Tottori 2: People Who Get Ice Cream From Other People (Are the Luckiest People in the World)

Now I understand why Japan is considered to be some of the best bike touring out there.  Once you get past the mountains, it's nothing but beautiful coastline, cool breezes, and fresh seafood for days.

And the occasional winged harbinger of death.

Another unexpected discovery about Japan's least populated prefecture: the people are amazingly friendly.  From the day we crossed the state line, car windows were rolled down and arms outstretched with vitamin drinks, miniature cakes, or cans of coffee.  "がんばれ！" the people would urge us, or "ファイト！", literally "fight," meaning something like "gofightwin!"  While crouching outside yet another conbini, a man pulled up in a car, studied us sidelong, then entered the store.  He came back out in ten minutes with two ice cream cups, which he offered to us shyly, then drove away.

The greatest love of all is our love for ice cream.

Needless to say, nothing of the sort ever happened to us in the States.  We would occasionally get a friendly wave from a car window or a honk that we chose to interpret as encouraging, and at times passersby would stop to advise us how crazy we are (if you are tempted to advise us the same, please know that we already know), but not once were we given a present by California or Missouri townspeople.  Once in Shimane we were approached by a skinny older man who wanted us to flip through his folder of sheet music; as we read the titles appreciatively ("Light My Fire," "In the Jungle," "Me and Bobby McGee"), he sang a few bars of each song before taking the folder back, bowing, and returning to his car.  We've said before that Japanese people want foreigners to visit their country and then leave promptly, but damn, do they ever turn it out for visitors.