day 129-139, from Fukouka to Kyoto

Day 129, 30 km

I woke up early because the boat was coming to the harbour of Fukouka at five in the morning and my room-mates went up to make breakfast. First at 7:30 we were allowed to disembark. Meanwhile I got a bad headache. When I had passed the customs and got maps and advices from the tourist information it was 10:30. I took my bicycle to the nearest shop and bought some food. Everything was very expensive compared to Korea and especially China. I was in a down and decided to have a resting day. So I went back to the harbour where I knew there was an open Wifi and also electric outlets. There I sat all day updating my blog.

In the evening I rode 30 km. One I discovered that the highway was going above the road in three decks through the city Fukouka.

Day 130, 125 km

I continued further south and soon I passed a village with a church and behind it a giant statue of a woman holding a child.

Some kilometers after that I saw a man who laid chestnuts in big bowls with water. I stopped and watched him and at his work. He did not speak English but he was interested in my journey. I showed him in my worldmap how far I had gone. We talk quite a long time about my journey so I forgot that I originally had stopped to take pictures. Finally I continued on my trip.

After some more kilometers I discovered that the woods around were almost entire bamboo. They were growing so tight that it was impossible to pass and they were about ten meters high

this kind of car is very usual in Japan right now

Suddenly I heard a car shouting (which was very unusual in Japan) and I saw the man I had met one hour before inside. He stopped and gave me a big bag with fruits.

I thanked him and continued some more kilometers when I suddenly saw him again. He stood at the roadside and waved me to stop. 'Eating time' he said and invited me to a restaurant.

 There we ate delicious japanese food.

I showed him many pictures in my camera and told him about my adventures in Korea. Then i continued to Mt Aso, a volcano in the middle of the southern island of Japan. Mt Aso has one of the biggest Calderas of the world (caldera means collapsed Volcano). The caldera is 20-25 km in diameter and in the middle of it there is a high mountain with many peaks and craters. In one of the craters there is an active volcano that produces white clouds of sulphur dioxide. As I had headwind i could smell it already several hours before I came up on the inner mountain. I had to ride over the edge of the caldera which was at about thousand meters above sea level, then several hundred meters down and then up again to a height of over thousand meters again. There I arrived in the evening at 10 and found a good camping ground a wood. Before I fell asleep i heard different owls around me.

Day 131, 65 km

Next morning I could see the wood. There were big kind of Thuja trees around me.

 I continued the last km up to the edge of the highest volcano and saw the sunrise behind the highest top of Mt Aso.

The white cloud you can see is actually the gas from the volcano. I had to wait until 8:30 before I was allowed to climb up. The road next to the cable car had joints every ten meters and you could see that the volcano was expanding. 

 Along the road there were many shelters.

 But then I chose a path which was leading very steep up to a peak behind the crater. there wer no steps or stairs like on the mountains I had visited in China or Korea. I appreciated that very much.

Only yellow marks pointed out the path.

The view was fantastic. 

 Actually there were seven craters on this mountain. I decided to conquer the highest peak which was some kilometer behind the crater.

It was about 1500 m above sea level.

Then I went to a viewpoint behind the crater and took this video: 

 And before I went around the crater I took another one:

 On the northern side of the volcano I was not allowed to walk but I did it anyway. There was an old road which was completely corroded from the sulphur gases.

 Not only the concrete corroded there but also glass, aluminium and wood!

I went back to my bike and enjoyed the ride down from the volcano mountain. The caldera was at 500 m above sea level but then I had to ride up again to the edge of the caldera which was 500 m higher. It really was a big volcano!

Day 132, 125 km

I chose to ride on route 496 towards north. I knew that it was going over another mountain but I had decided that I liked mountains!

Along the road I saw one of the typical Japanese Thujas which was bigger than usual. The trunk was much bigger than my bicycle.

I followed a river upstreams to the next pass.

The water was clear and it was hot so i decided to take a bath.

The the valley became more and more narrow.

