3500 km rowerem przez Japonię – Tydzień 1: Start z Kagoshimy i pierwszy szok kulturowy

3500 km rowerem przez Japonię – Tydzień 1: Start z Kagoshimy i pierwszy szok kulturowy

In Japan there are cherry trees that are a thousand years old. If the fortune is bad, we take it anyway. And the bad fortune disappears after this fairytale ritual, this fairytale ritual. Welcome to another cycling series. This time I’m taking you to the Land of Cherry Blossoms for an adventure. We’ll start in the far south, on almost-tropical Kyushu. We’ll swing by Shikoku, fight our way through the densely urbanised south of Honshu and the Japanese Alps. This time we’ll skip Tokyo, so we can use the time we save to explore the Japanese countryside. In the final stage we’ll head to the remote, distant even for average Japanese people, Hokkaido and our final goal, Wakkanai. We’ve got three and a half thousand kilometres to ride and just under thirty days. But before we can start, we somehow have to get to Japan. After two flights, first to Bangkok and then to Tokyo, I finally arrive. And here I am in Tokyo. My companion and friend Dawid is already waiting for me, with whom I’ll ride the first three weeks. Oh, I see him! We regroup a bit, and the next evening we fly to the starting point of our route, heading for Kagoshima. A morning downpour effectively delays our start, but it also gives us time to calmly, without rushing, put the bikes together. Welcome on this cloudy, rainy morning. We’re starting a new trip, a journey across Japan. We’re in Kagoshima, with a volcano behind us, Sakurajima, which is a bit intimidating and maybe fills I don’t know if with optimism or rather the opposite for the people of Kagoshima. We, however, are full of optimism, because the forecast, despite the current bad weather, says it should clear up in the afternoon, and we hope that this kind of weather like in the afternoon will accompany us for most of this trip. Today we’re heading to the very south to reach the southern tip of Japan, and from there it’s only north. So, let’s go! We’ve barely started and there’s already a breakdown. Maybe you remember the breakdown I had in the States, I think on the second or third day, when my rack just slipped backwards like this, just completely collapsed. The same thing happened to Dawid today. But a quick reaction, luckily it was taped up, so nothing fell off. Everything stayed here, fortunately. Everything’s fine. It’s raining, we’ve got about twenty minutes for the cloud to pass, so we decided to stop, grab something to eat, because maybe we’re not super hungry yet, but we can already feel it a bit. Exactly. Look, we’ve got this little jug in front of us, the lady immediately brought us tea, that’s what it seems like. There are these spots here, even with seats, look, but these places, the ones where you sit cross-legged, are probably for real Japanese people, not for fakes like us. Certainly not for us. And we’ve ended up at the only spot with a kettle. Dawid, do you know what we’ve been served? How do you eat soup with chopsticks? I have no idea. It looks like flakes. We ordered some food, this is what it looks like. We think it’s fried cabbage and onion, very tasty, with a sweet and sour sauce. And that’s his side dish. We’ve reached our first rice field. When I came out of the corner I just said “wow” and I could have added, of course, “how beautiful!” because just look at this. And I sincerely hope that it’s exactly on these kinds of little roads that we’ll be riding most of the time, because just look, it’s simply full chill and pure utopia. We’ve reached Lake Ikeda, and look at the beautiful flowers that welcomed us here. Pink here, blue there, green over there – a wonderful combination. Further on there are flowers in other colours too. Ocha – green tea from a vending machine. Look at this volcano, Kaimon-dake, Kaimon-dake, Kaimon-dake. Not “nemun”, just “mon, mon”. “Mon” – Kaimon-dake, Kaimon-dake. And we’ve reached Cape Nagasakibana, which is the second most southerly cape in Japan. The most southerly one is over there, but it was too far for us to ride there, so, well, we do everything “medium” for you, guys. So we’re at the second most southerly one. Could we have tried harder? Probably yes, but we’re doing this like at someone else’s place, not our own. Even though, in the end, we’re doing it for ourselves. But it was just