day 148 - 159, from Tokyo/Yokohama back to Busan (Korea)

Day 148, 30 km

I stayed at the house of my warmshower-host until noon, updating my blog. Then I made an excursion to westside Tokio, a place called Shibuya-ku, were I had heard that it was crowded and busy everywhere. And it really was!

Day 149, 80 km

Another lazy day. Untill lunch I only did some service on my bicycle. Then I decided to use the free ticket for a Spa I got from Tokyo Waldorfschool. It was about 35 km west of Tokyo but it was worth the ride! On the way I passed several shrines

with beautiful japanese gardens

and one big temple in Ikegami

Next to it there was also a pagoda with five roofes,

I went inside the temple and was astonished about the bright colours and all gold. A mess was held when I was there. Without asking I made a short movie while I was walking around. I wanted to capture the sound.

Outside the temple there was again an exhibition of bonsai trees.

Devoted gardeners were taking care of their plants.

When I arrived at the Spa it had begun to rain.

One part of the spa was outdoors on a roof and it was lovely to sit in the yakutsi when it was raining! 

In the evening it rained more and more and I biked through the rain to Yokohama. There I slept in my tent in a very calm place near the port.

Day 150, 45 km

Next morning I explored Yokahama, a very beautiful city.

This sky scraper is one of its landmarks. 

There were beautiful arrangements of flowers in the parks. 

In the background you see the international port, where a cruise was going to Vietnam

 I rested outside a fast-food restaurant

 and continued south to another big port where I had heard that Hanjin ships possibly could go to Canada or USA. Giant cranes were loading a ship with containers and there was a queue of almost hundred trucks outside the port. (One truck can only carry one or two container)

I asked if there was anybody who could help me to find a ship over the Pacific and this time I had a little luck. They let me use the phone to talk to somebody who could speak English and he sent me somebody I could talk to. The young guy understood my intention and said he had been working there for six years but it never had happened that somebody came and asked that question. He asked me to wait and disappeared again. (Ports are always forbidden to enter for authorized people). After about half an hour he came back again and gave me some prints of an address and a map where I possibly could help and told me that he and his boss unfortunately had no experience how to help me.

The address was to the tourist information...

After this disappointing experience I biked to a family who had their boys in Yokohama Waldorf school, about 25 km NW of Yokohama. 

They had invited me and were waiting with a wonderful welcome dinner!

It was hand-rolled sushi, which means that everybody could pick what he wanted inside his roll. Their mother Mioko had prepared a lot of different fish, tuna and squid. Everything fresh and raw.

 

I got a crown of felted wool. 

 Day 151, 5km

Next morning I folowed the youngest boy Shushi to his kindergarten.

Then I went to the school-building where class 1-5 had their rooms

I watched class 3 which was building a little house on the school-yard. Then I went to class 5 and told them about my bicycle trip. They were very good listeners and were inspired to make a bicycle trip with the whole class next year (this I learned to know some days later from an e-mail written by their English teacher who translated my lecture)

 I ate lunch in a japanese way. Mioko had made a beautiful lunch box for me.

Then I went to another building, about one km away, and had a lecture for class 7-12, including some teachers. 

When it was finished we took this picture. 

Afterwords I got an envelope with money from the school! I was not at all prepared for it but it was almost the amount for the ferry back to Korea!

So this made me definitely decide to pay the 1400 EUR for the transfer from Pusan, via Prince Rupert to Seattle. Although I had found flights which costed lass than half of it. Mioko helped me a lot in the evening to fax all the required papers to the travel agency in Hamburg.

Day 152, 150 km

I left Miokos house in the morning and decided to take a road north of Mt Fuji. It was a quite mountainous area with many ups and downs but very beautiful! (You can see the route under my maps). Somettimes there were breathtaking views.

At noon it was very hot, as usual I rode topless in the uphills (although it was the 31th of october!). 

But the higher I came the colder it was and all colors of the leaves also changed suddenly.

 Finally I saw the fascinating mount Fuji, partly covered by clouds. The tourist season to climb on it is only July and August, because of the snow.

