Nagano By Bike - Day IV
Arrgghhggh! Somehow I don't have any of the photos from day four of the trip!!, when we were in Fujimi, Nagano. How could they just disappear from the computer like that?!?
Anyway, what happened, was we arrived in Fujimi map, Nagano around 10:40 moblog . We set up out bikes and hit the road. I guess if I have to choose a period to loose the photos for, this may be the best. It was the most memorable of the trip, so I don't really need the photos I guess.
Our goal for the day was to reach the nearby Haramura map, where we had actually visited a few years ago on our birthday. (which happens to be Oct 1!!). We never have taken he dance lessons that I promised to Tomoe as a birthday present...
Anyway, we rode out from the station and the view was amazing. The sky was deep blue and the fields were deep green. This was the first time it really struck me how much sky is visible when you get out of Tokyo. Every time I looked up I couldn't help but stop Tomoe and say "Wow! Look at that!" about nothing in particular.
We stopped early on to have a great picnic lunch moblog Tomoe had prepared before she left Tokyo that morning (remember she had to work the day before). We sat there next to the field while dragon files buzzed around us, and all seemed good in the world.
A half hour later we were on our bikes again and heading further north moblog into the mountains. Along the way, Tomoe passed an old farmer woman in her truck who stopped to ask where we were going. When Tomoe told her, she asked what we would do for dinner. Tomoe replied that we would probably buy some vegetables when we get there and the woman started throwing freshly picked corn at her moblog. We thought we had our dinner, but in actuality, the corn had a rough time, half of it was eaten by wild animals while we slept that night, and the other half was not finished until two days later. The problem was just that everywhere we went there was always something good to eat. If we didn't eat it at that moment, it would forever be trumped by something fresher.
We arrived in Haramura much earlier than we expected, finding that there was not really much to do once we got there. Four years ago, without bikes, just walking from place to place took up an entire day, but now, we were able to visit all the places we had been then, see how they had changed over the years, and still it was light out.
Luckily the rain came to add a little drama to the day. During the whole trip it only rained twice. Both showers were less than one thirty minutes in duration, and both were within a two hour period moblog, moblog. Having waited out both of the rains moblog, moblog, we made our way to the Canadian Village, a very unique plot of land owned by a crazy Japanese man who built an amazing house/restaurant by hand. The reason we visited the area four years ago was mainly to see this place, which Tomoe had learned about from a cookbook written by the Canadian ex-wife of the crazy Japanese man.
The crazy man moved there some thirty years ago, at which time ran around his property naked, while building his house. The tourists heard about it and began to visit, turning his home into a restaurant. By now, he is a regular on NHK, and they film on his estate. The weekend we were there, some fashion photographers were stopping by to do a shoot in the outdoor kitchen.
I spent a while chatting with him about his house and lifestyle. He told me "This lifestyle doesn't need money." Hmmm... then why is it we could only afford to eat a loaf of bread and butter at their restaurant that doesn't need money? (It was a dang god loaf of bread and butter though, and we went back the next morning for more.)
After dinner, we hiked back through the woods moblog, moblog to the bath house where we would spend the next few hours relaxing, and eventually set up tent for the night.