I Dislike Mountains!

So we've left Sapporo. I can probably sum it up in one picture.

Possibly a bit of an exaggeration, but it seems Zack has already filled you in on what we've managed to accomplish so far. Yesterday morning the relaxing was finished and we headed off from the hostel.

Our initial worries of riding out of the city, on the wrong side of the road on three hours of sleep were immediately quashed by the availability of a bike only street that took us practically right from the hostel's front door, all the way out of Sapporo.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, the scenery changed, and now not only were we riding through a major city on our own private street, but through a shady forest.

Everywhere we've been in Japan so far it has been easy to accomplish whatever we needed to. The roads are amazing, there are vending machines on every corner, the ATMs talk to you.. even the trucks talk to you when they're making wide turns. We continued on the forest road until we reached another wonderful innovation, a biking station. Why they don't have these in every country is beyond me. Washrooms, water, bike rentals - whatever you needed.


Once we were off the bike path and out of the city, we made our way 50k or so along the highway before finding a decent spot out of sight of the highway to set up camp. There were about 50 to 60 million mosquitos. I tried bug spray, yelling at them, and various combinations of the two - none were effective.

We packed up in the morning after another mostly sleepless night thanks to some ridiculously loud frogs as well as a general lack of comfort and headed out from there.

This is where we ran into the mountains. At first it was not too bad, but as we continued on turn after turn there would be another climb ahead, silently mocking me. The only saving grace was the tunnels that were generally about 15 degrees cooler than the outside, and there were some long stretches of downhill.

The mountains may have been more managable if we had food to eat or water to drink, but for a stretch of about 80km there was nothing. Zack, the experienced biker never once complained about my slowness! But he took this picture to ensure that I was aware of it.

Even though it was a tough ride, the scenery was fantastic, and everyone has been really good to us, giving us thumbs up and yelling "Gambatte!" as they drive by. The bridges can be a bit startling at times, with nothing but a three foot railing keeping you from a 100 foot fall.

In the end it all worked out, we made it to Furano, drank three bottles of water and found a hostel just before the thunderstorm rolled in. We'll stay the night and set off somewhere else tomorrow. I really have no idea where, for all I know we're going around in circles. I just assume that when Zack spends 15 minutes looking at the map that he knows what he's doing.