Autumn Beer

Summer never seemed to arrive in its full capacity of heat-and-humidity, and already the stores are carrying the seasonal Autumn Beer??????akiaji), on sale for just a short time.

I'm afraid Winter Beer cannot be too far behind!

VRX Roadster Customizing

We've had our motorbikes for almost two months, and they've been tons of fun already. We bought used, though, and, in a demonstration of our trust in Japanese customer service, sight-unseen. We did our research, and had pictures from the dealer, but that was it. There was a 30 day warranty on parts and labor, but it was quicker and easier to handle the little things ourselves. So far my work has been just customization, but Tracy's has developed symptoms severe enough to go to a local professional: Further updates as conditions warrant!

The previous owner of my Honda VRX didn't change much with the running gear (all seems solid!), but he (she?) converted the bike to a bobbed, lowered, Sportster style. Although it began life as the very dark 'Dark Edition', almost all remaining shiny parts were blacked out or removed. As I received it:

To make the bike useful for shopping or overnight trips, I needed saddlebags. These are common and most bikes have no special concern with fitment, but mine presented a special set of obstacles:

• The twin 'XR' style pipes on the right side leave almost no room for a bag, especially not a flammable soft one. I immediately found, and bought, an alternative 2 into 1 header and a low, straight back bullet-type single silencer. This would change the look of the bike, but would allow symmetrical bags. Once I fell in love with the sound of the XR pipes though, I might not get around to changing them.


• The 'bobbing' process dictates removal of everything not directly contributing to speed, so the fender rail covers were removed, and the fender 'bobbed' to almost nothing. The missing covers meant the turn signals lost there factory placement, and the customizer mounted the signals low and short. The signals were squarely where any bag would need to be, and so needed another relocating. Usually this is solved by moving the blinkers all the way back to the tail-light / license plate area, but that had already been bobbed, and the remaining steel wasn't going to handle any more weight at all. To solve the problem, I bought (again on auction) used fender rail covers. The only ones in existence were chrome, but maybe brighter is better. The extant blinkers were horrible, and mismatched front and rear to make it worse. I needed blinkers that had a narrower profile than those plastic monsters, so I found a cheap new pair locally. Mounting these was a piece of cake, but the new blinkers made the relay sound terrible and blink slowly. The new front blinkers also went on well, but now the fuse blew every time I tried to use them. I had assumed that the extant units had stock 23W bulbs, but the new ones had 10W and 15W. Switching all bulbs to 23W (a trip downtown on the weekend) burned up my spare fuses (another trip downtown). Finally I checked the relay, and discovered that it was a weak aftermarket unit, and the extant bulbs in the ugly blinkers had been dumbed down to 10W to match. I ordered a solid-state relay 1W-100W which could handle any load, and combination of bulbs, and still blink at the legal 85 'blinks per minute'. I pre-wired the harness for it in my room, and it slipped right onto the original mounting backet. Whew!

With the blinkers working, all bright 23W, and shiny chrome, I was able to consider the bag mounting, and decided to keep my harmonious pipes, and use large bag on the left and a small bag on the right. The trade off in storage space should be worth it, I hope. More on my bag mounting adventures soon!

Susono Awa Odori, 2009

This was a fantastic weekend that began with a relaxing Friday night and Saturday afternoon, leading up to our local festival on Saturday evening.

We've been to the Awa Odori almost every year since we've been in Susono, and this was just a fun as previous ones - lots of festival food at the yatai (food stalls), cheerful local people, and enthusiastic dancers.

Less talk, more pics...

And, I also shot a bit of video with the Nikon D90. I stitched some of the clips together for the final video below. It's just over three minutes long, and could be boring in the middle, but it shows various parts of the Awa Odori, and gives an idea of what downtown Susono is like...

?? - A Cool Summer

This summer so far has had more rain and cloud, and less sunshine, than usual. Overall, the summer has not been unbearably hot or humid; in fact, the temperature has been rather comfortable most of the time and we have only suffered by the lack of beach days and dry rides. While rainy season in our area was officially declared over on August 3rd, we still have not experienced a true summer.