too far. Still, just look – the view here is incredible. Over there the sun sets behind the volcano, and here the surface of the water crashing against the rocks. The Nagasakibana Peninsula, or something like that. And you could say that this is our first kind of milestone: sixty kilometres behind us, and from now on we’ll only be heading north. Sixty kilometres done, there are three thousand four hundred and forty to go. Hey, you film this, there are herons sitting over there. Look, what a romantic scene – the volcano, oh, look, the top has just appeared. And we’re ending today with only seventy, seventy kilometres ridden, so much less than we should have done. But my valve was already leaking air so much that we just couldn’t ride any further. I’ll have to swap it for a tube, unfortunately. We’re finishing in the town of, um… Dawid has gone to get food, I’m pitching the tent. The spot is quite nice, because look: the view we have is like this. On this side there’s a mountain, and here our tent will stand by the water, so it could be worse. Tomorrow we just have to set off earlier to make up the kilometres, and that’s it. We’re starting day two. We set off earlier today, which is no surprise. A bit after seven, and we’re heading to the town of Minami-Kyushu, where there should be a samurai residence. We don’t know if it will be open, because Google says it’s open twenty-four hours a day, but we’ll see. Yesterday we had our first rice field, and today, look, our first tea field. It really looks incredibly neat, but we’re in Japan, so here everything looks incredibly neat. We didn’t even have time to really admire this field of tea, because it surprised us so much. At first we thought it was a hedge, but then we realised that it would be a bit silly to plant just a hedge in the middle of a field. And so we reach Chiran and Samurai Street, travelling straight back to the eighteenth century and the Edo period. Samurai lived here in fairly simple houses, and it was the harmony and beauty of the garden that showed the status of its owner. From here they extended their influence and set out for battle. Today you can still feel the spirit of the philosophy of bushido, the way of the warrior. We’ve just been to a shop, bought ourselves second breakfast, and look what we’ve got. These ready-made meals. This one cost five hundred, this one four hundred, so about ten and twelve zloty. Twelve, and we also bought some drinks. Where’s that small drink? Over there – I’ve no idea what it is. “Milk water”, we’re going to test it. Tea, coffee, and this one – we have no idea what it is. We don’t know, we’ll see. Do we read what it is first, or only after we try? “Milk water” turns out to actually be Calpis, a light milky drink that tastes a bit like sweet-and-sour yoghurt. The sets we bought turned out to be a real bullseye. Delicious fish, chicken and sides gave us the energy to keep going and cover more kilometres. We were just riding along, riding along and we came across this little shack. “Kijansa”. And we decided that we had to buy something. And look, some kind of… whatever this is. We bought this fried chicken, I think. Four hundred yen, so what, about a tenner? Right, let’s try it. Dawid, go ahead. With skin. With bone. Mmm. Kind of like nuggets, but good, slightly sweet. Okay, I’m digging in. We met a very nice couple in a café, and we have this rule that when we meet someone nice, we give them Polish or Belgian sweets. This is from us. Polish sweets. From Poland. Well, kind of like that. Polish crew, Volcano Kosowska. We’ve already done over ninety kilometres, and our calculations show that we can make it past the town of Akune. But to get there we have to go through the mountains. And here that means either riding over the mountain or going through a tunnel. And in our case we’ll have to ride along the national highway, through a tunnel. Our first tunnel. I’ve read a lot of traumatic stories about this, but we’ll see. And then we were lucky that we bought those inner tubes, because we’ve got a flat. My first flat tyre on a tour ever. You had to come all the way to Japan to get your first flat on a trip. Scandalous. We’re getting closer. It’s half past eight in the evening, and as you can see, we’ve made it. We’re in the town of… We’re in the town of Origuchi. There’s a toilet in the city park, so it’s not too bad. There’s running water, but