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Down on the farm in Yamanashi Japan

October 24, 2008

After a hard day of hiking up Akadake, Aya and I spent a very beautiful day at a public/university run farm in Yamanashi Prefecture.  It was recommended to us by the staff of the mountain hut we stayed at the night before and the farm was far better than we could have imagined.  I’ve never been to any place like it in Japan before.  Aya immediately said it felt like New Zealand, and I agreed, as this place had rolling green hills surrounded by mountains and sheep in the pasture.

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Summitting Akadake in Yatsugatake Nagano Japan

October 16, 2008

I have a new favorite prefecture in Japan.  It’s Nagano.  My favorite prefecture used to be Yamanashi, but the nature in Nagano feels deeper.  The forests feel older in Nagano, the air seems clearer, and the peace is more established.  The mountains are larger, and the sky spans wide over all—deep blue during the day, pink tinged at dusk, and deep black spotted with stars at night.  This is the setting in which Aya and I undertook a 9-hour hike up to the 2899m summit of Akadake.

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Mello ride around the Imperial Palace in a light rain

October 9, 2008

FULL RIDE STATS:
  • Distance: 15.85 miles
  • Time in motion: 1 hour 00 minutes 51 seconds
  • Average speed: 15.6 mph
  • Max speed: 26.9 mph
3-LAPS STATS:
  • Distance: 9.40 miles
  • Time in motion: 32 minutes 22 seconds
  • Average speed: 17.4 mph
Tonight was a totally different feeling ride around the Imperial Palace.  For one, I never looked at my cycling computer while doing the laps.  This is a radical change.  I am normally obsessively looking at my time and current speed, calculating how I’m doing on each lap in my mind.  
Tonight I was free.

I decided right away, on the fly, to not look at my cycling computer.  The cool October air helped free my mind as well.  All I did was keep my eyes fixed on the road in front of me and my mind thought of only one thing—keep the cranks in motion.  I’ve never had such a single-mindedness like that cycling around the palace.  It felt great. 

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Akasaka-mitsuke Doctor’s Clinic Group Lesson Students

October 8, 2008

I have a very long history with Dr. Yashido’s clinic in Akasaka-mitsuke.  He was one of my very first students when I first started my private teaching business in Tokyo back in September of 2003.  Back then I taught him and his son at their apartment, and then ate dinner with his family!  On a separate night I taught his clinic staff.  Nowadays, I teach both him and his clinic staff on the same night at the clinic.  

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Ill-fated Arakawa Cycling to Cows

October 3, 2008


FULL RIDE STATS: (incomplete due to cyclo-computer battery dying!!) 

  • DISTANCE:  48.66 miles
  • TIME IN MOTION:  3 hours 30 minutes 13 seconds
  • AVERAGE SPEED:  13.8 mph
  • MAX SPEED:  31.4 mph
RIDING UP THE ARAKAWA:  (official)
  • DISTANCE:  21.11 miles
  • TIME IN MOTION:  1 hour 21 minutes 58 seconds
  • AVERAGE SPEED: 15.4 mph (seems low as I was flying)
RIDING DOWN THE ARAKAWA:  (official)
  • DISTANCE:  18.80 miles
  • TIME IN MOTION:  1 hour 27 minutes 59 seconds
  • AVERAGE SPEED: 12.8 mph
This was an ill-fated ride on the Arakawa River.  I left too late since I got up too late since I went to bed too late.  Right now I my quads are still burning.  I probably won’t be able to walk tomorrow.  Why?  I don’t know.  Out of cycling shape I guess, pushed it way too hard at the beginning of the ride I guess, and for sure the stiff as a stiff headwind, both ways, didn’t help.  Riding up I didn’t feel like I was with the wind, but I was able to cruise at 20 mph the first 15 minutes.  I toned it down to 18 to 19 mph for the next 15 minutes, and then after that I made a wrong turn or two and lost a little spirit and thus a little pace.


I told myself I’d only ride up the river for 1 hour.  But the wrong turns ate up a good 15 minutes, and I wanted to try and make it to this very nice small bridge over a crick.  So I pushed on even though I shouldn’t have, but I thought, if I cut out the 15 minutes of errors and cruise with the wind, I can make-up the extra 20 minutes I rode past my preset 1-hour mark.  I of course was totally wrong.