This exceptionally cool summer is called ?? (reika), and while a respite from the heat is sort of nice, it has not only taken its toll on our beach days, but has affected many areas of the economy. Convenience stores report a record low for summer sales of 'summer' items, like ice cream and (more vitally) beer, which are down 7.5 percent compared to last year. Farmers are concerned about their crops, and baseball fields with natural grass are seeing the drawbacks of said grass as it turns brown and patchy.

Unless things change in the month of September and become hot and steamy, I will declare this 'The Year Without a Summer'.

Service in Japan

I received a post-card today from my hair salon. I've only been twice so far, but the hand-written card from my hairdresser thanked me, in English, for coming to her salon, and said that she was so glad I liked my hair.

That she'd made the effort to write this all in English was an especially nice touch, and reminded me of just how good the customer service is here in Japan.

Wherever you go, whether a cheap capsule hotel or a high-class resort, the people serving you are unfailingly polite and helpful.

I remember years ago in a department store, looking for a particular perfume; I asked the woman behind the counter whether she had it in stock. She looked eager to help, but frowned slightly at the question, then said she didn't have it, but could I wait just a minute? She picked up the phone, called a different shop accross the road, and confirmed that said shop did have what I was looking for. She smiled at me as she pointed in which direction I could find her competitor.

Even these days, whenever I stop a store clerk in a shop to enquire about a product, they are very happy to help, and they do it with a smile.

Restaurant service is also excellent, whether we're out fine-dining, or whether just ordering pizza, and going out to little local restaurants, the service is equally exemplary. And, I should emphasize that tipping is simply not done in Japan, so it's not about the tips.

Rather, I'd have to say that it's just part of the culture and part of taking one's job seriously, and taking pride in doing what you do very well.

Biking to Gifu

Well, it's Monday again and that means back to work for Brian and me (and as luck would have it, it is a gorgeous day - clear, blue skies and hot, summer temperatures!).

But! We had good weather and did some good riding to and around Okuhida in Gifu Prefecture.

We packed up our saddlebags, made sure the bikes were in good shape, and left for Okuhida at about 10 a.m. on Thursday morning. We had mapped out our route on all local and back roads, figuring that would be quieter and more scenic - and we were right! The ride was simply beautiful nearly all the way there.

I say 'nearly' because for the last 50km or so, we were riding in the cold, pouring rain. The weather started great in Shizuoka in the morning, but it was raining in the late afternoon in Gifu. Luckily, we were in tunnels for much of the time it was raining. The last 14km from the last tunnel to our minshuku was the worst rain of all - and of course it slowed to all but a trickle right after we checked in, soaking wet!

We spent the first night at a small minshuku that was rather out of town called Minami-so. It wasn't a bad place - we were happy just to have shelter from the rain, a hot bath and good dinner. However, it wasn't great either - we arrived much later than we expected to due to our late start and wandering route, and were given a musty, over-bug-sprayed room in a building separate from the main house. Enjoying the natural hotspring bath meant venturing out of our little building, in the rain, to the main building. And - they did not have a vending machine (though we did get two beers on the house!).


View To Gifu and back in a larger map

The town of Okuhida itself is a very nice onsen town with good scenery and nice baths, and after riding so much on Thursday, we decided to stay a second night in town. We got a tourist map, and called a couple of other local minshuku, and ended up staying at the Takada minshuku, right in the heart of Tochio town and within easy walking distance of the rushing river and public outdoor bath and foot-bath.

The Takada was more in line with what we've become accustomed to in terms of accommodation, and of course the food was great, too.

After enjoying some easy motorbiking around Gifu, and lots of relaxation, on Friday, we decided to head back to Susono early Saturday morning. We pulled out right after breakfast, and were on the road by 8 a.m. We planned to take the same route back, with the exception that we would take a mountain road instead of the long tunnel, since the weather was great, and later, we would take the Chuo expressway, to save time and cut through the traffic between Matsumoto and Suwa-Minami, in Nagano prefecture.

We did indeed take this route - but not without a few problems.... my motorcycle decided on that very morning to develop some kind of problem, probably in the carburetor somewhere, and it stalled whenever I stopped, and we couldn't get it started again.