unfortunately no power outlet. And that’s the only downside of this place. And tomorrow… Today we ended up with almost one hundred and thirty kilometres, so all in all, not bad. And we’ve come to the conclusion that we probably have to balance between riding through beautiful Japanese villages and simply pushing forward on the main roads. Because the main roads give us much higher speed and let us cover more kilometres. And tomorrow we’re heading to Nagashima Island and Shimoshima Island. We’re off to make dinner now – see you tomorrow. Eh, two coffees. Two coffees… ah, pot… eh… Mmm, hot coffee. Hot coffee… mm, mm… A jumbo frank sausage. Two. Two. This is what our breakfast looks like today: a croissant with ham and, I think, egg, a jumbo jack sausage, a little sweet donut and coffee. We’ve come off Kyushu and ridden onto a smaller, much smaller island, Nagashima. We won’t stay here for long, we’ll basically just ride along the coast and cross another strait, this time to Shimoshima Island. And that one is bigger, and we’ll be staying there a bit longer. We’ve changed our route a bit, and because of that we had a little time, so we turned off the main road, because we saw an amazing sculpture. Look at this dragon. As we found out, this dragon was erected in gratitude for overcoming an unusual drought. This is not just any dragon. What’s his name? This is Arifuko. This is Arifuko, the dragon who helped this island, helped the island’s inhabitants overcome an unusual drought. What exactly was unusual about it? We don’t know. Anyway, it was an exceptionally unusual drought. Greetings. Konnichiwa, konnichiwa. But let me tell you, with this ferry today we were incredibly lucky. We thought that it was nine forty, but I looked wrong and checked the ferry that goes in the opposite direction. Luckily we arrived around eight fifty, literally six or seven minutes before departure of the ferry. Otherwise we’d have had to wait an hour and a half, so it worked out really well. When I read about Shimoshima, it said that it’s known – or maybe not “famous” – but its economy is based on fishing. And just look, here we’re riding along a narrow street passing fish processing plants. Here they smoke fish. The smell just hangs in the air from all these buildings. Our shirts, shirts and T-shirts will be probably soaked with the smell of fish, but the smell actually isn’t that bad, so… And now I think we’re already on a cycle path, just look how nice it is. We could have asked them if they’d sell us some fish. We came across smoked fish production and we’ll see whether they’ll sell us something. I’ve asked. For now, they’re just moving pallets around. We’ll see if they sell us anything. I think we’ve managed to communicate and we’ll probably buy some smoked fish; we’ve already got a free Coke, and now we’re going to get the fish. Konnichiwa, konnichiwa. Konnichiwa. And here it is, dried. We really lucked out with this tour: a production plant for fish-based seasoning. We saw the entire process from start to finish. The man was incredibly kind. And what did we have to do? Just say that we’re riding from Kagoshima to Hokkaido. That pretty much opens every door in Japan. It’s done. We keep riding through the fish factory, or rather, the production facility. After our fishy adventure we turned onto this small road along the coast of this island, and for a while we’ll be following it. It’s really very scenic, and it’s definitely going to be a pleasant ride. Hi. We’re in the middle of a forest, but because it’s a Japanese forest, we can have a coffee from a vending machine. Hot or cold? Maybe cold, because now it’s gotten quite warm. So we’ll cool down a bit, good. One large coffee, cold, please. Here you go. Cold – you can even see it’s a bit frosted here. Don’t you think the main advantage of these vending machines is that no matter where they stand, whether at the airport or in the forest, the price is the same? Maybe it’s regulated by law. There’s a Vending Machine Act. Where does it get power from? Well, how… it goes here, ah. Right, this is Japan – there are cables everywhere. Right. A few sips of cold coffee and we’re off again. Three and a half kilometres, two hundred and thirty metres up. The worst section is still ahead of me. It’s quite hot, and you can really feel it. But we keep going forward. And we’ve made it to the viewpoint, actually to the ruins