 Finally also the road was also very steep and narrow.

 After many serpentines I finally came to the highest point at 730 m. There almost no cars on this road so I had it all for myself when i rode down on the other side.

Amongst others I passed this old temple om my way back to Fukouka.

 I arrived the town when it already was dark and when I tried to ride over the bridge i was stopped at the toll gate. There was a tunnel for bikers, they told me. The tunnel was not so easy to find but two girls helped me. We had to take an elevator down and then walk almost two km under the ocean.

  I was not allowed to ride in they tunnel they told me with a severe voice.

 I slept on the beach close to a supermarket where I bought a lot of groceries for the next day.

Day 133-136, 470 km
Next morning I woke up some minutes before sunrise.

 I continued along the coast towards west. I realized that the japanese inventors are perfectionists. All reflexes along the road had propellers so they were cleaning themselves windy days. And it really worked!

But for bicycler Japan was not a good country. There was no space for them on the roads so they were supposed to ride on the sidewalks. There were pretty good ramps up and down from the sidewalks but they were 20-30 cm high so I had to slow down all the time. Once I did not slow down enough my (already worn out) rear tire almost exploded.

I had to change the rear tire for the second time...

I also had to change three more spokes on the rear tire, which surely must depend on all the shaking on the sidewalks and their ramps. Besides from this Japan has red lights everywhere and everybody stops and waits until they become green again (this was not the case in China!). And on many bridges and tunnels it is not allowed to ride a bicycle. The mainroad often goes on a bridge over a crossing road and you have to go down. There you loose all speed when you have to stop at the red light...

But there are funny vehicles in Japan!

 I also found some company for my bike

 Japanese people seem to love tunnels. Sometimes there are four next to each other and there are sidewalks in them where you can ride.
 
Or there are no sidewalks but they are still allowed for bicycles because there is no other option.

This tunnel had a sidewalk which was only 50 cm broad but still 25 cm high. When I tried to keep as much left as possible I scratched my bag so it is not waterproof any more...

Now the sun sets early so I ride also in the evening when it is dark. Sometimes the road ends unexpectedly and I have to climb long stairs above mountains where the cars are allowed to go through tunnels...

The night  after day 136 I had passed Okayama and Hiroshima and I slept in the castle park of Himeji.

Day 137, 75 km

In the park i found an exhibition of bonsai trees and other plants.

 The castle which is quite famous was unfortunately covered for renovating job. In the tourist office I was told it should be covered only two more years...

 Instead i took a picture of a side wing and a poster where you can see the castle when it is not covered. (the inserted picture is a picture of the covering).

 That day I made some important phonecalls from the Wifi of the tourist office because as a foreigner I was not allowed to buy a japanese sim-card and open wifi's are very difficult to find in Japan. So I first at 10:30 I came to the yacht harbour of Himeji.

 There I met a very nice guy who really did all he could to help me to find a yacht to Canada. He was a boat builder and had been thinking about going by bicycle through Europe. He called many friends but nobody could help me. as it was lunchtime he suggested we could eat lunch together. He drove me to a restaurant but it was closed because there was some new year celebration the day before. many restaurants were closed  that day but finally we found a good one

and he paid a delicious meal for me.

 Then he wished me good luck and I continued. It was already 2:30 pm so I did not ride so much that day.

 In the evening I passed some more harbours but I only god nice pictures, no advices how to find a ship to Canada.

Day 138, 75 km
I woke up at 5:45 am finding myself on a sport ground in the middle of Kobe. I scared a black American tennis trainer who had come to have his first lesson which started at 6. But he had appreciation for my situation and soon I was gone to find some more yacht harbours on the way to Osaka. It started to rain that day so I was happy that there was a steiner school in Kyoto where i possibly could stay some days. On the way i passed a pink bridge in Osaka.

