Last day of cycling!
Breakfast at the hotel was busy! Some teens’ sports team was in the hotel, and they descended upon the breakfast at 6:30 a.m., opening time, like a flock of locusts. The usual great variety of dishes, japanese to chinese to western (cereals like cornflakes), in the buffet – I usually came down somewhere in the middle of Japanese and Western as many of the Japanese dishes have meat and I can’t face fish for breakfast every day. Though the smoked mackarel is good… the scrambled eggs are inevitably runny, and a “boiled egg” means soft and still runny white. There is always canned fruit salad and yoghurt with the tasty mini croissants which always gets me through. Coffee at this breakfast was middling but the room coffee had a neat little filter bag system with real grounds in it and made better coffee actually than the fancy machine in the dining room in my humble opinion…
We assembled with bike gear on and headed on for a circular tour of Kyoto with an option to exit early without the last few stops and 10 km if desired. Most of us had runners and flat pedals to facilitate the touristing stops; it’s been a LONG time since I’ve used flat pedals and it felt weird, but strangely easy to pedal. Definitely an asset in the city with all the stops and starts. The locals riding bikes never signal which way they’re going, and the cars feel they have precedence over everything else, so it’s an interesting environment. We started on some very busy streets but Tsuyen navigated us to quieter streets and then bike paths fairly soon. His route finding has been quite amazing the whole trip… The bike path took us to the outskirts of the city, then we headed north alongside the river towards Arishayma. It’s a popular spot for wandering amongst shops, colour in the leaves in the background, and the bamboo forest to visit. There were a lot of bollards on the bike path and unfortunately one of the women caught a pedal going around one fairly early and got a fair knock – no road rash, but she was shaken. We waited for quite awhile ahead of the accident waiting to see what the outcome would be (I’m loving not being asked to participate in care!!) and found these open cherry blossoms, like there were at Ranouken gardens in Kanazawa.
Eventually Jane decided to continue on and nervously weaved her way amongst the remaining bollards along the river path. We rode past informal community garden plots, which we learned flooded frequently and were wiped out, but always rebuilt. We had Manu with us cycling so Manu’s café was open one last time at the first stop near Arishayama, with the remaining snacks produced from his pack!
The first rest stop produced a few leaf colour photos, as well as some posing white cranes. There must have been fish in there, as there were quite a few concentrated in one spot.
lots of people out and about, especially on the opposite side of the river.
lovely birds!
The river was quite picturesque in places, and busloads of tourists were unloading, snapping photos and then proceeding on…
Our Danish pig farmer, with ever present grin or infectious chuckle, lurks in the right of the picture. He really enjoys life, and LOVES cycling! Probably the most competitive, and fit, of all of us.
We crawled across the bridge behind a bus, traffic starting to build, as were crowds, but still very moveable and the tour leaders said it was very mild congestion compared to other times. Happily we were able to weave through traffic and pedestrians fairly nimbly, getting a view of the town and sights without having to deal with the congestion. Many of the visitors were Japanese and some in traditional kimonos as always.
Most of the group made it across the railway crossing before the train came, but some were stuck; it sounded like a toy train going through from where we were waiting! The next stop was the bamboo forest, where bamboo grows and is harvested for fencing mostly – it grows full height in 3 months which is pretty incredible.
Tsuyen took a full group picture here, but hasn’t yet sent the link – it should be good as he did a vertical panorama (mine isn’t as good) but you get the sense of the size of them!
People were being carted around Arishyama in two wheeled rickshaws by very fit looking young lads – it was mostly flat but can’t be an easy job, not the least because of negotiating the pedestrian traffic.
Next stop was the zen (Ryanoji) temple, and we had a lovely winding ride through a path amongst rice fields, vegetable patches and then back into suburbia eventually. The fields had a very rural feel to it even though it is only about 30 min outside town. There were some “undulations” in the next part along a lovely road which reminded me of Marine Drive, with some very nice looking houses and gardens and of course a temple or shrine sporadically appearing. There are over 1,000 shrines and temples in Kyoto alone, and they all look well maintained and very beautiful. Our next stop was Ryanoji Temple, which we learned is a centre for zen contemplation – if you are enlightened you see the maximum number of stones in the zen garden.
The temple grounds were as always, gorgeous.
There were some examples of really interesting pruning, like pollarding which I took lots of photos of for master gardening class! Japanese gardeners are of course master pruners.
There was a lovely teahouse and garden, with an ingenious water feature that was melodic and self-powered. Alas no videos work in this site.
colour was starting to appear here as well
It really was a zen place.
Again, crowds weren’t bad here. Apparently Queen Elizabeth made this garden famous with a visit here.
As with all temple gardens, there were very distinct zones.
A short ride further along “Marine Drive” took us to a sushi train restaurant, which was a blast. As I love sushi, it was heaven; dishes wander by on a conveyor belt, and you just pick off what you want. There was a matcha making station at the table with hot water dispensing and matcha powder which made amazingly good tea. If you want to order something specially (or the table ahead of you pounces on the things you want!) there is an ipad type device on the table and you just order there; it comes along at high speed, in the opposite direction to the first belt, on another conveyor belt a level above the regular one. At the end, you slide your empty plates into a slot and a chip on the plate records what was on it and calculates your bill. It was a bit more complicated for us as there were 4 to a table, and in our case 3 different bill payers, but an ingenious system. The sushi was excellent, with a good variety and there was quite a queue to get in to the restaurant so obviously the locals agreed. The total for me was $7 for a meal of sushi! What a country!
