Phase 3: Shiga-ken, Ritto-shi and surrounding area

Again on Sunday I slept late, got up, took a shower, and we had our planning meeting over breakfast. The basic idea for Sunday was to tour around the Ritto area via bicycle. The first step would be to make the spare bike usable for long distance travel. Lucky on our part the house had a set of tools which had what was needed. I locked down the handlebar and we tightened the breaks up. After a quick inspection to make sure everything was in working order, we set out. The breaks still didn’t work properly, but bike sans breaks vs. no bike: bike at all wins hands down.

First we took the 30 second easy-cheese ride to the first school Sparks taught at. It looked more or less like all other Japanese schools from the outside. There is a Judo Dojo in the back which is pretty cool. Even on a Sunday there were students in there practicing. Next we doubled back by the house and headed for the school Sparks is teaching at now.

This school is more like a 10 or 15 minute ride. It’s not a challenging ride, it’s all flat road, but there’s some distance there. We rode down a street that went under one of the major freeways and went on for a ways. Eventually we turned left onto a side street. After passing 2 or 3 houses I was greeted by this:

I looked out the window when I woke up, so I had seen it was a nice clear day. I had also seen that we were surrounded by mountains; however I didn’t fully grasp the full scope of where we were. These ain’t no mole-hills.

We rode down the side street a ways further and got to the school. The baseball team was out practicing. We rode around the outside noting as we went that this school has a Kendo Dojo. Nifty. Passing the school we got to route 1.

Route 1 is a fairly major thoroughfare in Ritto. It kind of looks like Grand River (for Detroiters) or Westenage (for K-zoo people). We had actually used a different section of route 1 to get to Kusatsu on Friday night. On this section there were auto-dealers, a KFC, a McD’s, and some light industrial buildings. We cruised up and down for a bit before heading down a side street. It’s amazing; the shops/buildings/car lots are only one deep. Past that one deep it’s all rice fields. Taking some back roads through said rice fields we ended up below a cool sight. It’s a hotel… it charges by the hour… Need I say more? BUT! That’s not the cool part; the cool part is the statue on the top:

A short ride later we came across a used car dealership specializing in VW Bugs. They also had an old MG (which I couldn’t get a good picture of.) Sparks found his dream ride, and at an affordable price. It needs some work though…

Our next stop was a more developed side of Ritto. Here there was a multi-storied mini-mall, a concert hall, a Heiwado (Meijers type store), and several high-rise apartments. Here too was Ritto station (note that Tehara station is closer to Sparks’ house). We parked our bikes and walked around a bit before deciding that, having nothing really better to do; we’d find a mountain and maybe climb it.

Yadda, yadda, long bike ride, yadda, yadda, are we lost, yadda, yadda, hungry, yadda, yadda, mountain!

We arrived at the base of Mt. Mikami to the sight of a 7-11. We passed on to see if anything more substantial could be had for lunch. Finding nothing we raided the 7-11’s lunch selection. Sparks had some onigiri and sushi. I dined on some onigiri (until I found it contained tuna) and a weird loaf of bread which had what I assume is custard in it. It was really sweet but filling. We sat in the 7-11 parking lot, ate, and discussed how to tackle the mountain. It was decided to follow a sign seen on our lunch scouting mission which said Mt. Mikami front path. We finished eating and made out way to the bottom of the mountain.

There was a spot for bicycle parking and a gate at the top of a set of steps. After seeing some people come out of the gate we headed up. The first part of the climb was easy, there were stairs. The stairs weren’t in the best condition, but they made ascending fairly easy. The reason for stairs soon became evident as we came across an old house.

Up a nicer set of steps there was an old temple broken down temple grounds. Only one building here was standing, but all the stonework seems to have survived. This was the basin that held water for cleansing your hands before entering the temple. The characters on it are written in very, very old Japanese.

The lanterns and foundation work still exist.

Leaving the temple behind, the path no longer had steps and began to ascend at a steeper grade. We passed a sign saying bottom 200m behind, summit 700m ahead. This sounds okay until you realize the 700m is vertical. With a “Ganbate!” (do your best!) we pressed onwards and upwards.

There were innumerable photo spots. Many of the pictures of the weekend were taken on this climb. We climbed for quite some time. As we went the clay soil gave way more and more to rock. Sparks found a fun fissure to climb through.

Towards the summit, maybe the last 200m or so, the rock became about as vertical as could be ascended without equipment. There were obvious markings that countless others had made this ascension. Foot holds carved in the rock, tree roots worn bare, and the instillation of hand rails in some of the more perilless sections.

After an unknown time spent climbing we reached the summit.

There was a small shrine here complete with tori.

There were several other people who had also made the climb. This family brought their lunch with them.

This is the path we took to get to the top.

On our descent we ran into a Japanese man who spoke pretty good English. When asked where we were from he recognized Detroit. Evidently he had lived in Troy for a time and worked/stayed at Henry Ford Hospital. Small world eh? Of course taking more pictures on the way, we descended the mountain. It was all in all an awesome experience.

We left the gate we entered by and retrieved our bikes from where they were parked. Riding back in the direction of home we stopped at the KFC by Sparks’ school for some down home fried chicken. We both decided that neither of us had tried Japanese KFC yet (there’s as many KFC’s here as McD’s). As guessed fried chicken is fried chicken even here. It was tasty, greasy, and filling. We headed back the route we came and I snapped a picture of Sparks’ school in the setting sun.

When we returned to the house the light was good so I got a picture of the outside of the house. (There is a parking lot and parking deck next door, this shot is from on the parking deck.)

Once inside we sat down and played some video games for a while before crashing for a power-nap. It was at this point we both noticed the other had a nice sunburn going. It didn’t even occur to me to wear a hat. The weather was so nice that day.

Awaking from our slumber we decided to go out on the town, or at least to Starbucks. Getting back on the bikes we rode into Kusatsu. On the way there is THE Cup Noodle factory. THE Cup Noodle, the one you can buy in the states, made here.

We sat in front of Starbucks and played video gamed for a while. Then checked out a book store and found a manga (comic book magazine) we were both looking for. On the way home we stopped at the “Wonder Goo” (video game/book store) next to the “Hard Off” (pawn shop) and I found a video game I was looking for for cheap. Back home we watched a DVD that came with the manga (the new Hellsing OVA preview for those of you in the know about such things) before going to bed.