Niigata itself seems like a nice enough place but there wasn't too much to do. It's primarily a beach town and as our only full day there was full of rain, there wasn't much point in heading to the beach. So we did what maitenance we needed to, tried a couple new restaurants, bought umbrellas and packed up for the trip to Matsumoto.
The trip through to Matsumoto was a little more scenic. As we turned away from the coast and made our way inland, the highways along the coast are replaced with roads through mountain valleys and along bridges over rivers. Japan really is a beautiful place.
Probably the only downside of the riding was that it fell on the days that it did, as it was during the time of the Bon festival - allow me to quote Wikipedia:
"Obon or just Bon is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the departed (deceased) spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori."
Sounds nice enough, unfortunately for bike touring it means that every road is absolutely packed with cars, every hotel and camp site is nearing capacity, and every graveyard is lined with cars taking up half the lane opening their doors unexpectedly. But without the bad how would we know the good, right? It made the few times we found a dedicated bike path all the better.
At one point in the ride, we opted to take a mountain pass rather than another long stretch of tunnel and were rewarded with the sight of some monkeys crossing our path. I only managed to get the camera out in time to catch this one - who I can only assume was trying to determine if I was food or not.
The fun of seeing monkeys and reaching the top of the pass was quickly forgotten as we discovered that the road down the other side was actually closed, or something. We can't actually read most of these signs but I think they're pretty self explanatory.
So while Zack went ahead to check it out on foot, I spoke with a Japanese man who had pulled up in a car behind us. He explained (I think!) that there was a rock slide the previous year that had damaged parts of the road, and so it was closed for repairs.
I asked him if biking it would be ok, and he just shrugged, which was good enough for us. We proceeded slowly and made our way down the mountain. Other than some constuction materials here and there, we were happy to find that it was actually completely safe, and having the road to ourselves was a nice change of pace.
We continued on and made our way to a campsite a small distance outside of Matsumoto. We somehow managed to again find ourselves in the middle of a festival - all we knew was that there was going to be a fireworks display of some kind. Our tent however was set up for convenience and not fireworks viewing so while we initially planned to not make too much of an effort to watch them, we were invited by a fellow english speaker to join him and his group of friends at their camp site right on the lake.
We stumbled around in the dark until we found their camp site, and while most of them floated out onto the lake in a rubber boat to watch, Zack and I opted to stay dry (for once) and watched from the shore while speaking with a Japanese man named Kazu - a cancer researcher who smoked a pipe, which I found a little confusing.
We ended up being really glad we had taken them up on their offer as the fireworks were easily the best we've seen. The campsite was at the bottom of the mountain we had come down and was mostly surrounded by other mountains, allowing the noise from the fireworks to echo far into the distance. Each explosion was so loud that no matter how you tried to prepare yourself it would still startle you, and then you could listen to it echo endlessly through the hills.
On top of that they had a speedboat that was setting off water fireworks, which were (oddly enough) fireworks that they would set off right on the surface of the water, which allowed you to see the fireworks themselves, and their reflection in the water as it rippled away from the explosion.
As the fireworks finished, Kazu's friends came back to shore and we talked and ate for a couple of hours before Zack and I headed to sleep. It was a fun night, and definitely more interesting than our typical nights of camping which usually consist of one of us saying,
"What time is it?"
"Uhh.. Only 7:40"
"Why is it so dark?"
"Where's the bug spray?"
"Oh forget it, it's raining, I'm just going to go to sleep."
So after all that we're now in Matsumoto. As usual this has taken way longer than I thought it would, it's late and we're a twenty minute ride from our beds so I'm going to do this last part in record time.
We saw a castle, some samurai frogs (cue chrono trigger nostalgia), Japan is too small for Zack, the internal organs were good, Zack won an octopus, and this Internet cafe is really comfortable.
Before I go, we love reading your comments! If there's anything you would like to hear more about, or anything you find especially interesting... feel free to comment!
It's hard to really explain what's going on, and getting a good picture can be tough due to the massive crowds of people, but basically after lighting paper lanterns and setting them afloat down the river that runs through town, groups of performers light and hoist up these lanterns.
It's actually pretty impressive, and looking down the steet a few kilometers in the distance to see hundreds of them marching along to the constant beat of taiko drums and wood flute melodies is quite amazing. Even moreso when you realize that each one weighs about 50kg and is usually being balanced on one hand, or the head of one person. It's also about 50 million degrees and extremely humid.
Ok, just one tourist attraction - and that's it up there. Since we had only used up an hour we decided to go see The Last Airbender, in Japanese. It was pretty dreadful, I think I'm actually glad I couldn't hear the english dialogue.
We spent the rest of our time here picking up a few supplies, and wandering the streets at night. With the festival going on there are plenty of people everywhere, often in traditional Japanese clothes so just people watching was interesting enough.
While it was a pretty fun place to rest, I think I've seen everything in Akita twice at this point, so I'm happy to get going. Here's hoping my Japanese hasn't completely failed me, and I actually did order the correct part for the bike. I guess we'll find out this afternoon!
Our next major stop is Kyoto, which is a place I've personally always wanted to see. Hopefully the nice weather we've had while being here in Akita holds up once we get back on the bikes!