I had tried to contact the school several times but the email-address of the international waldorfschool-list was not right and they had no phone. But the building was not difficult to find with google maps. You could see it from outside that it was a waldorfschool.

 also the inside was typical waldorf, although maybe cleaner as usual. Everywhere were pupils which cleaned everything. They had their cleaning hour (they did not have any stuff to do the cleaning!)

 After I had told that I could tell some pupils about my journey and show some pictures the next day Kristiane, the eurythmi teacher offered me to stay in her house.

 And it was really good to sleep inside a home again after one and a half months! I slept heavily while the rain was pouring outside...

Day 139, 12 km
Kristiane had a good wifi. She gave me her password so I could do some more investigations about cargo shipping to Canada and I also could prepare pictures I wanted to show for class 8. At 10:30 we rode to the school and I told about my journey for class 8. The evening before I had shown pictures for the classteacher and she translated my English to japanese. She had told me that several guys in the class were very interested in cycling.
I think everybody enjoyed to hear my story and see some pictures. I told the pupils that they could help me to find a boat and gave them my email in case they found one.

Everybody in the school was very busy to prepare a harvesting festival which is this weekend. So in the afternoon i helped them to fetch some bamboo from a wood nearby. One teacher said that they are growing so fast and so close that during the war, when people were hiding in the woods, they could get stuck between the stems!

 Of course we used Japanese saws to cut them down (the cut when you pull)

We had a lot of fun in the wood. Then we carried three 8 m long stems to the schoolyard.
The music teacher (who lives in the same house as Kristiana) invited me to precipitate at a rehearsal of the teachers songs which they will perform this weekend. It was very good for me to sing and also to see so many happy teachers!

Kristiane offered me to stay another night which is very good, because now i can write the blog while it is raining outside.

Day 121 - 128, from Seoul to Japan

Day 121, 50 km

Next morning I went to Namsamg Park, a high mountain exactly in the middle of the town. The first thing I met was Korean public toilets which I really liked. 
In a luxurious building I found sitting-toilets and everything was clean and modern. 

 Classic music was playing and there even was toilet paper!

On a map I saw that there were two libraries in the park and hoped I could find a free WIFI. But the libraries were closed so I decided to go ride up the steep hill to the TV tower. 

There I enjoyed a breathtaking view over the city. 

At the viewpoint which was called The Hill of Love thousands small locks were left by couples which had promised each other eternal love. 

There was also a point which was the geographical center point of Seoul.Location

At noon I decided to start my travel towards south. But soon I stoped at a telecom shop and asked if I could get the password to their WIFI to be able to update my blog. They were very kind and I was sitting there and writing several hours. The good thing was that their internet was really fast so I could upload many pictures. When I left the shop it was almost dark but I rode some more hours in the dark. It was not so easy to find the right way out of the city. There were almost no bikers. Probably that was the reason why car drivers were not used by them. And there were almost no bicycle roads.

Of course I did not ride on the express-highways, but sometimes the road I was riding on turned to a motor-highway which was forbidden for bicycles too. So I had to find alternatives all the time. When I could not find an alternative I rode on these motor-highways and then car drivers soon shouted with their horns. Finally I found road number 1 which was going towards south.

In the evening it was difficult to find a sleeping place. I remembered that a biker I met on the ferry had told me to ask in churches if I could sleep there. So when I found a church I went there. Since there was nobody I can ask for a permission, I decided to set up my tent in a little yard behind it.

Day 122, 140 km

I continued towards south  on road number  1. Sometimes it was  very broad and straight, sometimes it went  through villages with many traffic lights, and sometimes it went  around villages. Actually it was difficult to say when there is a village or not because everything in the northern part of South Korea is very urbanized. There were  good signs along the road but I  had to be alert all the time not to loose the right way. There were so many roads that there were many opportunities to take the wrong one. Sometimes road number 1 was not the shortest, I could make a shortcut by taking another one.

