It is often said that Japan is small and crowded. For the sake of argument I like to disagree with this statement. It is true that it has half the population of the States crammed into only one state (about the size of California). It is also true that about 80% of the land is uninhabitable because the mountains are too steep and the forests too thick. Combine this with the fact that there are no movie theaters in towns under a few hundred thousand people and the fact that everything in Japan centers around Tokyo. What you get is some pretty crowded cities. However, there are still some pretty large houses and some wide-open fields. Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, is famous for these wide open spaces. It did not officially become a part of Japan until the end of the 19th century and even then it was only to ward off the Russians. Much of the development has taken place after the war, which makes Hokkaido seem like the new frontier of Japan.
Having heard all of this from friends and books, I was interested to see the place for myself. Coming from a small town in Illinois, Tokyo is a bit of a shock. I thought perhaps the Japan for me lies to the north. It is cooler with plenty of snow in the winter. Flat places, but also plenty of mountains. Nice people, slower pace, etc.
Taking the bullet train to Hokkaido can cost at over US$200 each way though. I had a dream to bicycle my way to Hokkaido with my friend, Matt from the States. However, since we were limited to only about eight or nine days, we didn't want to waste all of our time getting there. We decided to take the cheap train. Being that it is summer vacation here now, there is a special ticket called the Seishun 18 Kippu that everyone in Japan should use. It is the greatest thing. A person can ride JR trains all day long on one ticket for only US$20. If you can read a train schedule and plan ahead a little, you can go a long ways on that twenty bucks.
Matt and I packed our stuff into small backpacks and put our mountain bikes into special bike bags. We left Tokyo's Ueno station at about 9am on July 22 (yes, the day after Mt. Fuji). We had to change trains about eight times throughout the day as we made our way north along the Main Northern Line. We crossed over to the Japan Sea side of the main island and arrived in Akita City around 11pm. We took one final train out into the country and spent the night in the train station after the last train left.
Having solved the transportation problem, our next challenge was accommodations. Most hotels or bed and breakfasts in Japan charge around US$60 PER person. This doesn't fit my budget, so I am always stuck without a place to stay. My hiking club often sleeps in train stations when we arrive somewhere late at night. It turns out this is a relatively common practice. There is even a book that tells where one can stay without being bothered by police, late trains, or bugs. So Matt and I spent the first night on the bench in a small station.
There are many campgrounds along the roads and in the forests of the countryside. However, our budget was about US$200 for eight days, so even these didn't fit our needs. We found it much easier just to choose our own campsite at a roadside parking lot for weary drivers, a soccer field at the middle school, or simply the local park. Most nights we arrived just before dusk and got up at dawn (okay, we slept in a little), so we didn't seem to bother anyone. A couple times we asked for advice and people recommend us to stay at these sort of places.
We met a lot of great people on the trip. Foreigners almost always get the special treatment in Japan. Sometimes this is not a good thing, but we enjoyed it quite a bit on our trip. Perhaps we just looked like a pair of really tired cyclists, but we got many smiles and talked to many people along the way.
Many of the very small towns are full of old people whose relatives never come to visit them. We especially enjoyed going to small stores in these towns and buying a bowl of instant noodles. We would then ask them if we could get some hot water for the noodles or some cold water for drinking. One time we got some free melon to go with it. Everyone was really great.
One bookstore owner in Hokkaido talked to us for over an hour. His wife came looking for him after he was supposed to have closed the store. She joined in the conversation too and bought us a couple of Cokes. They told about how their nephews were studying in Tokyo and visiting L.A. and China. They taught us a few words of the local dialect and generally showed us a good time. Little do they know that we just stopped there to check the ferry times in a magazine.
There are more convenient stores in Tokyo than there are in the whole state of Illinois. I told Matt that we should have no trouble finding food because one is never far from a 7-Eleven. Generally that is true, but we often ended up at small stores in the middle of nowhere. We lived almost entirely on instant fried noodles and ramen. We bought lots of bread for snacks and breakfast.
We found that most newer houses in Japan have a water spigot right out front. We were sure to fill up before we headed out of any towns. Not once did we have any trouble for lack of water. Sometimes people would fill our bottles for us. One store worker came out and offered us ice as we were filling up (unfortunately it was raining and we were freezing).
We basically didn't see anything famous on our trip. Most of the sites in Japan get rather boring. They sell the same souvenirs and have the same stuff. We did ride to the top of one nice hill (mountain?) just north of Akita. Kanpuusan = Mt. Cold Wind. It gave us a nice view of the sea and surrounding area.
We would stop now and then along the beach to see a shrine or jump in the water. In Hokkaido there were many dairy farms selling ice cream and whatnot. Otherwise we generally stayed away from anything famous because the traffic is bad and things are too expensive.
We did make it as far as Sapporo where we took a rest on Oudouri (Big Road). It has to be the biggest and most famous boulevard in Japan. They have a huge ice carving festival in the winter, but in the summer it is (what else?), beer gardens. We also ran into a famous chocolate factory by accident. We didn't take the tour, but I did buy a great vanilla chocolate candy bar.
We averaged about 125 kilometers per day. This is not a particularly great feat for one day. We tried to get up early each day, but it was not easy. Then it would get hot in the afternoon and we would take a nap. We rode till about six each night. Considering we average from 20-25kmh when we were actually on the bike, you can imagine we spent a lot of time off the bikes.
I had a decent road map of Japan that we used to navigate. We took mostly national highways, two lane. We were able to navigate amazingly well. We soon figured out that the coast area was flat and cool while inland would suddenly become a hot mountain pass. We spent lots of time jumping across from one bay to the Japan Sea to the Pacific Ocean. This kept us out of traffic and gave us some varied scenery.
Most drivers were pretty considerate, but we did get a few annoying honks. There was not always a decent shoulder, so we often road with the cars. If you don't like big trucks, then Japan's highways are not for you. Otherwise, I think it is generally safe and enjoyable. Try to avoid a lot of tunnels unless you are fast and have a good rear light.
At any rate, the goal for the trip was Hokkaido. We spent only two days in Akita and Aomori Prefectures before we crossed over into Hokkaido. We took the train under the water through the world's second longest undersea tunnel. It cost us about US$18 each. Incidentally, on the way home we took a ferry from Muroran to Aomori for US$32. It was a nice combination of sea crossings and left a nice loop for biking inbetween (see map).
Hokkaido, despite all of the stories circulating in Tokyo, is not so cold, and not so huge and wide open. We did enjoy the atmosphere of the countryside, but in some places it did not look much different from Chiba Prefecture which is right next to Tokyo.
There were a lot of dairy farms. There were a lot of large corn fields. There were some beautiful beaches. There were many nice people. However, there were also big cities and big mountains just like the rest of Japan. It felt like we could go from California to Wisconsin to Illinois to Boston all in one day's ride. It is definitely a place to see, and probably one of the best places to live in Japan. However, don't expect anything too exciting. Matt and I enjoyed ourselves plenty, of course, and plan to go back some summer soon.