 

 

At least I made it to some cows and took my midpoint break with them (see below photos).  I’ve seen these cows before on another ride with the Mikes.  I had always thought that a cow only had utters, and that it was impossible for a cow to have both utters and horns.  Either these are some freaky hermaphrodite cows, or it’s natural.  They must still be female though right?  Hmm, they did pee standing up though!

 

So after the cows I started back and right off the bat my quads didn’t have it.  But, I was 30 miles from home still!  And then I hit the headwind full on.  This was a shock as I was expecting a tailwind.  How can you ride against the wind both ways?  I don’t think it could be a crosswind because on the way back I was most def going directly head-on into it.

 

I was fading and fast, doing maybe 12 mph a lot of the time, barely keeping the pedals going in gear 3-4.  I had to dig deep to make it.  Somehow I got back to Road 318 and off the Arakawa, where I promptly plopped down and elevated my feet way above my heart to drain all the lactic acid out of my feet and lower legs.  That helped actually.

 

For as I made my way down Road 318, then checked that off as I turned left onto Route 17, I felt a second wind.  No way was I going to be broken!  F that.  I became heartened, and as I turned right onto Meiji Dori, I became my usual aggressive riding self.  Others who have ridden with me know how I can find a second wind when I can smell the finish line.  This was a textbook example of that tendency of mine. 

 

As Ikebukuro station came up, I was going full out and made all the lights and passed through the Ikebukuro station area like a bat out of hell!  Felt badass.  

 

I made it back safely.  Now, will I be able to walk tomorrow?  P.S. my headlight battery died too beside my cyclo-computer battery!! Ill-fated indeed.

ARAKAWA CYCLING TO COWS PHOTO GALLERY:
Entrance to the Arakawa Path from Road 318 My blue Trek 7.3 FX in front of Arakawa bike path Not everyone rides a road bike, many mountain bikes too
Those two dudes are wearing the same jersey This is the cow's full realm. A moo cow at Arakawa
This moo cow was one of the few to look at me See, here it is looking at me. Utters!!
Who knew cows did yoga? Cow along the Arakawa River It's hard to safely hold a DSLR at arms length for a self-portrait!
I set the Nikon D80 on my backpack for this shot.    

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Setagaya Ward Group Lesson Students

October 1, 2008

I’ve been teaching English group lesson(s) at various buildings in the Setagaya Ward Office complex since October 27, 2004, which as of the date of this post makes just one month shy of four years.  The students for these lessons have all been Setagaya Ward city employees of differing departments and seniority.  Pictured above is Shigeko, she has been in the lessons since almost the very beginning.  

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Cycling to Haneda Airport with a Thunderstorm

September 8, 2008

FULL RIDE STATS:

  • Distance: 34.38 miles
  • Time in motion: 2 hours 57 minutes 08 seconds
  • Average speed: 11.6 mph
  • Max speed: 28.5 mph

I had wanted to cycle out to Haneda Airport for quite some time.  This Sunday I finally attempted it.  I was joined by UK Mike and The Can, who also ride Trek 7.3 FXs.  I wrote down some rough directions based on a route planned by Tokyo Half-Fast Cycling.  However, it was a bit more complicated than that, and after much asking and street sign map reading, we were able to get to a point close enough to see JAL’s planes come in really close for landings. [Read more]

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Shimoda Izu Birthday Trip 2008 with Aya

September 8, 2008

Largely by accident, going to Shimoda, Izu in Shizouka Prefecture, Japan has become an annual summer ritual.  It started two summers ago with the Can, which was the best road trip I’ve ever taken in Japan.  The tradition continued this summer, and it was my third birthday in a row spent on Tatadohama Beach, but my first ever with Aya.  We drove her dad’s car down my favorite strip of road in Japan, Rd. 135 along the coast all the way down to the very tip of the Izu Peninsula where Shimoda dwells, seemingly forgotten by Japan at large, but gladly adopted by me as my summer getaway from the madness of Tokyo.

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