On Saturday morning I had planned to wake up at a decent time to get an early start for the trip. My destination was the Mugi area only because it looked like a feasible distance on the map of Tokushima that I was looking at on my wall. I had never been to that area before so I was unsure of the road conditions but I hoped that they'd be a better than Route 12 (the road to Ikeda that I took last week). I woke up at 7:30am to a thunderstorm that I thought signified the cancellation of my plans but after waiting it out I decided to go for it (even though there was a 94% chance of thunderstorms for Saturday and Sunday).
I headed out with my camping gear and a few other things around 10:00am and the humidity was already in full effect. It never got too sunny on the first day but the first few hours of riding were fairly hot.
The picture above is of a woman I met while taking a water break in the city of Anan. I heard her from afar saying, 'Sorry...sorry' which is like a Japanese way (a.k.a. 'indirect') of saying hello. I knew the EXACT conversation that we were about to have and, of course, I was right on. If you're a foreigner living in this part of Japan, answering these questions becomes second nature very, very quickly:
What country are you from?
How long have you been in Japan?
Where are you going?
Are you an English teacher?
I was happy, though, that she didn't ask if I liked Japanese food, if I was married, or compliment me on the two Japanese words that I said during our conversation. But, of course, all of these topics were brought up by other people a little later on in the day. After the awe of meeting me (really, she was just thrilled at my existence), she then tried to give me multiple copies of The Watchtower. I told her that I'm visited almost weekly by Jehovah's Witnesses in Naruto and that I don't need anymore pamphlets for my collection. I think she was a bit weirded out that I was so straighforward but I see no point in feigning interest in the subject. Anyway, it was nice talking with her and we both went along our way shortly afterwards.
After going through both Tokushima City and Komatsushima City, Anan had nice spacious views of rice fields and farms that are less crowded than the area by my apartment, and it's hard for me to imagine that it gets much greener than a rice field in Tokushima.
I headed down Route 11 south until I caught up with Route 55 which was bit more narrow a lot more mountainous, but I really enjoyed the variety of scenery. After Anan, the flatness disappears and the road winds it's way through the forest so there were more trees and shade around me. The road had a good shoulder pretty much the entire way as well.
The further I headed south, the steeper the hills were. I saw signs for the town of Hiwasa so I decided that I'd stop there to see if I could find a campground. At this point I had been riding about 5 hours so I wanted to have the evening to relax and explore a new part of Tokushima. I arrived in town a little before 3:00pm.
Hiwasa was a great stopping point. It's a pretty secluded place on the coast but there was a lot of thing to keep me occupied for the day. One of the temples of Shikoku's 88 Temple Pilgrimage circuit was there (Yakuoji) and it was one of the most interesting that I've been to in Japan so far.
You can see the temple from anywhere in the town and when I got close to it I realized that it was a lot bigger than it seemed from the street. I really was impressed at how well maintained it was...there was even a small museum of old paintings other things on the first floor.
(This is pretty much the entire town.)
After the temple, I hung out at the foot onsen for a bit and relaxed my feet with some people that looked like they've been there all day. The water was a bit too hot for me to stay there for more than 15 minutes.
Then the sun was out and I felt like heading towards the beach and possibly looking for a place to camp out later on...
I went swimming for a bit and scoped out a camping spot that seemed like it was out of the way from people hanging out on the beach. I wasn't too thrilled with pitching my tent after dark but I knew it was best to do that because there was a big 'no camping' sign right as you entered the sand.
BUT, as I was walking out of a bathroom in a Sunkus (a convenience store), I saw an old co-worker, Mr. Yoshihara, standing right in front of me. He doesn't speak English so it was funny to explain to him what I was doing there. I told him that I was looking for a campground and he told me to follow him because he knew one that was close by. I did and was able to pitch my tent (legally) right at before dusk. We then made plans to get together (somehow...) in the future and get beer. The way things happen here I don't doubt that this will occur.
The next day I got up early and hung around the coast for a bit. There was a path to a small island close by so I hiked for a bit before packing my gear up and taking off. Going back was a lot easier because I knew exactly where I was going and what to expect. The sun was out and I knew I would get burnt but I really didn't care too much.
I didn't stop too much on the way back with the exception of eating some great sushi in Anan and then multiple stops for water at either Sunkus or Lawson. I ended up making it home in 4 hours.
So, the total biking time was 9 hours and the total distance came to around 135 kilometers. I definitley want to make this trip again because it's not too difficult but provides a pretty good workout for your legs if you do it quickly. I was really happy that I didn't have any bike issues. This is the first time that I'm able to do trips with decent gear so I'll be taking advantage of it as much as I can this summer. I haven't decided on where I want to go to next...probably to a more mountainous part of Tokushima. The good thing is that there's no shortage of mountains around here...but my next trip will have to wait until August because in about a week I'm on vacation.
