about this mistreatment.  We took our time finishing our breakfast, but oddly enough, the old woman never came down the stairs.  Could be she wrote off her bus as a lost cause, but I think it may have just been the 9:00 bus to Crazytown.

The day’s ride back to Osaka was a pleasant enough 40 kilometers, doable in a day even at our pace, though I take issue with Osaka prefecture’s decision to put steel barriers every 100 yards or so down the bike path.  I am comforted by the hardship of lifting our fully-laden bikes over these barriers only by my new bitchin’ biceps.

What I Learned On This Trip: don't argue with senility; bring a fucking coat!