The Himedomachi Cycling Club

It was raining when we sat down to eat the breakfast the one-toothed lady had cooked. We’d slept 10 hours and the world felt a better place, especially when we were shown how to make filter coffee. We invented a new rating system and we thought the food deserved at least three teeth of not four.

By the time we were putting Ribena back together in the parking lot, the rain had stopped and the sun was about to show.

“I’ll be around if you need me,” Jared said

It seemed like an easy route, down the coast to Noheiji, then south on the 4 to Shichinohe, after which I’d cut across country to the 102, which I’d take all the way to Lake Towada. Somehow, a few kilometres down the road, I ended up on a motorway.

I only realised when I saw the first green, motorway sign listing the upcoming exits, the closest being 3km away.

Japanese motorways can be quite tame, like this one was. More like a dedicated A-road. A very wide shoulder and one lane of traffic passing at 90kph. However, cycling on one is illegal and I knew someone would call the police.

Going back seemed more dangerous than going on, so I cycled to the next exit and hauled myself up the off ramp with a sigh of relief. I had a snack, took my bearings and pedalled back to the coast road.

Maybe thirty minutes later a car pulled up beside me and a voice came over the loudspeaker. It was the police and they were ordering me to stop.

Two policemen got out, a young friendly one and a more reserved older one.

“Were you…” the younger one said.

“Cycling on the IC? Yes, that was me.”

They had been out looking for me and, frankly, how many foreigners were out that day cycling? I hadn’t seen any.

I explained to them that there was a blue sign for the 276 pointing onto the motorway and that, as soon as I realised my mistake I’d got off. That I was really sorry (which I was for many different reasons), that I was going to Towada and then Cape Sata (oh, really? Cape Sata), that it was pretty scary and I’m a bit of an idiot. I accepted their compliments on my Japanese, handed them my passport and they were extremely nice about it.

However understanding they were, straying into the motorway and being stopped by the police was a major blow to my confidence and when they left I had a little snuffle to myself and pedalled on to Noheiji and then south towards Shichinohe.

I cycled defensively and cautiously, sticking as far as I could to the pavements and not doing anything that might get me into trouble with the police. I caught up with an elderly man in wellington boots and farmer clothes as he foraged along an embankment. He paused to inspect a likely patch and, not finding what he wanted, pushed his bicycle further down. He didn’t hear my bell and, in any case, I was happy to coast behind him for a while.

The 4 met another IC and I stopped to ask an old man if I could just go onwards. Even with his reassurances I waited at the junction, reading the signs and checking my map, until I had no doubt I was ok to go on.

Jared was ahead of me on the road and after 50k I caught up with him. He had found ramen so we went inside, chose what we wanted from the machine, gave the ticket to the lady, and waited for our food to arrive, Kumamoto ramen for him, vegetable for me.

I turned off the main road after lunch, onto the arable land. It was rice fields and greenhouses as far as the eye could see. The men drove their tracked tractors up and down the paddies while the women walked the raised banks carrying hoes, or knelt along the edges working on I don’t know what. These were lush green spaces, framed with pine trees, and with the road raised above the fields I had a view of it all. Then the wind, which had been somewhat strong all day, picked up, and picked up fast. In just a few minutes it was blowing a gale and blowing soil across the road and trying to rip handlebars from my grip. For a brief moment I had it at my back and it pushed me along at 17kmh. Otherwise I just had to fight it.

I abandoned the ride 20 kilometres later. There road hazard signs were blinking ,”Violent Wind,” advisories . Alan Booth would have found a ryokan to hunker down. I didn’t have that luxury, but I had Jared and we loaded Ribena into his car a drove to Lake Towada.

The road winds along the river, covered by a canopy of trees and past several waterfalls. In other circumstances it would have been beautiful, except now it was littered with leaves and broken branches. A cherry picker had been parked in haste beside the road – so hastily that the men with flags hadn’t even arrived – and two men were securing a huge branch that had just fallen. Further down the road a tree had come down and hung across the road, snagged in the branches of another tree. Incredibly tourists were out taking pictures and even we stopped briefly for a snap.

I saw a You Tuber I follow, he’s always inviting people to Aomori, although at that moment I couldn’t imagine why. I thanked him for his inspiration and he thanked me for coming and we drove on to Lake Towada that was smashing itself again its banks and throwing plumes of water into the air.

From the outside it looked like a box, inside it was a palace. Long corridors decorated with festival Nebuta lamps and wooden dolls. An aging trio of mafia lookalikes guarded the entrance. Our room had a wooden lattice you had to pull aside to get in. We changed into yukata and went down to the baths.

“Hey, how come everyone’s got belts?” Jared said.

All the other guests had tied their yukata, some even had over jackets, and we were shuffling along holding our robes together with our elbows.

The onsen had an outside pool from where we watched the trees bend in the wind. A man with the shaved head of a monk nudged Jared and pointed to where some flowers were growing on the back, encouraging him to appreciate them. We wallowed in the water as long as we were able, reluctant to leave, too hot to stay.

We went to dinner, where we ate bubbling soup and bacon and onion stew heated from below by lumps of fuel. We had eventually found the secret cupboard in our room and were now wearing over jackets and belts and feeling pretty good about life.

We were the last to leave the restaurant, seven being late for supper in Japan. We made it to nine thirty before getting into futons and falling asleep.

Jared, reading Alan Booth and stoically ignoring my mess.