I won’t bother with writing about details of last work week. Just know that it was two days long, and I feel like every week should be that short! 
Thursday was the first day of the weekend, and Melissa B, Ian, and I planned to bike the entire distance of the Kumagawa cycling road, which I’ve mentioned once or twice before. It extends from Yunomae all the way to Hitoyoshi, a good twenty miles away. Wednesday night we went to Rachel’s house to pick up her bike for Ian. Her bike is so freaking sweet, and she doesn’t even use it!! That’s right! She has an electric bike…..which is a normal bike until you turn the key, and the e-assist comes on. It’s really nice for hills or whenever you don’t want to have to work. Since it didn’t fit in our car, I had to ride it home. I loved it! I left the e-assist on, and it seemed so much lighter and faster than my own bike! 
However, once the uncharged battery wore down, it became a much, much HEAVIER bike. The battery, heavy metal, and thick plastic basket all made it extremely more difficult to ride.
Thursday morning, we woke up around 9AM. Melissa was at our house by 9:45AM, and we were on the trail by 10AM. We stopped at the conbini for snacks and a pack lunch. The trail was nice—flat, paved, and followed the beautiful scenery of the Kumagawa. Ian started off on Rachel’s bike, and I was on mine, but he said that the seat was hurting his butt. I have NO idea how this was possible because Rachel’s bike has one of those wonderful thick cushy seats like bicycles USED to have, and my seat barely has padding and rides up my butt. However, Ian preferred my bike, so for the rest of the day I had Rachel’s. When Melissa and Ian started to complain about their butts hurting, I didn’t feel a thing! 
It actually wasn’t until the end of the trek when my butt started to feel it. The huge basket on the front was perfect for storage. We were able to fit all of our stuff, including Melissa’s backpack in it, but when I went over bumps, stuff would rattle around in the basket or go flying in the air, and I’d have to catch it.
The trail passes through Taragi, Asagiri, and Nishiki before it hits Hitoyoshi. There are several little parks and rest stops along the way that we could break at. Even though the weather was absolutely perfect (it had rained ALL DAY the day before), we did have a pretty strong head wind, and we enjoyed the breaks. Somewhere between Taragi and Asagiri, Melissa and Ian saw a snake along the path while I shuddered and silently thanked God that I didn’t see it. Then not too far down the road when I was leading, a big, fat, black snake slithered off the path in front of me. I screamed and slammed on my brakes. I’m pretty sure that the snake was more scared of me than I of him, but that didn’t stop me from having a little freak out. 
Ian said that since I slammed on my brakes so quickly, he almost rammed into my back tire. I HATE snakes. *shudder*
In Nishiki the trail led us straight to the 219, the main road from Yunomae to Hitoyoshi, so we had to ride on the sidewalk for a little while. Although traffic was heavier, our slower pace allowed us to notice little things that we never see while driving the 219. For example, we stopped at a farmer’s market shop and browsed through the fruit. We learned that the hill leaving Nishiki is massive. We also learned that while coasting the downside, you can get a ridiculous amount of speed.
Each of us was starting to get a little tired and hungry, so we decided to stop at the Hitoyoshi Craft Park outside of Nishiki for lunch. Although we pass by it every time we go to Hitoyoshi, none of us has actually gone there, and Thursday was the perfect day for that! Children’s Day is one of the holidays during Golden Week, and huge koi kites are hung up from poles (above, left). I’m not sure of the connection or relevance of koi to children, but each kite is a different color, and it’s gorgeous to see them whipping around in the wind. It was a good day to explore the craft park because several vendors were set up and demonstrating how to make things. We saw vendors making shochu, chopsticks, pottery, glassware, woodwork, and blades. Melissa had a fairly in depth conversation with the guy making blades and his wife. They were super nice to us and seemed genuinely excited to have foreigners in their shop. As we were eating lunch, we noticed parents pulling their kids around on these huge wooden wagons shaped like animals, so we agreed that even though we are grown adults, we should probably give the Japanese something to point and laugh at (above, right). Yes, we each took turns riding and pulling one another on the toys. I felt kind of bad making a spectacle of ourselves, but if you can’t laugh at yourself, your life is sad.
Whenever we got back on the trail, we had a decision to make. We were close enough to Hitoyoshi that we could say we technically rode there. However, the trail doesn’t end until the Hitoyoshi train station, and I really wanted to say that we rode the whole thing. Ian suggested that we ride to Hitoyoshi and take the train back to Yunomae. No fair! No cheating! 
Melissa said that since she lives so close to Hitoyoshi, she might just ride home and then let us go back by ourselves. However, consensually we agreed to go big or go home and ride the WHOLE thing. Even though we had just rested, we stopped beside the river to cool off and take pictures (below). The closer we got to Hitoyoshi, the more hills we encountered, and since my bike weighed so much more, I had to get off and push it up the hill a couple of times (going down was nice—since I weighed more, I would ZOOM by Ian and Melissa). Ian had the idea to grab supper in Hitoyoshi, so we called Mary and told her to meet us at Everest in twenty minutes. Sadly when we arrived there, it was closed for whatever reason, so we decided to uphold the stereotype that all Americans go to McDonald’s and ate there. Nothing replenishes you more than a big, fat burger after a long day of exercise (actually, I felt worse after it ).
Since we went out to eat, we knew that we’d be riding back at least part of the trail in the dark. I’m pretty sure we counted down EACH kilometer. While the day was fun, we were starting to get worn out. Case in point: we were riding over a bridge, and I was looking out over the river, not paying attention at all to the road. Therefore, I ran into a road sign. I didn’t even notice it until it smacked me in the face. Luckily the bike basket absorbed most of the blow, and I only got a few scratches on my hand and shoulder. Instead of road rash, I got sign rash! (The next day, Justine said “It looks like you got burned on your hand.” I had to explain what ACTUALLY happened.) Since it didn’t really hurt and it was pretty funny, we laughed about it the whole way home, and Melissa and Ian were so nice to warn me of EACH approaching sign and tell me to not run into it.
We had to take the most breaks on that very last leg. Since we were riding along the river, there were bugs everywhere—flying onto our face, hair, eyes, and arms as darkness approached. By the time we reached Taragi, it was completely dark. Luckily it was a full moon, and that really helped us see. We finally, FINALLY reached home at 8:30. Poor Melissa had to drive all the way back to her house, but Ian and I finished up the night by jumping in the shower and packing up for our third and final Golden Week adventure, Nagasaki.
Keep reading! Nagasaki was one of my favorite places we’ve been so far, and Ian got GREAT pictures of the city!
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