I saw a few bikers that day, but they were all going on small roads or on the sidewalk. The sidewalk in Korea usually is 20-30 cm high which makes it a little difficult to come up with a heavy bike. It also is so high that my right rear pannier sometimes scratched it when I came too close…

Day 123, 100 km

I did not sleep so well that night and woke up early. After some kilometers I had breakfast and took a power nap in the rising sun. Then I continued to a Korean restaurant which I found close to the road and had a good lunch. There were no chairs. I was told to take off my shoes and climb up one step upon a podium. There were very low tables which you sat in front of. The waiter came with many different dishes, each in its own bowl. It was tasty and not so expensive (9000 KRW=10USD, inkl a beer).

In the afternoon I found a WIFI to make some calls to the Korean Tourist office to get some info about the ferry lines to the islands. As the cheapest ferry leaves Mokpo early in the morning and it is about 150 km the place I was on, I decided to go just 10 more km that day and find a sleeping place in front of a National Park with beautiful mountains.  I did not want to miss the beauty of the park so I wanted to continue in the daylight next day.

It is already dark when I found an abandoned house. There I first changed one more spoke on my rear wheel (again behind the rear casette) and then I set up my tent inside the house.

Day 124, 140 km

Next morning I woke up in a beautiful landscape. First I took a  road into a valley of the National Park and asked some guards if it is the road to Mokpo. They said yes but after some kilometers it ended in a walking path to a temple. I went  back to the guards and asked again if there is another road over the mountains. They said that there was  no road. They told me that I had to go back to the city and around the national park. But I had seen another road almost above their heads (because the mountain was so steep). But they discussed with each other and then they are very certain that there is no other.

So I rode back two kilometers and then I saw a bus driver outside his bus near a cross road. So I ask him. ‘Of course he said it was possible to go through the mountains’ he said so I tried.

Along the steep mountain road I found trees with wild sharon (also known as ‘the Mango of Korea’) and chestnuts which I saved in my panniers. 



The sharon were still a little hard but I think they will ripen soon.

I really liked the different views in this National Park!

Up on the mountains (ca 500 m above sea level) there was a flat an people were growing a lot of rice. 

Then I rode down on the southern side which was so steep that I had to use my brakes a lot. I came to a village where people harvested sharon and sold it along the street. Their fruits of course were much bigger. 

Also the chestnuts they sold were about three times bigger than mine, but I am not sure if they are better.

This afternoon I passed a strange house.

They did not look like houses use to look!

In the evening I arrived in Mokpo.

I chose to sleep in a hotel and in the evening I made a walk to an temple on a hill in the town.

Day 125, 25 km

The boat was leaving first at 9, so I could wash my laundry in the hotel. The reason why I wanted to take the ferry to Jeju was that I had read that the islands south of Korea were very beautiful. And the really were! 

The archipelago and Jeju Island are listed in  the UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site (2012 there were 188 natural sites). 

And it really was amazing to go between theese islands made of volcano eruptions several million of years ago. Some of them had a top on the highest point which must be the magma which once was inside the pipe.

At 2 pm the boat arrived Jeju/Cheju Island and I went to the Tourist information to get a map and some advices. Then I asked two bikers who were waiting for the ferry home to Korea, which roads was the best to go up to the mountains. Like all Korean bikers they were dressed in fashionable outfits and had professional monutainbikes. They did not speak English but understood my question and told me that the roads were far too steep to go up to the mountain Hallansen, an old volcano and Koreas highest peak. They told me I should go around the island as they did. I went back to my bike but they come to me and took  me to the lady in the tourist information They told her to translate for me that it really was impossible to climb up the steep roads!

So I left  the terminal and thought I had to change my plans. I rode through the town Jeju, bought some food, looked at all the seafood on the market and thought I surely would find a nice road. Without looking on the map suddenly I found myself on the road leading to the volcano. I thought I could try to take the road anyway and in case it was too steep I could push my bike. It was too late to climb on the volcano that day but I could go au to a resting station and sleep in my tent there. Next day I could walk on the path which was 9,6 km to the top and should take 8-9 hours according to the lady in the touristinfo.

On the road up I met a korean biker who invited me for dinner. 