of a shrine – Kuratake Shrine. Six hundred and eighty-two metres above sea level, and we started from sea level. So the climb was really tough, but the views all around – just look at this. We rode down, had something to eat, grabbed whatever from a shop, and now we’re heading to our spot for the night. We found a park seven kilometres from here, and we’re going there. We’ll see – there should be a toilet, it should be more or less okay, and most importantly we’ll be closer to Aso National Park, which is our goal for tomorrow. We reached our camp – a small, quiet city park on the outskirts – just as the sun was already sinking towards the horizon. We pitched the tent under a shelter and fell asleep very quickly, hoping for at least a bit of recovery. We’re slowly leaving the beautiful Amakusa Archipelago. You could say “unfortunately”, but… we have to keep going. Just look – it really is incredibly beautiful. Today it’s a bit hazy overall, but still it’s very pleasant. Anyway, today we’ll mostly be on main roads, so it’s more like a transit day, you could say. I don’t really have any special attractions planned along the way today. We’ve arrived in the town of Misumi, where there is an old port, which used to be one of the main ports in this region. And you can see here these historic buildings from the second half of the 19th century, like the one behind me – the port office, which doesn’t look like an office at all. We’ll see inside. Dawid has just come out of the office – he sorted out our customs fee for crossing the strait. The bureaucracy is much lighter than in Poland – look. It really doesn’t look like an office, but it is one. Or rather, more accurately, it used to be an office. We’re already on the outskirts of Kumamoto. There are still some fields, but soon there’ll be fewer and fewer, and the buildings will get denser. We’ll see how our ride through Kumamoto goes. The navigation is taking us close to the centre, so we’ll probably at least see Kumamoto Castle. We’ve arrived at Kumamoto Castle. As you can see, it’s really impressive in size, but what’s most valuable and unique here isn’t the castle itself, it’s these walls you see here, built in the 17th century using the most advanced techniques of the time. For a long time they allowed the builder and lord of the castle to defend himself and gave him prestige among the other rulers here in Japan. We’ve come to a gentleman who is going to draw us one of these – like the ones he drew earlier. Show the cards, show what they look like, from when we were in… Un. Sumimasen. Aa, arigatou. The little card you see here is a goshuin, literally a “sacred seal”. It’s handwritten – the black characters are written by hand, not the red ones. The red ones are probably stamps, right? And the black ones are drawn by hand. At every major temple you can find monks who write these goshuin for you, and they later end up in special pilgrimage notebooks. Kind of like tourist badges in Poland, you could say. I think they have a deeper meaning, we can read about it later. Do you remember tourist badges? Yeah. Well, they come from the tradition of documenting pilgrimages and offerings to the temple. Today each goshuin is unique, which attracts many tourists as well. Look – you can already see the volcano’s caldera there. A Japanese shed. It doesn’t look particularly impressive. We’ve reached our destination – the town of Aso. And today we’ve decided that we’re going to sleep in a hotel. The weather isn’t great, because it’s about to start raining. In fact, it started raining just as we arrived. The wind is brutal, and we also need to do some laundry, so today – it’s a hotel. I’ll give you a little tour of what we’ve got here. Let’s start with the most controversial part – the toilet. But look – it’s fully Japanese style. Notice – full Japanese equipment here. You can rinse yourself and do all sorts of things. Let’s move on to the living room. Now, the living room – of course modest, as in Japan, but the most important part is here: we’ve got futons on tatami mats, there are some closets, we’ve got tea, and here is a sink with a shower cabin, simple but perfectly adequate. Dawid in a traditional Japanese yukata, and here Piotr-san, also in a yukata. We’re heading to the onsen in a moment, let’s throw in a few more Japanese words. You’ve got a very nice bow. Thank you, Dawid. Beautiful bow. Why is