We stopped at a lookout only 20km into our return journey, and then the bike simply wouldn't start again. Some fellow motorbikers also pulled over here, and soon were involved in trying to help us get the bike going. These Harley riders took apart my carb, and spent at least two hours trying to diagnose the problem. They finally just push started the bike, and declared that it was perhaps the altitude.


Once the bike was going, I had to make sure to keep the throttle open and the revs up, otherwise the bike would stall and not start again.

Many kilometers later, finally on the Chuo, we hit bumper to bumper traffic. As long as my bike was moving, it was fine, but idling was a big ordeal and tough to do, so imagine my misery, sitting at a stand-still in a long narrow tunnel on the expressway, revving my engine for all it was worth, praying that the bike wouldn't stall here, as there would be no way for me to push-start it in the middle of the friggin' tunnel!

Once out of the tunnel, I had to pull over, and of course, I stalled. Brian push-started for me, then we got back on the road, riding on the shoulder for a lot of the way in order to keep the bike moving.

I was thrilled to finally get off the freeway! At least on the local roads, if I had a break-down, I was in civilization - near enough to gas stations, restaurants, hotels and train stations!

Luckily, these were not necessary, and in fact, once we made it past Kofu, there was no traffic to speak of and we just raced on home, with the only 'danger' area of stalling being back in Susono when I had to stop for red lights.

Needless to say, we made it home in one piece, none the worse for wear!

(Some tuning and test riding yesterday tells me that there is something still very wrong with the bike, and I will take it to the shop tonight!).

Climbing Mt. Fuji

Despite the driving rain and typhoon winds, my climbing team and I mounted our assault on Mt. Fuji Monday morning. The bus trip to the base was punctuated by heavy rain, then fog, but the actual climb from Fujinomiya's fifth station began with just light mist (and wind). The crummy conditions kept most climbers away, so we found ourselves virtually alone, which is unheard of almost anywhere in Japan, let alone a national treasure like Mt. Fuji during the summer holidays.

The wind continued, but we stayed dry until safely above the cloudline, where we could observe the ferocity below with little more than a jacket and sweater,and we made record time to our lodge (Mannenyuki, or "perpetual snow") at the ninth station:

In the 'morning', we awoke to the rousings of our hut-master, at 2:30 am sharp. This was earlier than we had expected, but ensured our ability to re-pack, eat some breakfast, and continue the climb to the summit before sunrise.

The ascent wasn't easy, but energized by breakfast and freed from the usual crowds, we made great time to the summit, arriving at least 30 minutes before the crack of dawn. We had time to find a good place to witness the sunrise, and found a cute mole along the way (he was too quick for a photograph). As the sun rose, I caught this video despite the dying batteries in the Lumix LZ-10...



Just before this video, we felt an earthquake... a weird sensation being on the very narrow lip between the volcano's slope and mouth, and then we could hear the resulting rockslides inside the caldera behind us. We later learned that this was a pretty big earthquake (and during the typhoon) that caused havoc on the highways and trains. We could also hear, simultaneously, the thunder from the storm below, adding to the surreal contrast to the pleasant conditions on top of Asia...



More pictures and a better narrative will be forthcoming; my pics weren't so good, but I'll swap some soon and post the best!

Great Start to Obon Vacation

Brian and I spent Friday night (and Saturday morning) putting saddlebags on the bikes, and, for Brian, doing some maintenance on his VRX before we hit the road on Saturday morning.

We took the route initially planned, and had a great, fun, scenic, mainly traffic-free trip to Usami beach, in Ito city, Izu. The ride there only took about two hours, and that includes the stops for photos and drinks, too. It was really a short ride, only 55 km or so, but it was a great first "real ride" for me.

Anyway, the bikes performed flawlessly, and we were even intimidating enough that a couple of times cars pulled over to let us pass! (Um...actually, we must look faster than we are, though!).

