Day 8 in Japan

Howdy folks. Today I'm in Himeji and I'm feeling pretty tired. After leaving Tokyo by Shinkasen, I biked from Onomichi to Imabari (1 day), Imabari to Takamatsu (1 day, but I cheated by taking a train), and from Takamatsu to Himeji (1 day with two ferrys). Riding has been fun, but way harder than I expected. The Bike Friday is slower than my Trek on it's own, but towing something like 40 lbs in a suitcase makes it REAL slow. The first day was a pretty ride though, although adjusting to riding in a foreign country was tough. I had a hell of a time finding the start of the trail, wasting over an hour and a ton of energy climbing up hills trying to find a way onto the bridge. At one point, I almost rode over the bridge on the highway. I gave up that and took a ferry across and eventually found the trail. I lost a lot of precious time and even more precious daylight. Well, there wasn't much daylight to be had anyway. There was a typhoon off the coast, so it was rainy the whole time. It was a warm rain, so it was tolerable, but still not as nice as a sunny day. It was a nice ride, but I was a little too tense about reaching my destination.

The second day was sunny, but it was a crappy ride. The first couple of hours were nice, through farmlands and such. Like a Japanese Fresno. After that, my trail was on 11, which was a two lane road that may as well have been a highway. Tiny sidewalks and a constant slight uphill grade reduced me to a crawling pace. Eventually I jumped off the road and found a parallel road through town. Realizing I had a good five hours to either Kotohira (which had a cool-sounding shrine that I'll never see) or even longer to Takamatsu, I gave up and found a train to Takamatsu.

For some reason, after the train ride to Takamatsu, everything on my bike decided to break. The rear shift cable was super loose, and I couldn't figure out why. I tried tightening up the cable, but it didn't work. I tightened it up some more, and one of the parts broke. I kicked my bike and my suitcase for a while and then got back to work. I figured out that my rear wheel had loosened, and had essentially come off (!). I was able to get everything set, and was finally able to get going. I decided that I was going to quit the epic rides portion of my trip and try to just enjoy Japan like a normal, sane tourist.

So the ride to Himeji was only supposed to be about 30 miles, so I figured it would be a nice easy ride. I walked through a Japanese garden, had a leisurely lunch and caught the ferry to Tonsho on an island whose name I can't remember. All I had to do was ride around the island to the other port and take a ferry to Himeji. Somehow I screwed up the instructions though, and ended up climbing an endless mountain. Basically about 2800' with sections of 18% grade. Fortunately, I made it to the top before sundown.

People were tripping out that I was climbing the hill (I had no idea how high it was). One couple actually turned their car around to tell me something. At first I thought they were calling me a donkey, which would be weird, but not too unexpected considering the load. I realized that they were saying Mooon-key. I knew that there was a monkey park in the hills here somewhere, but I didn't think that I was going to pass it. I said, oh monkey. And they nodded enthusiastically. Then the guy moved his hands through the air and said "moon-key, moon-key, moon-key, moon-key." Oh, a lot of monkeys. They nodded. They motioned that it was just around the bend. I said thanks, and was glad that I would be able to stop at the park. Well... I saw about 6 by the side of the road, and I cruised by them without any problems. I took a couple pictures while riding by. I rounded another curve and there were way more. Turns out there is a park in the hills, which I passed and was closed, but there was also just a shitload of wild monkeys around as well. They ranged from 1-2 feet tall. As I rounded the next corner, I saw a couple in a car feeding the monkeys. They just cracked the window and pushed out pieces of bread. The monkeys walked right up to the car. Great, they're attracting the monkeys. The couple saw me and freaked out that I was not safely ensconsed in a car. So the street had a bunch of monkeys in it. I think I probably passed about 30 of them. I decided to treat them like any bunch of surly locals in a city I'm unfamiliar with: show no fear, but also no signs of aggression. Rang the bell on my bike so none of them would be startled while i rode by. Just passing through thanks... The monkeys stared at me, but I tried not to make too much eye contact. Finally, finally, I made it to the peak and the ride down was pretty easy. I still had about an hour of riding until I made it to Fukuda, where I would pick up the ferry to Himeji. I luckily made the last ferry (since I didn't see any hotels) and eventually found a hotel.

Today, I finally found an internet cafe, so I have the chance to write some of this stuff down. I'm going to Himeji-jo after this (look it up), and I'll be heading to Kyoto tonight. Hope everything's going well in the US.