And actually there was much more snow than ten days before when I passed south of it. The temperature at the five north of Fuji was only 2 degrees celsius. I thought it would be warmer when i rode down towards Fuji city. I almost came to the Ocean before I found a sports ground where i set up my tent In the bright moonlight I could see the Mt Fuji all time riding down on the Fuji Panorama route, it was really beautiful. But  the temperature was about 3 degrees all night. Suddenly my looong summer was finished!

Day 153, 120 km

Before I ate breakfast I rode some kilometers to become warm.

Then I found a convenient seven to eleven where I could sit on the sun and also charge my phone (it is easy to find outdoor-outlets in Japan. Actually you can see my phone between the brick wall and my bike).

It was a beautiful sunny day but I had headwind all day and it was quite cold. 

In the afternoon I passed a factory which made giant tetrapodes (my own word...) of concrete to protect the coast from waves and tsunamis. 

Day 154, 120 km

The headwind increased that day. Sometimes I only could ride about 7 km/h on a flat road! I decided to make a break in the sunny yard of a scrap metal dealer. He had a lot of old bicycles and I explained that I was interested to change my one side-stand in a Japanese stand which made it possible to use although my bike was so heavy. He helped me to modify it and did not want to get paid. When i thought the wind had calmed down I continued, but it was as sluggish as before, may be even slower.

I also passed a strange house, placed on an old rusty truck.
In the evening I came to Nagoya and found one of the few churches I have seen in Japan. It was a very modern church built mostly for couples who wanted to marry in a fashionable western style. I slept in a park in the center of Nagoya.

Day 155, 100 km

Next morning I read all my e-mails at the station and felt really worn out. I thought about that my decision to avoid emissions of carbon dioxide not only costed money but also a lot of energy...
Nagoya had many interesting sky scrapers around the station (which also was a sky scraper).

Although there was no more headwind I was slow all morning. Did I overwork myself the day before? In the afternoon I found out why it was so heavy: After I had installed the new stand, (the day before), the rear wheel was not inserted correctly so it scraped all time against one of the brake pads! So after that discover I felt delighted suddenly everything felt much better! I thought I could find a supermarket in a department but found myself in a second hand department store. Everything was sold there!

I bought myself warmer gloves and tried to buy an mp3 player. I succeeded to explain the computer fixer/seller  that I was riding on my bicycle and that I would like to listen to some music while I was riding. I told him I would buy the player if he could load it with music from his computer. He did so but when I tried it there was only one song. I asked him if he could not load some more sample music but he said it was illegal. He could come to prison already by giving me one song, he explained. That's Japan!

I remembered that I had all copies of my legally bought cd's on my hard drive when it was destroyed and wondered for myself how I could get them back...
Anyway, I did not buy the player but I continued towards west.
I passed a beautiful Japanese funeral car

Then I decided to take a small road up in the mountains. After a pass at 700 m I had one more cold night.

Day 156, 90 km

Now I had less than 100 km to Osaka and was not afraid to miss the ferry which should bring me to the cargo ship for which I had paid 1400 EUR.
This day a nice bicyclist who gave me some food and some money. After some more kilometers I met another one, even nicer who did the same! Everything was wonderful.
But still I had to overcome some obstacles.
For example in front of one tunnel there was a sidewalk with no ramp. After 50 m on this sidewalk there were yellow poles which made it impossible for me to pass. I was stuck there and had to lift my bike over them...

Typical is also that there are fences and "forbidden" signs everywhere.

In the evening I arrived at Osaka Station, where I could not find a wifi except inside a hotel. I had to leave my bike outside without supervision and when I came out again I had got a red label on my bike. Probably a parking fee?

Then I went out and rode to the Osaka Castle. They had told me at the tourist information that it closed first 6 pm that day but when i arrived 5:40 I found out that it was closed for entrance ten minutes earlier. 

Although it was not late yet I decided to stay the rest of the day in the park and even the night. 

It was a very calm night.

Day 157, 35 km

I woke up at four in the morning and thought maybe it would be best to leave the park. I wanted to see the Shiteno-ji Temple, so I went there. When I arrived it was still dawn, still many people already were there,

 There was also a big pagoda

and many Buddhas, wheels you could turn around and bells you could ring. Many people seemed to have their rituals to ring a bell and make a short prayer, to touch a Buddha and spread the energy on their own bodies and to turn these wheels. Other people brought some music players and made groups doing some yoga (or similar) exercises.