Another short ride, now spitting rain, took us to the Golden Temple, Kinkaku-ji temple, actually covered with 5 mm thick of gold leaf (increased in thickness since it was last burnt down by a mentally ill monk in 1950 to provide more fire retardancy). The rain increased a little while we were here but didn’t last long, fortunately; as well as a lovely building, the temple grounds were again gorgeous.
the backside of the temple with the colourful grounds surrounding it
lovely walks and grounds once more
the temple just visible through the trees
you can see the rain on the lake here
the entrance
We rode through narrow streets and alleys and came out in Imperial Palace grounds – vast and a gravel version of the Mall in London.
There is no admission inside, and the Emperor splits his time between Kyoto and Tokyo. Kyoto was the original centre of government but it was moved in the Edo period to Tokyo, abandoning Kyoto which suffered economically. Because of this several construction projects were started including the canal and aquaduct system (seen later) to support the economy. Because of the historical significance of Kyoto it was removed from bombing target possibilities for both conventional and nuclear bombs.
At this point half the group decided to ride back to the hotel, so were guided back by Manu and Brad, the other lead; the other half of us proceeded onwards for an optional 10 km more. Next stop was Philosopher’s path, beside the constructed canal system, and a place that is stuffed tight with people in the spring to see the cherry blossoms as they line this very picturesque walk. We were actually able to cycle most of it, with some interesting cobblestone bits, as there weren’t too many people out. Named after a famous philospher who used the route to get to Kyoto University, next to Imperial Palace, it is now a lovely stretch of several kilometres with water running down from the constructed aquaduct. It is filled with quaint narrow streets and alleys, which we negotiated carefully with our bikes! At least we were a fairly small group now.
Would definitely be spectacular in the spring with the cherry blossoms
but I wonder what the locals think of the crowds taking over their neighbourhood?
This took us shortly to Nanzen-ji Temple and aqueduct, another majestic building and lovely grounds.
the grounds boast the largest stone lantern in Japan
Above the temple is the aqueduct, which continues to carry water today.
good water flow!
Maruyama Park, a fashionable place to get wedding photos taken, was the next stop and fortuitously there was some posing going on.
Another huge green space, with pretty autumn colouring, easily reachable by many locals; it is the theme of Kyoto, a very big city now but with historic roots and many green spaces.
We had an interesting time getting to the next stop, and had to walk our bikes due to the increase in pedestrians; shoppers coming and going to the Higashiyama district (historic, high end shopping district).
We parked our bikes with Tsuyen and walked up to a viewpoint to get a view of Yasaka pagoda, a landmark of Kyoto that was pointed out to us on the first day here; there are east and west pagodas and as they are perched on a hill they look spectacular.
It’s remarkable in Kyoto how you can cycle through a neighbourhood that feels ancient, then in the next block emerge into a modern city that is night and day. The next part of the trip was through busy bustling modern Kyoto, then a bike path through the old red light district (now dotted with coffee shops which looked very inviting!) and then back into modern Kyoto around the train station. We delivered the bikes to the Exodus warehouse/bike rental shop and were promised our saddles and pedals back at dinner.
Cycling through and around Kyoto got us to a large number of places, and we wouldn’t have been able to see half of what we did by public transit or car. As long as you are with someone who knows where they are going, it is a vastly better way to get around (admittedly would be very tricky on one’s own). It was also superfun to pedal around so easily and see so much!
I got my souvenier bag back at the 6:15 meet with the pedals inside and took a quick look – they looked like wide pedals like mine (the souvenirs from Tokyo had been kindly stored under the van seat for the duration to make daily packing easier). I ran the stuff up to the room without looking closely, and we headed out for the farewell group dinner. A couple had been to Hiroshima today and they joined us later – interesting to hear their impressions (Brits). One thing they noted was that the peace memorial was for children and that there were literally thousands of Japanese schoolchildren at the site; apparently every school child is taken there at some point.
The group dinner was fun, and some contact info was exchanged; the usual “what’s app group” established and goodbyes were said. Several couples are staying on another two nights, like me; most at the same hotel but one couldn’t get a reservation so is moving down the street to another hotel near the station. The tips were delivered to the guides with a humourous speech from one of the Brits who noted that this was the fastest Exodus group he’d ever ridden with albeit the eldest in age and we all nodded… there were some superstars in this group for sure, amongst whom was the Danish pig farmer whose favourite day was the mountain leg and he wanted more elevation!, two triatheletes (one 71 yo and the other who had a rare heart condition during the last swim part which likely will preclude him from competing again) and another very fit couple from Colorado who are heading on a 200 km hike next back to Tokyo along a “camino de santiago” like route. Made me feel just a little better about being lantern rouge for a good part of the way – never very far behind, but usually lagging a little due to picture taking or just plain inability to keep up with that lot when they were going full steam! The ebike rider, Gordon, was inspiring at 79 to be still doing trips like this, but he also competed for lantern rouge as did one other rider at the begining.
Certainly, catching a cold never improved my performance ability! I am just grateful I didn’t have to hop in the van at any point as it was all lovely scenery. A spectacular route. In addition to my cold, I have a good collection of bruises and some road rash from 4 falls the first four days. There were a number of falls altogether in the group – albeit I was early in the trend, I never fell after day four which is when everyone else started falling! A very enthusiastic cycling group though.
On return to the hotel after dinner I discovered I had been given back the wrong pedals so was glad I’d exchanged contact info with Manu. Though I couldn’t call or text him I sent an email, and one to Brad, our other leader; someone obviously had mine and mine were definitely better pedals! Fingers crossed it gets sorted tomorrow.