A Ride in the Mountains
A Ride in the Mountains
It seems ages since I've done a decent amount of exercise, so I thought I'd do something about it. I went out for a bike ride in the mountains yesterday. I set off at about 12:15 and intended to ride for a couple of hours or so. I got a bit carried away and didn't get in 'til it was dark. While I was out I took some photographs. Here they are.......
This is a really old house on the edge of Shizuoka. The hedge like things you can see in the centre is green tea. Tea fields are everywhere around here. It’s what Shizuoka is famous for apparently.
This is a tunnel being built. I don’t know what these roads are – as there’s already a highway that seems to run parallel to this about 2 kilometres south of here. This road looks like it’s been a long time in the making – and may well be an abandoned project.
I stopped for a drink at the 100 Yen drinks machine – well you have to don't yer?
Looks like hard work up this hill:
But I made it....That's where I was 30 minutes ago:
Check out my cheesy 1st ever video diary:
A hillside bamboo forest:
These next pictures require an explanation:
So I was cycling along this mountain road – it's proper in the middle of nowhere – barely any houses, cars or people for miles around when I came across this spotlessly clean plastic back on the roadside. “What could be in there?” I thought to myself. So I stopped to check it out.
Ah....Some magazines..........
What kind of magazines????
Why! Porn mags, Of course!?!?!
This left me rather confused. Why would someone have a plastic bag of porn mags in the middle of nowhere? And why would they just leave them at the roadside? Japan is a very litter free country usually.......I don't understand.
I carried on cycling up the mountain and came to a beautiful shrine at the top of the hill.
There was an information board in English. People come here to pray for luck in the time of war. And then there was this big list of names – Maybe it’s list of local people who've died in wars or something – I have no idea. They were quite striking, though.
This temple was pretty much at the top. It was about 1000m above sea level – The size of Snowden – and I live at sea level – so as you can imagine it was quite a tough climb. It took about 2 hours or so. I carried on further along the road and freewheeled down the hill.
I came to little village called “Upper Black River”.
It had an onsen, and as I was freezing from the cool wind biting through my body on the ride down the hill.. It seemed like a good idea to stop and warm up. I also had a bowl of tempura soba.
It was now about 4:30 – and I didn't really know where I was. It would be dark soon, so I upped my pace. I had a dilemma at a T-junction. I could either take the quiet country road back towards my house or head towards the main road. The problem with the main road would be that it was a very busy road, and wouldn’t be too pleasant to cycle along. The problem with the quiet road was that the signpost said "高山" - 4km.高山 means “High Mountain”. I didn’t fancy that either. But I set off along it as I guessed it would be much shorter than going around. Fortunately there were road works going on and the road appeared to be closed. I took that as my excuse to turn around and head back towards the flat main road. It took another 1hr 30 to get home – and it was pretty much dark when I stumbled into my flat for a well earned cup of tea.
But I had a delightful day.:-)
It seems ages since I've done a decent amount of exercise, so I thought I'd do something about it. I went out for a bike ride in the mountains yesterday. I set off at about 12:15 and intended to ride for a couple of hours or so. I got a bit carried away and didn't get in 'til it was dark. While I was out I took some photographs. Here they are.......
This is a really old house on the edge of Shizuoka. The hedge like things you can see in the centre is green tea. Tea fields are everywhere around here. It’s what Shizuoka is famous for apparently.
This is a tunnel being built. I don’t know what these roads are – as there’s already a highway that seems to run parallel to this about 2 kilometres south of here. This road looks like it’s been a long time in the making – and may well be an abandoned project.
I stopped for a drink at the 100 Yen drinks machine – well you have to don't yer?
Looks like hard work up this hill:
But I made it....That's where I was 30 minutes ago:
Check out my cheesy 1st ever video diary:
A hillside bamboo forest:
These next pictures require an explanation:
So I was cycling along this mountain road – it's proper in the middle of nowhere – barely any houses, cars or people for miles around when I came across this spotlessly clean plastic back on the roadside. “What could be in there?” I thought to myself. So I stopped to check it out.
Ah....Some magazines..........
What kind of magazines????
Why! Porn mags, Of course!?!?!
This left me rather confused. Why would someone have a plastic bag of porn mags in the middle of nowhere? And why would they just leave them at the roadside? Japan is a very litter free country usually.......I don't understand.
I carried on cycling up the mountain and came to a beautiful shrine at the top of the hill.
There was an information board in English. People come here to pray for luck in the time of war. And then there was this big list of names – Maybe it’s list of local people who've died in wars or something – I have no idea. They were quite striking, though.
This temple was pretty much at the top. It was about 1000m above sea level – The size of Snowden – and I live at sea level – so as you can imagine it was quite a tough climb. It took about 2 hours or so. I carried on further along the road and freewheeled down the hill.
I came to little village called “Upper Black River”.
It had an onsen, and as I was freezing from the cool wind biting through my body on the ride down the hill.. It seemed like a good idea to stop and warm up. I also had a bowl of tempura soba.
It was now about 4:30 – and I didn't really know where I was. It would be dark soon, so I upped my pace. I had a dilemma at a T-junction. I could either take the quiet country road back towards my house or head towards the main road. The problem with the main road would be that it was a very busy road, and wouldn’t be too pleasant to cycle along. The problem with the quiet road was that the signpost said "高山" - 4km.高山 means “High Mountain”. I didn’t fancy that either. But I set off along it as I guessed it would be much shorter than going around. Fortunately there were road works going on and the road appeared to be closed. I took that as my excuse to turn around and head back towards the flat main road. It took another 1hr 30 to get home – and it was pretty much dark when I stumbled into my flat for a well earned cup of tea.
But I had a delightful day.:-)
posted by Canty @ 8:42 PM
1 Comments:
At 6:26 AM,
Anonymous said…
I think i have the answer to the porn mag bag. I understand that Tokyo and other cities have white colored boxes marked for receiving 'embarrassing' things you wouldn't want family to find when you arrive home. According to article they were installed due to piles of porno left on streets all over town. If there was a white box around you probably wouldn't have found it. :)
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