 At 6:30 There was one guy playing music louder than the others and he was a leader for everybody who wanted to join the morning gymnastics he made.

 Now i understand why Japanese people are so trained and slim! Everybody seems to do some morning gymnastics!

Finally I decided to go to the ferry and maybe find some Wifi there to write my blog. I did not want to miss it... On my map i only saw highways going to the harbor island but I knew that often there were smaller roads under the highways. And so it was also that time. Even under bridges the bicycle roads continued.

Often there were stairs which ramps for bicycles. The handlebars made it impossible to ride over the stairs, you had to get off the bike and push it.

Finally I came to the last water-passage which was not a bridge but a tunnel. I saw it was forbidden for bicycles so i continued to the water, hoping to find a bicycle bridge or maybe like in Fukouka a special tunnel for pedestrians and bicycles. But there was none. The only one I could ask was a guy playing saxophone in a big black car. Obviously he had no other place to exercise without disturbing anyone.

I knocked on the window and he understood English. He took some papers and explained (in japanese) which way I should take at the same time as he mate a sketch-map.

 The place where I was was only two(!) km from the ferry to Busan but the tunnel was not allowed for bicycles.

 The sketches were very good. Every turn was correct although I had to go 22(!) km over 7 other bridges. The musician certainly also was a bicycler...

 All bridges were very high to let big ships going under. Although I could not Japanese I understood that the sign meant that it was not ok to ride over this ramp. I had to go off and lead my bike.

At another bridge the ramps were like screws.

All cars had to go through these carousels several turns...

Finally I came to the port but did not find a Wifi. Instead I found a high skyscraper nearby, which I went up to the 53 floor. It was really high...

In the afternoon the ferry left Osaka and here you see the tower from outside. It is 252 m in total!

The sky was beautiful when I left Japan.

We passed the famous Akashi bridge, the suspension bridge which has the longest mid-span of the whole world.

Day 158, 20 km

We arrived in Busan 10:30. This is a bridge under construction, near the port.

In the afternoon I made some sightseeing and found out it was good to return to Busan. I had been there four weeks before but only some hours when it already was dark, because I had to take a ferry to Japan.
I decided to go up in this tower because I like views. It is on a hill in the very center of Busan.

And the view really was good!

In a brochure I read a slogan: Busan, the most dynamic city of the world.

Maybe you agree when you see these pictures?

In the restaurant of the tower I found pictures of many other towers all over the world. Here you see Seattle tower. Maybe the next one i will visit?

In the evening I spent a lot of time at different markets, also the fish market. They really were dynamic!

Then I decided to go to a very nice and central guesthouse to spend the night there.

Day 159, 0 km

Today I wrote my blog. Soon I will go out for some more sightseeing. And this I plan to do tomorrow also, before I have to meet the boss of the shipping company at 6 pm. he promised me to drive me to the new port, 40 km west of the center. He thought it was impossible to go by bike and after my experiences in Osaka I did not want to argue. 

The next 14 days I will not have access to the Internet. I think I will not write so much about the ship and my time there either. I only will write facts which have changed since this report was written. I got the link from my brother Johannes and after seeing all pictures including meals and menus I decided to book this transfer. My ship is not exactly the same, its name is Hanjin Geneva, so maybe there are some differences...

I also got a lot of information from my sister Veronika about cargo-ship-travelling. She was the first one who told me that I could have a link to a site where you can read about the ship and even track it. Only some hours later my brother Johannes sent me the same information...

Here i want to thank also all other people who somehow helpedd me to find the ship and book the ticket. For example my sister Birke an many other people too.

Hanjin Geneva will preliminary leave Busan tomorrow evening (8th of Nov) and will arrive in Prince Rupert, Canada on nov 19th. There it already is quite cold and the road does not follow the coast to Vancouver, so I decided to take the same ship to its next stop which is Seattle. Probably we will arrive there on Nov 22th.

According to my notices I have made 13035 km so far. 

Besides from this I got lift by cars and trucks for 1210 km. 

No flights and no trains after Riga (where I took a local train downtown).