Day 17 -- Bugs, and also some other things

Total distance: ~60 km (I didn’t plan it that way, I promise!!)

Nanako Pass

Today was another full day that seemed absolutely endless. I don’t want to harp on it too much but having a bicycle and the ability to stop for extended rests has really rejuvenated me and allowed me to really appreciate all the places I’ve been.

That having been said, there is something about Kōchi that has been… wait for it… “bugging” me lately. It’s the bugs.

There are these little black bugs that are just everywhere all the time. I don’t think they’re harmful but just everywhere you look they’re flying through the air or crawling over posts. And lord help you if you stop for some food at a convenience store or something. Your bike will be covered with them. What the hell, bugs?

I’ll try to take a picture of one of them tomorrow. Shouldn’t be hard.

Oh, and the other thing was.. I was planning on staying at a place real close to Irino Pine Forest but weirdly lots of places around there had phone numbers that had been disconnected. I waited until about 11am to make the reservation (since there seemed to be so many choices), but the places that ended up having working telephone numbers were full by that point. I ended up having to make a reservation 10 km past the park. On the plus side, it's a fantastic place. On the... minus side (?), I broke my own rule on day two. Oh well.

Temple 37 岩本寺 Iwamotoji (~21 km)

A shot from inside Iwamotoji

Today was a fairly mountainous day. I started with a mostly walking trip up a steep road called Nanako Pass, high up into the mountains. The view is seriously breathtaking, but I never realized how scared of heights I am. I was pretty on edge the entire climb. No pun intended.

The entire trip to Iwamotoji took about three hours, just because I walked the majority of the way up. Once I finished the climb, though, it turned into fairly flat farmland and I started appreciating everything a lot more. In no time I hit Kubokawa, the city surrounding Iwamotoji.

This was a small non-mountain temple in a small non-city town. There are a lot of small towns in Shikoku, but this one felt particularly homey. I don’t know why. All the stores were tiny and only just opening even though it was 10am, people were having friendly conversations in the street that I couldn’t understand for the life of me...

After the climb, the road leveled out and it was real pretty.

By the way, I thought I was pretty okay with understanding Japanese when people speak it at me, but good lord inaka Japanese is ridiculously hard to even pick out individual words. You can tell how young people are by how quickly they realize that since I’m a foreigner they need to speak standard Japanese or I will not understand a single word of what they are saying.

The rest of the day, and Irino Pine Coast / The Beach (~40 km)

As tough as heading up the mountain is with a bike, going down the other side is really fun. Reminded me a lot of riding motorcycles when I was in high school a DECADE AGO.

I had about 5 hours to go 40 km, which is super easy, so I spent much of the day at the beach. I also turned a little red. That’ll teach me to forego the sunscreen.

Irino Pine Coast

Anyway, there’s a special natural park called Irino Pine Coast that is just fabulous. It’s a—well, I guess you can imagine from the name—pine forest bordering the beach. Still, it was very pretty and I had a lot of time to sit and eat and think and play in the sand and wade in the water.

I got to the place I’m staying at pretty much exactly 5PM, which I consider a rousing success. Also felt great because I’m not the only foreigner here—there is a family (?) of Chinese people here and they can barely speak any Japanese and by comparison I feel super fluent.

Okay so anyway that’s my day.