yours tied in front? Because I had to tie it myself. Right, we’re going to the onsen. An onsen is a traditional Japanese bathhouse, built on natural hot springs. This is where Japanese people have relaxed body and soul for centuries. A visit to an onsen starts with washing yourself, sitting on a little stool like this. Only after that can you immerse yourself in the pool of hot water. You go in completely naked, and the baths are divided into sections for men and women. Welcome to day five, which we’re starting with a bang, because right away from the hotel we headed straight up towards Mount Aso. We left our bags at the hotel – the front and the rear ones – so that the bikes would be a bit lighter, but still, it’s almost thirteen kilometres of climbing, over seven hundred metres up in the mountains, with some pretty serious ramps along the way. But it looks absolutely incredible. It’s just stunning. It wasn’t raining – look – and here, inside the caldera, it’s sunny. Are you vlogging on YouTube? – Yeah, a bit. Dawid has ridden ahead, but I’ve got a new buddy – Patryk, Patryk. And look, we even have sakura blooming at this altitude. I thought we wouldn’t see any, but there are still a few late blossoms we can find here. Four point six kilometres left to the summit. Where we were just now was the main crater, and now we’re riding to Crater A. As you can see, Crater A is open. But there’s still another hundred and fifty metres of climbing to get there. This crater and Mount Aso are truly beautiful. It’s the largest active volcano in Japan. The last eruption was in 2021, so quite recently. I don’t know how often it erupts, hopefully not every three or four years. Volcano – conquered. Now it’s time to descend. We bundled up properly, because the descent is long and will probably be cold. So, time to roll down. We’ve ridden down from Aso, the bags are back on the bikes, and we’re heading towards today’s goal. We’re not really sure if we’ll make it, because there are still a lot of mountains ahead of us. But we have a very favourable wind, because it’s coming from the west, and we’re riding east, so it’s perfect. And you can feel it. Still, there’s another fourteen hundred metres of climbing left, so we’ll see. It’s one p.m., we’ve just had lunch and we’re riding towards Beppu. Completely by accident, just passing through, we stumbled upon a beautiful shrine in Aso. And as it turns out, this shrine is a centre – or rather is dedicated to, and maybe even funded by – farmers, because agriculture in the Aso valley is very important. You’ve seen how full it is of fields. And here, in this shrine, they hold rituals for farmers – probably to improve the harvest and bring them good fortune. To get out of the Aso caldera we have to climb again. The views, once more, more than make up for the effort. At the viewpoint we meet a Norwegian who rides with us for quite a while. As we start descending, the scenery changes in an instant. It’s cooler, and the fields give way to wide, open pastures. It’s absolutely beautiful. But Komoot has taken us onto a complete goat track. Let me tell you, this is definitely not a standard through-road. But there’s a tower, so the tarmac should go all the way up. You heard him – we weren’t supposed to stop, but what don’t you do for your viewers. Dawid, what wouldn’t you do for my subscribers? If I’m supposed to make a statement right now, then it’s only thanks to me that you’ve got this volcano footage. You’re welcome. Ninety- -two kilometres done. About twenty-five left to Beppu. It’s still climb after climb, we’ve got about three left, and still around four hundred metres of ascent, so it’s no joke. We should get there just before sunset. Luckily the terrain now isn’t super exciting, so we’re not stopping and just keep riding. You see these elegant shoes that have walked the streets of the United States, Brittany and many other places? It was close – you almost saw them for the last time. On the descent the shoes fell off. Luckily we realised they were missing at the 7-Eleven where we are now. If I may cut in – those shoes have already fallen off like five times. During all the trips – they haven’t? No, the backpack fell off – in France. Anyway, you can see how stubborn they are. They’re some of the ugliest shoes I’ve ever had, but they’re light. And still, Piotrek hasn’t figured out how to mount them on the rack so