Spring teased us a bit a few weeks ago with warm days and the first bits of sakura, or cherry blossoms. It was followed shortly thereafter with a drop in temperature and even a bit of snow and hail. This weeks the weather has righted itself once again and the sakura are in full bloom. We’ve been taking full advantage of the season by enjoying the outdoors in proper Japanese fashion.

On Sunday I went on a short little ride with a few friends out to the sand dunes and back, stopping to enjoy a cone of nashi (Asian pear) flavored soft cream along the way.

Bronwyn was working that day, translating for a delegation from Hong Kong who had come to observe the Uradome coastal area. We met up after she was done in a park in Tottori where we partook of unhealthy but delicious Japanese fair food including age mochi (deep-fried mochi balls), taiyaki (fried dough shaped like a fish and stuffed with red bean paste), and takoyaki (fried dough balls stuffed with octopus).

Because Bronwyn had worked on Sunday, she was able to take the day off of Tuesday and we used that time to ride our bikes out to Kurayoshi for more sakura viewing. Rather than take the usual coastal route, we opted for the country route which took us up and over a couple of small mountains, passing through the towns of Shikano and Misasa, past Mitoku-san which we had climbed last fall.

Drivers in Japan are generally quite courteous towards cyclists. Though drivers are occasionally perplexed as to what a bicycle is doing on the street rather than the sidewalk, despite the integral prevalence of utility cycling, they are generally quite courteous towards cyclists. They wait for a safe time to pass, then give a safe amount of distance.

We had one rare bit of asshattery on this ride, however. While going down one of the twisty, two-lane mountain roads some idiot driver came up from behind and leaned heavy on his horn for nearly the entire descent. The thing is, the road had a 40kmh speed limit. I was going 60 and doing just fine keeping pace with the next car, a large van, about 200m ahead of me. The driver behind finally found a straightaway where he was able to pass me maybe two thirds of the way down the stretch of road, but of course then had to ride his brakes the rest of the way as he now had the van in front of him. At the bottom of the mountain is a stop light. Of course it was red and of course I ended up pulling right next to the car, waiting for the green for a solid minute and a half. In L.A. I may have verbally berated the driver for his stupidity. That’s a little too forward for Japan, so instead I simply stared him down. The Japanese do not do well with direct eye contact, especially from strangers. It makes them extremely uncomfortable. Not meeting my gaze, the driver simply fidgeted in his seat until the green light finally came and he turned quickly to me and mouthed what looked like “asshole” before speeding off. That felt good.

At any rate, the annoyance of that whole experience was very much overshadowed by the otherwise entirely pleasant ride. The weather was perfect and the scenery gorgeous.

There were a couple of mechanical difficulties. One was a broken seatpost bolt on Bronwyn’s bike early on. It was close enough to town that I quickly zipped over to Cycle Shop Fukuhama for a replacement. The other was a broken chain, also on Bronwyn’s bike that was a fairly quick fix. That was probably due to my improper installation when installing my old 11-34 cassette, LX derailleur, and chain on to her bike and is the primary reason why I much prefer using SRAM chains with their powerlinks – you can break and reassemble the chains without fear of creating a weak link.

Once in Kurayoshi, we grabbed a few beers and enjoyed more unhealthy Japanese fair food under the sakura, the act of which is called hanami, before riding the train back to Tottori where we ended the day relaxing in an onsen, or Japanese hot spring. ?????!

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