Day 16 -- A day of firsts

Total distance: ~50 km (taking a brutally punishing scenic route)

The viewsa from Usa

Today was a day of many firsts. It was the first time I’ve ever ridden a sports bike (I guess in America we call them hybrids—mountain bikes with road tires) for a long distance. It was the first time I’ve ever taken a long path denoted by a green line in my guide book. The normal walking path is red but sometimes it’ll list alternate routes.

Today is also the first time I’ve arrived where I’m staying and not wanted to collapse instantly. I’m staying in a town called Nakatosa this evening, and as I arrived there I decided to take a look around the small shops and whatever to kill a bit of time.

Setting a limit of 50 km a day turned out to be a fantastic idea. I was really able to appreciate where I was instead of focusing on how much walking suuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Temple 35 清滝寺 Kiyotakiji (~3 km)

Kiyotakiji

This is one I would have gone to yesterday if not for the bike-buying process being a lot longer than I expected it to be. It was up a mountain (like most of the temples) but it wasn’t that particularly hard. I walked most of the steep parts. The climb was also my first taste of certain routes being closed to me as a vehicle-haver. The road wasn’t too much longer though, and the downhill was really fun.

I’m kinda glad I walked for two weeks before switching to a bicycle (even though my left ankle absolutely is not). If I had been riding from day one I would have missed out on some excellent woodsy mountain paths. But after two weeks of walking I can say that all of those woodsy mountain paths are completely identical and also murder on my joints. So now it’s time to use windy roads.

The day started fantastically, by the way. It was sunny, but not too sunny. The temple was a small one and when I walked into the stamp office I was greeted by an enormous dog. So I just kinda sat there petting it and eventually the lady came out to the front desk and apologized profusely for keeping me waiting. I said it was fine, of course, I was just hanging out with the dog.

Well, we got into a conversation about where the both of us are from and our jobs and I mentioned I taught kindergarteners—she thought that was the coolest thing ever and told me she wanted to be a kindergarten teacher someday. Then she brought out a little DVD single that apparently exists as a thing… she said she was really into this one band “Sensations” and that she was collecting these DVD singles to give to people as presents. So… I got a J-pop music video DVD today.

Temple 36 青龍寺 Shōryūji (14.3 km)

This one was, mercifully, not on a mountain, but it did contain tons of stairs anyway because I guess ancient Buddhists thought stairs were the height of holiness back when they were constructing the temples.

I passed through the town of 宇佐 (Usa) to get here. Usa is absolutely by far the most beautiful place I’ve been through so far. it’s situated on an inlet between two peninsulas so there’s a bunch of ship traffic, but there are also mountains all over the place and it’s just really beautiful. I took a bunch of pictures.

As for Shōryūji, it was a pretty small temple as well, but for some reason there were a ton of other pilgrims there at the same time I was who also were biking the route.

The dreaded scenic route and the road to Nakatosa (~34 km)

After temple 36 there were two choices. I could either backtrack a bit to Usa and take the roads through civilization, or continue south following a cliffside road through what has been deemed an official Japanese natural park. Obviously, with tons of time to spare, I chose the latter.

The scenic route

Deciding to go the scenic route turned out to be… cool, but terrifying. The entire route is along cliffs overlooking an enormous drop into the Pacific Ocean, and that kinda freaked me out a bit. I mean, there were guardrails and whatnot, but… yeah, I did a lot of walking my bike on that path.

But there were a ton of excellent photo opportunities from high up on the cliffs. And at one point I stopped at a little rest hut sorta place and there were so many animals I felt like I was intruding. Tons of cats sunbathing in the parking lots while enormous eagles circled ominously overhead… it was an interesting scene but it made me feel bad for the cats. I wonder how they got there. Do people just go to super remote cliffside locations and drop off cats there? Weird.

CATS

The rest of the road was pretty easy after that. I passed by a big industrial machine that made me think of Xenoblade. Though everything makes me think of that nowadays, with the sequel only weeks away. I gotta wait for it anyway.

Also there was a tunnel that was close to a kilometer long. Having a bicycle was an excellent excuse to go through it instead of taking a brutal walking path up and over the mountain.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say for today, which turned out to be a lot. When I’m not trudging along the highway trying to ignore shooting pains in my ankle and knees the day seems a lot longer!

My hams are hurting, though.