Bonjour,

We arrived in Corsica very late on Thursday night.  We put our bike together on Friday, went for our swim and met the rest of our group Friday night.

On Saturday, after everyone assembled their bikes we biked up the coast for drinks at La Pagode and a swim in the Mediterranean Sea.

On the ride back we explored an old church

and then, of course, Fizzies by the pool.

Then a wonderful dinner next door.

 

Bonjour,

We are now in Corsica France for the next couple of weeks.  We arrived at our hotel at around 10:30pm Thursday night and had a great night’s sleep.

After a nice breakfast of small croissant, chocolate croissant, baguette and caffe latte

we went for walk in to town to look for an adapter for the electrical outlets.  On our way back we stopped at a great little market for picnic supplies.

Would you believe this is almost all grown on Corsica?  or France?

Then we spent the next several hours assembling our bike, drinking wine, and eating bread, cheese and fresh fruit all from the little market and all very local.

A great way to assemble the tandem.

Once the bike was put together we put on our swim suits, bike shoes and helmets and headed out for a short 15km ride to the beach where we went for a wonderful swim in the Mediterranean Sea.  The water was so warm and refreshing.  No camera this time so you’ll just have to imagine it.  It was around 4:30 in the afternoon and a very warm day.  We didn’t even bring towels with us.  After our swim it was back on the bike and back to the hotel to await the arrival of the rest of our group – great friends from Ashland Oregon – Ron and Elizabeth, Rick and Pat, and Mary and Dave.  Then a late, incredibly good dinner next door of salad and pizza and of course, vin.

Our adventure to France begins!

We’ve decided that its worth coming to Japan just to experience the Shinkansen – Japan’s high speed rail system.  It’s so amazing.  You can “set your watch to it.”  When it stops at a station it is there for maybe a minute and then closes its doors and moves on.  W h o o  s h

The Shin

The signs at the stations are all good but if you have a reserved seat like we did, you need to be very careful to get on the right train at the right time.   If you don’t have reserved seats you can catch any train and if you miss one there will be another very soon.

Here are a few of the sights along the way.

Oh, and they come around with a cart like on the airlines so you can buy snacks and drinks while you are whisked along in comfort.

Sippin’ Suds on the Shin

A side note here:  When you take your bike on any train in Japan, you must put it into a bag.  The Japanese are all about cleanliness.

When you have time read more about the Shinkansen.  Here’s a good site to check out.  http://english.jr-central.co.jp/about/

Our trip to Osaka was great.  We spent the night at the Osaka airport hotel and had one more “last” Japanese dinner in Japan.

In the morning we walked across the breezeway from the hotel to the airport, picked up our tandem case – easy peasy –

checked in to Air France and were on our way.  Yea!

As we rounded the corner from the ticket counter we came upon quite the hoop-la.

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Osaka Kansai Airport.

Here are a few last images taken at the airport.  Just interesting signs that make you say “hmmmm.”

I’ve never flown on Air France before but after seeing this – I’m flying Air France from now on.

Our trip was very smooth yet very long – in fact it was the longest Thursday ever.  After 24 hours – it was still Thursday.  The flight from Osaka to Paris was 12 hours in the air.  Isn’t that amazing?  You can watch a lot of movies in that time.  Then two more 1+ hour flights from Paris to Bastia, Corsica.

 

The Iwakuni Castle sits high atop Mount Shiroyama

overlooking all of Iwakuni.

Hiroie Kikkawa, the first feudal Lord of Iwakuni, began construction of the castle in 1603 to serve as the symbol of the Lord’s power and as a watch tower for protection of his domain.  He used the Nishiki River as a natural outer moat.  The castle was completed in 1608 but existed for only seven years.  The Tokugawa Feudal Government of Japan passsed a strickly enforced  “Law of One Castle per Province”   and the Castle was destroyed in 1615.

In 1962, after almost three and a half centuries, the reconstructed Iwakuni Castle was completed.  We had to check it out before we left.  Access to the castle is by “ropeway” or hiking trail.  We chose the ropeway this time.

From the top of the ropeway it was a bit of a hike through the forest to the castle a short distance away.

The castle was reconstructed based on original drawings.

For those of you interested in construction techniques and masonry here’s a piece of history for you.

And an example of this technique.

The Castle is now a museum with a very large collection of samurai swords.

Another striking landmark of Iwakuni is the Kansai Bridge.  A model of the bridge is here as is a view of the bridge from the top floor of the castle.

While walking around the castle grounds we came upon this well with an amazing twisted tree growing over it.

There was also this sign posted along the trail.

Could it be “Beware of squirrels with bazooka’s”?

Then there was this very peaceful spot.