they don’t fall off. So he clearly wants to lose them. No – you’ll keep seeing them around. Dawid, how do you like it? Nice little tunnel, isn’t it? Yeah, cool – very Asian. No way, mate. You have to take your helmet off. As you can see, we’ve reached our destination – or rather, we’ve reached the restaurant where we’re going to have dinner. Today was really very tough – almost two and a half thousand metres of climbing, a hundred and twenty kilometres. Let me tell you – at times it was really hard, but we made it to Beppu. I’m off to get some dinner, and I’ll see you tomorrow. See you! Welcome to day five – and I greet you with some so-so news, because it turns out there are no bike spaces left on the ferry. The only way they can take us is with the bikes disassembled. We bought bags – ninety-litre ones like this – and now we’ll try to fit our bikes into these bags. Mission “packing” is complete. We’re not sure if this level of packing is good enough, but we’ll see. Fortunately, our improvised bike bags don’t attract staff attention, and we board. We’re sailing out of Beppu Bay towards Shikoku, to Yawatahama. This ferry is quite luxurious. Knowing what our shoes and feet smell like, we’re not sitting in the Japanese-style area. Day six, apart from the morning disappointment, didn’t bring many attractions. Our original plan for Shikoku was different, but when we checked the climbs in detail we saw long sections of around twenty per cent. And honestly, they scared us a bit. Shikoku is the most mountainous of Japan’s main islands, and also very sparsely populated inland. After some thought we shortened the route, stayed on the coast and headed straight for the Shimanami Kaido. Welcome to day seven of the trip. We’ve just had breakfast at a Family Mart, and today the highlight will be the famous route already filmed by many YouTubers – the Shimanami Kaido. Islands connected by bridges, with a cycling path running across them – supposedly the most famous in Japan. Is it really that impressive? We’ll find out. The weather is meant to be good today, so we should see it in all its glory. Leaving Matsuyama we came across a Gokoku Shrine – a shrine dedicated to those who died defending the country. Every prefecture has its own Gokoku Shrine, where they honour those who died – whether in wars or in some other way gave their lives for the country. Dawid went shopping in a supermarket – a bigger one than usual. We’re wandering around and look what we’ve got: Pocari Sweat, sushi, some pineapple, a banana – I’m really curious about this one – kiwi, because in the picture it was yellow inside, we’ll see, and of course matcha KitKat. It’s really hard to find regular chocolate bars here. The sushi is top-notch, and now we’re trying the matcha KitKat. Tastes like a KitKat, you can hardly taste the matcha, right? We’ve already ridden onto the cycling route and look – right away you get this beautiful, wide, smooth tarmac, with a gentle climb, for everyone – for any fitness level to be able to ride the whole route. The final marker – sixty-nine and a half kilometres. So it’s actually quite a long ride, as you can see. Our Shimanami Kaido adventure didn’t start in the luckiest way for me. Though to be fair, that bad luck was my own doing. When we rode onto the first bridge, the view amazed me so much that I insisted on filming it with the drone. I ignored the strong gusts of wind and moments later the drone was lying on the concrete with a broken arm. Well, I didn’t get to fly much in Japan. As for the drone, we’re in a stunning place and I won’t let this little setback ruin the trip. And the Shimanami Kaido itself is seventy kilometres, connecting the islands between Onomichi and Imabari. The whole route runs over seven bridges spanning the Seto Inland Sea. It’s absolutely beautiful here, and the drone is broken. Behind me there’s a map of the route and you can see how many different attractions there are. We definitely won’t be able to tick them all off, but in general the infrastructure here is really fantastic. Just look how many bikes are parked here, how many people have come here. There’s a rental place, and there are lots of similar spots along the route. But it’s also a sea of concrete. Riding through the town of Setoda we came across a very interesting temple complex, and we decided that we had to explore it a bit. This complex is unique, because