He told me that he was biking two months through Europe last summer He was really nice and I really enjoyed to hear his adventures and experiences.

Then I continued up to the resting place. There I slept in my tent.

Day 126, 25 km

Next day I got up before sunrise and found out that I still was not the first on the path up to the mountain. 

Many people were going up through the subtropic evergreen forest. 
I was quite fast so I decided to go up on a parasite cone which had a beautiful crater lake.

Behind the lake the path continued to a platform with a good view towards south.

Then I went back to the maintrail and continued up to the highest point. After a while I met Minsan, a Korean girl who could speak very good English because she had been in Vancouver. 

We had a good talk all the way up and even on the top of the volcano. 

But she had come there to think about here future so I left her alone and went beck to my bicycle which I had locked at the resting place 10 km away.

There I decided to go to the southern coast

 to buy some food and to see some waterfalls. 

They were also very beautiful (I only could take pictures of the first one because it was dark when I came to the second one. At a beach I took a bath in the warm ocean and then I met three young bikers who were sitting on the tables (that’s the way you do it in Korea) to make some food on their gas stove. 

They invited me to eat with them because they had a plenty of food and beer. We were sitting in shorts and t-shirt late at night  (oct 5^th!) and it was still warm. When I asked if they also were sleeping in tents they said it should become very cold in the night so they had somewhere inside to sleep. I left them and soon I found a calm beach where I could set up my tent. As the night before (which was really cold up in the mountain), I put on my warm underwear/ But after one hour I was so sweaty that I decided to sleep without any clothes and without sleeping bag. In October!

Day 127, 100 km

Next morning I found a wonderful estauarium among the black lava rocks where I had my own bathtub where I could bath naked. Then I washed some clothes in the same bathtub.

I continued to the eastside of the Island. There I wanted to climb up an a very famous volcano peak on a peninsula. 

Thousands of tourist were climbing up to this site and the view was good even from there. 

But compared to the big volcano it was nothing…

There was a fast ferry leaving just one kilometer from that place 

and I came just in time to take it. 

It was going with a maximum speed of 60 km/h, so already after about two hours we were 110 km north, back in Korea. A small road was going further north to the mainroad. There were many hundreds of roads going through Korea, the funny thing was that I first had taken road number one towards sout and now I was taking road number two towards Busan in the east side.  When I reached the mainroad I had a beautiful sunset on the high hills. 

I continued one more hour and then I found a sleeping place along the road.

Day 128, 100 km (and a lift of 130 km)

Next day I started already at 5:30. It was very cold in the mountains but soon the sun came and everything was soo beautiful!

I asked myself which country had been the best so far and decided it must be Korea.

This day I had a wind from ahead and I had trouble to find shortcuts on the road 2 (which was going into towns I tried to avoid. Finally I decided to test what would happen if I took a shortcut in the express-highway. Actually there were no signs which showed that it was not allowed for bikers and nobody stopped me at the toll gate. But only some hundred meters after the toll gate an old minivan stopped and the driver told me that it was not allowed to ride the bike on the highway! He did not speak English so much but he was very serious and concerned and shown me that I could expect handcuffs and prison if I did so! He said he could help me and drive me to the next exit (where I had planned to take road number one again). But soon I found out that he was going to Busan and that he could drive me all the way there.

I thought that I would come to Japan one day earlier because the boat was leaving in the evenings. So I followed him. He asked if I was hungry and I said I always was when I was biking. So he made some phonecalls to his friends and said we should meet them at a restaurant in Busan. We drove up un a steep mountain were many korean hikers ate at different restaurants. His friends were three brothers who enjoyed to hear about my trip and who tested how much I was able to eat. 

They ordered more and more dishes and wondered when I was going to crack. 

Although they did not speak many words in English we had a really good time!

They absolutely did not want me to contribute to the bill and they insisted to drive me to the pier where the boat to Japan was waiting for me.

This picture is taken on the ferry. You see Pusan in the background