Shimanami Kaido: Road to Somewhere

After a leisurely (slow) six days of riding and resting our way across the northern coast of Shikoku, we abruptly realized that our plans might have to undergo yet another change.  Having given ourselves only three weeks to tour the entire coast of the island before getting back to Kansai for birthday parties and WWOOFing, we had a choice to make: either we could attempt to increase our pace, covering at least 80 kilometers a day for the next two weeks with precious few rest days, or we could alter our plans to include taking a bus from Matsuyama to the southern coast of blah blah blah anyway we decided not to do that either.

Just before speeding off in a cloud of dust and cigarette smoke, Jake recommended that we check out the Shimanami Kaido while on Shikoku; the Shimanami Kaido is a series of bridges that connects Shikoku to mainland Honshu via a handful of islands in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea.  Jake told us that the Kaido was the main reason he wanted to revisit this part of the country by bike, and that we really shouldn’t miss it.  We decided to spend a day taking in some of the 76-kilometer route, maybe camp on one of the islands, then return to Shikoku for more stalling a decision about our route.

The ride, as promised, was gorgeous.  By now the sakura were in full bloom, and Shikoku being so rural a place, gorgeous copses of white-pink sakura were surrounded by natural beauty and mountains rather than by passed-out salarymen vomiting in the bushes (to which we had been accustomed after three hanami seasons in Osaka).

After a good day and a half of riding, we found ourselves going up the ramp to the first bridge of the Kaido.  It really is a miracle of engineering, this system of bridges, as well as a miracle of foresight that it’s all extremely bike-friendly.  Physics, unfortunately, remains less bike-friendly, requiring that we pedal up a slight incline for several kilometers before actually finding ourselves atop each bridge.

The superlative of the day is "First Three Consecutive Suspension Bridges in the World."

Having taken a little more time and energy climbing the first bridge than we had hoped, we found ourselves on the first major island, Oshima (literally, “Big Island”) just as the sun was going down.  This chain of volcanic islands tends to be a bit hilly, so we had reached a state of being extremely tuckered out by 5:00.  We could either venture still further into the island, which for all we knew would require climbing spikes and, hopefully, an elevator, or we could look for somewhere to free camp again.  As previously mentioned, we’re slightly less afraid to free camp in Japan due to the culture of hospitality and also not having any guns, but on a mountain road on a rural island, vacant lots and parks are a little hard to come by.

At last we stumbled across a building marked as a “cycle oasis.”  Among its promised amenities were “water,” “air pumps,” and “goats.”  I assumed I must have been hallucinating by this point, but decided it couldn’t hurt to ask the proprietor if there was a nearby park in which we could squat for the night.

Jenn hung back to watch the bikes while I knocked on the door of the bizarrely unfinished-looking wooden building.  I slid open the front door and, as though I had entered a saloon in the Old West, all conversation stopped, and there were twenty pairs of eyes on me.

“Um...are you open?” I asked hesitantly.

“Eh?” asked one of the old guys standing around the table.  It seemed there was some manner of party going on -- children, obachans, and old guys were seated around a grill that was covered with fish and stock pots.  The man approached, and I attempted to explain our situation, finally getting out that we were looking for a nearby park or campground.  The man frowned, shook his head, and explained that there weren’t any campgrounds on the island as far as he knew, but that we could stay right there on his property.

Stunned at this show of generosity (and pretty certain we were misunderstanding something), Jenn and I followed our host around the house, bowing all the while, where we were told we could set up right next to the goats.

Eh.  I've had worse roommates.

Two boys who were hanging around enthusiastically helped us set up our tent, and through them we got some kind of intelligence about where we were, exactly.  It seemed that this old wooden house, covered with barbed-wire spiderwebs and rusted bicycles, was a cram school, of all things.  Also, they reassured us that the goats probably wouldn’t eat our tent, though Daddy Goat seemed pretty determined to try.

On our host’s urging, we came in to join the party for a drink.  We met a whole slew of interesting characters, including a gaggle of middle schoolers, a standard Old Drunk Guy who spent a great deal of time talking about “Tom & Jerry,” and a man who had spent ten years traveling the world with his wife on a tandem bike.  The food was plentiful and delicious: grilled mackerel, pickles, garlic toast, and an immense pot of wild boar stew.  When we asked what the occasion was, someone explained, "We were hungry."  Between bouts of explaining our travel experiences and discussing the foibles of English teaching in Japan, we patted ourselves on the back for how our day had gone, thrilled that once again we had discovered some of the best of Japan off the beaten path.

Things took a bit of a darker turn once Old Drunk Guy started talking about international affairs, however.  I’m still not too clear on all that he said, but I’m sure that he said that he hates North and South Korea equally, that he thinks Japan should go to war with them again, that Latin America is full of disgusting mixed-blood people, and “Tora, tora, tora.”  The room grew quiet.  We’d always heard of this side of Japan, that nationalism lurks in many of this peaceful country’s social corners, though this was the first time we’d encountered it firsthand.  Voice shaking, I managed to get ODG back onto the topic of cartoons, and the room relaxed somewhat.

We retired to our tent long before the party had ended.  This day we had, without a doubt, seen some of the best of Japan and the Japanese, and just a glimpse of the worst as well.