The Izu Skyline is a great toll-road, meant to be enjoyed for the journey rather than just getting to one's destination - no stop-lights, just rolling hills overlooking the valleys below. Here is a photo taken under bright hot sunshine, on the way there, on the Izu Skyline:

We got to the beach at about 10 a.m., and decided to take advantage of the sunshine. We asked our minshuku (small, affordable Japanese inn) if we could park our bikes, though we were early (it wasn't a problem), and then we enjoyed the beach for a few hours. In those few hours, we both managed to get sunburned (I've got photos of me with the 'burn' lines, but nobody, I'm sure, wants to see my naked white butt!).

We had planned to stay overnight, and were lucky to get reservations considering that we called last-minute and it was at the start of the most popular holiday period. The minshuku that we stayed at was called Nakajimaso(see their contact info at the end of this post), and it was really good, and just a 30 second walk from the beach! Though it was on the highway, it was super-quiet. We also had a mountain view room, which means that we did not have an ocean view, but we also did not have a highway view! Luckily, we did get a great sunset view of the mountains, and were served a gorgeous dinner right in our room.

The following day's forecast was for rain, and more rain. The morning was already cloudy, so after a perfect breakfast (grilled fish, soup, egg, pickles, rice....and more!), we decided to get back on the road and head for home. However, as it was not actually raining, neither of us was anxious to get back home so we extended our journey somewhat, riding along the coast before heading up into the mountains to get on the Izu Skyline to ride it from one end to the other. Following that, we decided to give the Ashinoko Skyline a try.

These photos were taken on the Ashinoko Skyline, which I had earlier been intimidated by since it has a lot of VERY VERY fast bikers, usually - but it turns out, it's just as fun and pleasant as the Izu Skyline.

Here's a map of our route home:

View To Usami and Back in a larger map

Nakajimaso's phone number: ????????????
Nakajimaso's website: http://www11.plala.or.jp/nakajimasou/

O-Bon Summer Holidays!

Finally, I can say TGIF and breathe a sigh of relief  - well, in about three more hours, anyway.

Our week-long summer vacation begins at 5 p.m. today, and I have to say that I am totally looking forward to it. We don't have any set plans really, but I did reserve a minshuku (small Japanese inn) in Usami (Izu Peninsula) for tomorrow night.

Last Sunday I bought a set of used saddle-bags on the auction. They are really nice Degners (a popular brand here), and  they arrived two days ago, so I'm going to try to get them on the motorbike tonight so we can head out early tomorrow morning for Izu.

I'm looking forward to the ride - I really haven't had enough practice time on the bike, and haven't even been on the bike in a couple of weeks, in fact. Tomorrow, we're taking the longer, more scenic (and lessed trafficked!) mountain roads. If memory serves, we may only have about five stop-lights the entire way, and even get to open the throttle a little on the Izu Skyline!

Here's a map of our planned route:

I've mapped our intended route below:


View To Usami beach via the mountains in a larger map

Shizunami Beach and the Katsumata Minshuku

Saturday we took my car to Shizunami beach, which is still in Shizuoka prefecture, but far enough away to make it a great getaway. Actually, it was a party organized by our co-workers, so it was great fun to drink and hang-out with a group of people - and it wasn't even raining!

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Brian and I stayed overnight, as we generally do to avoid the long drive home. Our usual favourite place was fully booked, so I branched out and found us another place not too far from the beach. The Katsumata minshuku proved to be just about perfect.

In peak season, they do not offer meals or any other amenities, like towels or toothbrushes (rare in Japan - most places have this). However, they have a lovely yard with a BBQ area, a rooftop that one can sit on, and a 24-hour convenience store not even a 30-second walk away.

The owners were very friendly, the rooms small but clean, and with the A/C on and the windows closed, it made for a great night's sleep.

We had intended to spend a few more hours at the beach on Sunday, but unfortunately, the weather didn't hold and we ended up driving back to Susono in the blinding rain!

(Contact Katsumata Minshuku here: http://www4.ocn.ne.jp/~s-oishi/
tel?????????????? )

Beaching...in the rain, of course

Despite the weather, Brian and I (and my sublime malaise) are heading to Shizunami beach today to enjoy some sand, waves, and social interaction of our colleagues.

We are, of course, going to spend the night, but our usual favourite place is fully booked, so we are trying a different (cheaper, but further away) option called the Katsumata minshuku (?????????????????).

Will post pics and minshuku review tomorrow!