Lord Kikkawa’s manor house and grounds at the base of the mountain were beautiful and we need to spend a lot more time here.  I have a lot of pictures to share but have run out of time as we must catch the train to begin our trip to Corsica.  So. . .

Here it is. . . your moment of Zen

Now it’s time to talk about our life and adventures “beyond” Japan.   About a year ago some of our favorite biking buddies invited us to join them on a bike tour of Corsica in September 2014.  Since we had no plans that far out and were thinking about doing another bike trip somewhere anyway, we said sure.

So for the past several weeks – in addition to everything you’ve read about here – we’ve been working on getting ready for this big trip.  The biggest challenge has been how to get there from here with our tandem.  We’ll be traveling on planes, trains and buses and our tandem case seems to be either too big or too heavy.  We considered shipping it over, mailing it over, and carrying it over.  But every time we asked about it we’d get a different answer.  One day it’s “sure, no problem.  Next time it’s “no, we can’t take that.”

We leave tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 3.  We’ll take the high speed Shin Iwakuni to Hiroshima, get off, wait 6 minutes and get on the next train to Shin Osaka.  We get off that train, go downstairs and get on another train to the Kansai Airport.  From there we can walk to our hotel where we spend the night and then walk across the street to the airport for a morning flight to France and then on to Corsica.

The tandem has not been out of it’s case since we packed it up after the Northwest Tandem Rally in Pendleton, Oregon over the 4th of July weekend.  I’ve not been on a bike since then.  Chris has done about four really hard rides in the past few weeks with his new biking buddies.  So we are the most unprepared for a bike trip as we’ve ever been.  We just plan to poke along and get there when we get there.

The riding should be beautiful as well as very strenuous.  We’re looking forward to seeing our friends and getting into some nice fresh sea air.  I’ll try to keep you posted along the way.

For all you biking buddies out there, here’s a link to the route and terrain we’ll be covering.

https://c1g1haynes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/tour-de-corse-document-de-voyage.pdf

PS – Update on Tandem:  We just learned about “Black Cat” a great service that will take our bike from Iwakuni to the Kansai Airport where we’ll pick it up Wednesday morning and check it with our luggage.  YEA!

 

 

 

Last night around 6pm we headed over to the Kintai Bridge for the Kintaikyo Fireworks Festival.  It’s one of the biggest festivals here in Iwakuni and it is part of the Nishiki River Water Festival.  It was scheduled for the first weekend of August but due to thunderstorms was postponed to the last weekend of August.  It was a perfect night to watch fireworks.  Very warm and comfortable.

We went with some friends who had an extra “mamachari” bike for me to ride.  There were thousands of people down by the river, many had arrived at noon to stake out a good spot.  People arrive by train, bus, car, foot but the best way is by bike.  And every available vacant lot is made available for bike parking.  Not only that, but it’s free AND it’s very organized.

At every festival there are lots of vendors with food and drinks and kiddie carnival-like games.  And lots of vendors with anything and everything “on a stick.”

There are many fireworks festivals in Japan and they are quite spectacular lasting over an hour.  This one went on for an hour and a half.

KA BOOM!

A very fun evening right in our own home town.  Tonight after doing a bunch of errands Chris barbecued on our new little barbecue in our new little back yard.

We had a little beef and a little salmon and some delicious sake with our stir fried vegees and rice.  Life is good here in Japan.

Ever since we got here nearly everyone we’ve met has said “Have you been to the Chicken Shack yet?”  So last night Chris’ staff made sure we got to the Chicken Shack before I left.  Irori Sanzoku, or as it’s most commonly known – the Chicken Shack, is quite the spot.

It’s been described by the Iwakuni Explorer as “an elaborate Japanese themed restaurant with extravagant seasonal decorations which change frequently throughout the year.  It’s a huge sprawling complex with three restaurants and several shops selling souvenirs, snacks, and Japanese ingredients. There are statues, water features, lantern-lined paths, a fish pond, and even a waterfall.”

These first two pictures were taken as soon as I stepped out of the car.  You can see the edge of the building on the left of the second picture.  This place is set high in the hills and is about a 30 minute drive from Iwakuni.  It is a land mark of sorts that’s been here for years and everyone goes here and always takes their out of town guests, even the locals love to come here – year round.

It’s really hard to describe this place.  As you wander around you see very Zen like spots, then very kietchy like spots all mixed together.

These two sights were also right next to each other and on the path to our restaurant.  As we went up the stairs, as is the custom in traditional Japanese homes and restaurants you remove your shoes.

Shelves of Shoes

We had a great dinner.  Would you believe chicken on a stick was the specialty?  We had to get that and lots of other great food.

A very fun evening.