it’s the founder’s tribute – whose name I can’t remember – to his late mother. Besides temples there are galleries here, pavilions, pagodas, and various other buildings that I couldn’t even remember. As a little fun fact, this temple – this whole complex – is actually quite young. It’s not even a hundred years old. Its founder started the construction of the complex in 1936, and the work went on for a full thirty years. And now we’ve ridden onto the last big bridge. Peace and quiet, just the fishing rod and him. In that town with the temple complex we went into a fruit shop, and from an old lady who looked like she really shouldn’t still be working in a shop, we bought oranges, mandarins, I’m not even sure. She looked at least a hundred years old. She looked like she shouldn’t even be alive,
let alone working. Still, I wish her a long life and good health. We’ve reached the town of Onomichi, which means we’ve also reached the end of the Shimanami Kaido, the route we’ve been riding for so long today. It was a beautiful adventure. The bridges are gorgeous, and it’s a bit bittersweet, because I smashed the drone. But, off the top of my head, a quick summary of this route: I think it’s a really great adventure. If you have two weeks in Japan, then taking a day to ride something like this is a really nice idea. You can rent a bike on the spot, so everything is well set up in terms of infrastructure. The route is beautiful and fairly easy. Even though there are plenty of climbs, they’re mostly quite gentle, so you can just spin up them in low gears. Dawid, what would you say? Shimanami Kaido – a really great tourist route, probably the best I’ve ever ridden. If you don’t plan to ride the whole thing, I’d recommend that first part of the route where we started, because it’s definitely prettier. Or at least that’s how it felt to us. And after the first bridge there was this great restaurant where you could smell smoked, grilled fish or grilled seafood. And we didn’t stop there because we’d already eaten. So, some little pro tips. If you’ve got any more questions, feel free to ask. And I almost forgot – since we’ve finished the Shimanami Kaido, it also means that we’re now on the next main island – Honshu – and we’ll be staying on this island for a very, very long time. It’s seventeen twenty-six, we’ve done about a hundred and twenty kilometres, and we’d planned to ride to Fukuyama – we’ve still got about twenty kilometres to Fukuyama. We’re riding into Fukuyama. We finally made it to Fukuyama – it’s eighteen forty-five, and we racked up a lot of kilometres today, around a hundred and forty. So we’ve made big progress on the trip. Now we’re heading to an onsen to have a bath, then to a laundromat to do some laundry, grab something to eat and only then pitch the tent. So there’s still quite a lot to do today. And it’s Sunday as well, so that’s the end of the vlog. So remember – subscribe, leave a like and a comment, let me know how you’re enjoying the Japan series. And as for us – see you in the next episode. See you, take care, bye!

Rowerem przez Japonię – 3500 km | Tydzień 1: Kagoshima, Kiusiu, Shikoku, Shimanami Kaido, Honsiu

Po 24 godzinach podróży ląduję w Tokio, gdzie na skrzyżowaniu Shibuyi spotykam się z Dawidem. Stamtąd lecimy dalej na południe, żeby oficjalnie rozpocząć wyprawę.

W pierwszym tygodniu pojawia się wiele „pierwszych razów”: pierwsze pole ryżowe i herbaciane, pierwsza noc pod namiotem u stóp wulkanu, pierwsze zetknięcie z ruchem lewostronnym i japońską codziennością. Jest też zwiedzanie fabryki przyprawy umami oraz kilka ujęć z drona, który długo nie przetrwa…

Kiusiu zachwyca już od pierwszych kilometrów. Subtropikalny klimat, zielone lasy, małe świątynie, które na tym etapie jeszcze robią wrażenie. Na wyspach Amakusa mijamy wioseczki i pola ryżu, rozmawiając z mieszkańcami przez translator. Nie jest łatwo się dogadać, ale informacja, że jedziemy na Hokkaido otwiera tu wiele serc.

To pierwszy odcinek serii o przejeździe Japonii z południa na północ. Kolejne filmy będą pojawiać się w kolejne niedziele o 9.00.

instagram: @piotrkwiato

Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/9784929

00:00 – Witajcie w serii Japońskiej
2:27 – Start z Kagoshimy
8:25 – Południowy Kraniec Japonii
20:10 – Archipelag Amakusa i fabryka ryb
33:10 – Kumamoto
37:30 – Wuklan Aso
47:50 – Kierunek Shikoku
52:43 – Shimanami Kaido