Here is some of Chris’ staff hamming it up after dinner.  Yasue, Chris’ secretary, is second from left and his boss is in the middle wearing shorts.  Nothing but a bunch of hard workin’ folk.

Yesterday I invited a new friend over who has lived in Japan a long time.  She spent a couple of hours answering my many questions about how to work the air conditioner, the washing machine, how to use the shower, how to deal with the humidity and mold build up.  And, of course, the never ending trash questions. Then she was so kind to take me shopping and helped me buy trash bins.  Check this out.

Six separate compartments to sort out my nice clean trash.  These are the bags we use to put our clean trash in.  You can see where we have to write our name on the bags.  The red bag is for all combustable trash like food waste.  And the green bag is for everything else but each type of trash in a separate bag.

To top off our day we went to lunch at an amazing little place near Nafco (the Home Depot of Japan).  It was called Trois Bistro.  This time it was a Japanese version of a French restaurant and I just had to share the meal with you.  I forgot to photograph my main course – a margarita pizza that was very simple and really good.

First course – salad.  A little prosciutto, a little salmon, a little asparagus aspic.

The Salad

Then the next course – A cold potato leek soup.

And the dessert – a berry sherbet, a bite of coconut pound cake and a lotus root creme brulee.

The dessert plate was decorated by the chef as part of the dessert presentation.  Pretty amazing and oh so good.

 

The reason we picked this particular house was because of the location.  It’s about a mile to the base in one direction and less than a mile in the opposite direction to the train station.  The house is located on a river and is right next to a bridge.

Note bridge to the left and river wall right behind house.  There’s one house between us and the river.

If we go to the right along the river about 60 paces we come upon this great walking, biking (and moped) bridge.

Foot Bridge

This is the route Chris takes to work.  From here, if you turn around you can see the roof of our house – the second roof from the right.  You can also see the bridge that goes right by our house.

Now, once you cross this great little bridge you come to a wonderful neighborhood market.

And best of all, back on our side of the bridge, one of our closest neighbors is Mike’s Tex Mex!

Mike’s Tex Mex

Can you believe it?  Margarita’s and Mexican food right here in Japan and right next door – almost.  What more could we ask for?

Last Tuesday, Aug. 19 we moved out of our cozy little nest at the Mozen Lodge, the TLF, and into our very own house in the community – off base.  Chris didn’t want to spend a lot of time looking at houses so we picked the second one we looked at.  Actually it was a toss up between this one and a brand new house 9 km south of the base, right on the water.  After conferring with everyone we knew here (which is a very small number) it was a consensus that convenience is way more important than anything else.  So, here it is.

It’s way too big – so come on down.  There’s room for everyone.  Our household goods will arrive in another month so we now have loner furniture from the base.

And the kitchen.  It has lots of cupboards and almost no counter space.

The sink is 34″ wide and the oven is 8″ wide.  The Japanese must have an awfully small turkey at Thanksgiving.  This really is all there is.

Now for the bathroom.  One room has a big bathtub with a shower head next to it.

Then you go to the laundry room to wash your hands or brush your teeth.

And the toilet, the piece de resistance, has it’s own little room.

Notice the faucet on top.  When you flush the toilet, fresh water pours out of the faucet and into the tank.  Taa Daa   How ’bout that sports fans?  Very efficient use of water, right?  (More on that later.)

The most challenging part of living off base is dealing with the trash pick up system.  Everyone must separate their trash into mainly 7 different categories.  And the 7th category, Recyclable Items, must be separated into 8 different sub categories.  My favorite category is No. 11.  I hope I never have to use that category.

There’s a separate page to explain each category.

Then we have a color coded calendar to tell us which day each trash is being picked up.  As you can see some trash is picked up only once a month.

There are red plastic bags and green plastic bags.  We must write our names on the bags and use only these bags for our trash.  Combustible trash like food waste goes in the red bag and is picked up on Mondays and Thursdays.  Most everything else goes in it’s own separate green bag and is set out on it’s designated day.

This is making me crazy because if you mess up, the trash man will not take your trash and will leave you a note in Japanese.  And I really don’t want to have to deal with my trash a second time.  So I’d like to get it right the first time but it’s really very confusing – especially the plastics. There are Japanese plastics and there are American plastics.  I could go on and on and on but I’ll try not to.

Oh, and there’s one more thing.  Remember how efficient they are with water and the toilet faucet?  Well, we have to wash all our trash so it’s nice and clean when we set it out.  There are a lot of feral cats who get into the trash but also, the trash men open all the trash and sort through it to make sure it’s the right kind of trash.  It’s quite amazing.  I watched them do it at the Mozen Lodge on base but there they can’t blame anyone, they just sort it and deal with it.

On a happier note, guess who we saw at the library yesterday?