randomwisdom.com

Saturday I had planned on taking the bike up north to a friend's BBQ in Iwate. Weather forecasts had predicted that it would rain a little bit on Saturday and a lot on Sunday-- just my luck, why does the weather have to be perfect all week and then get crappy on the weekends? But as it turned out, the sun was out and shining, and while the clouds chased me the whole day, I didn't get rained on.

Instead of taking the expressway, I opted for back mountain roads (of course). While this meant that I was stuck behind slow-moving four wheeled vehicles for most of the ride, it also meant that the scenery was prettier and the road was more technically challenging.

Here is a link to a map showing the route I took. This image is huge (around 800Kb), so if you're on dialup I wouldn't recommend looking at it. Make sure your browser/image program isn't scaling the map down (names of mountains and route numbers should be easily legible). Start at the bottom of the map if you want to follow along!

First step was just getting out of town. I topped off my tank and headed up north, on my way to Hanayama via route 398. I had made a list of which roads to take from a map in my backpack, but I didn't remember seeing the lake on the map. I came over the top of the hill after some twists, and there was this gorgeous lake on the right. So I stopped to take a picture.

Looking back down the road

I pulled back onto the roadway just behind a slow-moving car. More accurately, he was going the speed limit: 40km/h. Twenty-five miles per hour. Damn slow. Thankfully, after I crossed a bridge in town there was a long straight climb to the next segment of road, with no curves and good visibility. I passed a few struggling cages just before the sweepers started. Long, drawn-out curves, crossing back and forth over a river, smooth leaning and speed: a motorcyclist's dream. Of course, that didn't last long before some idiot pulled RIGHT out in front of me just before the crazy crazy switchbacks (just above the number 398 on the map). Blind corners and oncoming traffic for the next 20 kilometers or so, the driver who couldn't just choose a reasonable speed and stick with it... did I mention the morons parked in the road around the aforementioned blind corners, just so the passengers could get out and pick mushrooms? Do they just not see anything wrong with that? I pulled over-- in a turnoff (what a concept)-- and took a short break before my blood started to boil.

I checked my map, gave the impending rainclouds a stern look, and pulled into slot formation behind a red sports coupe, who was himself tailing a series of idiots. 398 just keeps on going over the mountains and into Akita proper, but my route was to lead me over a side road to hook up with 342. The idiots stayed on the main road. Mister Red was to have none of that, however, and turned off the side road for a bit of lively cornering. Now this was a much more realistic pace. I tailed at a safe distance for about half the side road, but between the glaciers melting into the road and the narrowing tight curves I decided to slow down, pull off, and give my nerves a rest.

The middle of the mountains, southeast Akita prefecture

Pulled back on, finished up the side road at a bit of a more leisurely pace, and turned left (that is to say, north) onto 342. Had I gone straight, I would have crossed over Japan's "continental divide" into Iwate prefecture. The road I took follows a river as it snakes down a valley almost 50 km into the nearest city. Downhill turns are always a bit harrowing, but visibility was much better than before. I quickly caught up to a large truck and wound up following him much of the way into the valley. Normally my squid instinct would have taken over and I would have gone much faster, but as I settled into the slower pace I started to look around and enjoy the scenery a lot more. I pulled into a parking lot in a small village to take pictures.

In the valley, southeast Akita prefecture

About this time the motorbike crowd started thickening up a bit. When I hit the T junction, I pondered a bit. My original plan had been to take the nasty bastard road going straight through the mountains to the north, but I really had to pee and I wanted to get something to drink. Plus, my friend Yassan had warned me that particular road might still be closed due to snow. So I took the easier road to the left, and stopped at the first conbini I saw.

Damn, the restroom is out of order? What the hell kind of convenience store is this? I bought a small coffee and walked around the back of the place. Hmm, nothing but rice fields back here. *zip* *whistle* We don't need no steenking restroom.

Back around to the front, drinking my coffee, and a vanload of elementary school kids pulls up. Hmm. I smile and wave, as is my job and my calling, and they all barrel out armed with all the English they know. "Hello! My name is etc. etc." Wow, I wish my kids were this eager to learn English! Maybe I looked like a superhero with my full black leathers and red-white-and-blue helmet. I looked at the parents (at least, I think they were parents) and just shrugged. Three minutes of this constant barrage and the little ones were packed back into the van. I polished off my beverage and hopped on the bike for the last stretch.

From here on it was pretty straightforward. The roads were wide and almost straight, with little traffic, so there was plenty of opportunity to go my own speed. Route 107 into the mountains was fantastic. Lots of open road, a few sweepers. But I was a bit apprehensive as I got into Yuda. Traffic was backed up a bit. It was moving enough that I didn't feel entitled to just go around like I normally would. As it turned out, there was a reason for all the fuss.

A friggin Omikoshi parade, that's the reason.

Naturally, the person hosting the party knew nothing about this big to-do.

And then that was it, I was there. Total time to get there: 4 hours, counting about half an hour of stops.

Had a barbecue. Cooked some meat. Watched some fireworks over the lake (so close that I actually kept a piece of cardboard tubing from one of the exploded fireworks as a souvenir). I rode back that night on the expressway, despite my original plans of spending the night. I opened up the throttle in 6th, tucked down on the tank to conserve fuel, and battled the gusting winds for about a hundred miles. Round trip: 300km. It doesn't sound that far, considering some of the lengths I've driven in the U.S. of A. Hell, you can go that far going up to Phoenix and back on the slab. But on a li'l mosquito bike on tortuous backroads (with 50kph speed limits) that's quite a long way. I even made it on one tank of gas-- the main tank actually ran out just as I stopped in the parking lot of my apartment.

The same PTA guy from the last entry invited me to take a motorcycle class last Sunday. I figured it would be a good way to get a headstart on the Japanese motorbike test, which is a bit different from the U.S. test, and perhaps a good way to brush up on some skills that have gotten rusty over winter. We set out early in the morning for the test center, he in his instructor's uniform and I in my full leathers.

The class itself had about 15 students (three of which were single girls in their 20's) and 10 instructors, a fantastic ratio. Most everyone had their own bike, from a little 90cc minibike to an enduro on knobblies all the way up to a guy on a Kawasaki 1100. One guy even ran the course on a Harley Softail-- yikes. There were also a couple loaners there for anyone who didn't have a bike to practice on or wanted to try something different. The weather was fantastic-- not many clouds and occasional winds but the pavement was bone dry. Of course, since we were doing a lot of stop-and-go and low speed maneuvers, it started to get really hot underneath the leather jacket, even with the vents open. One of the instructors lent me a white mesh jacket for the remainder of the course.

Before we started, of course, we did full inspections of all our bikes. I had never been shown how to check and adjust the chain tensioner, but evidently my chain was undertensioned. They said they'd fix it later in the afternoon, as it wasn't a major safety issue and I didn't see any real issues with it.

First exercise was braking. Not just panic stops from a certain speed, but runups from 10, 20, and 30 meters. They had us run up to speed from one cone and stop quickly after passing the second one, watching our tires to see if they locked up. I had been taught to slowly squeeze both brakes evenly, but it's much better to adjust braking technique depending on how fast you're going when you try to stop. In general, the bike stops much smoother when using the engine to help brake instead of just pulling in the clutch immediately. Stopping from lower speeds, I was using too much front brake, tending to make stops really abrupt and jerky. Stopping from higher speeds, I needed to ease off on the rear brake so as not to lock it up; just give enough rear brake to load the front, while simultaneously squeezing in the front brake until reaching a lower speed, then easing it back out to settle the suspension smoothly.

The next exercise was some cornering. They split the class up in half and had us each do laps around a course, trying different lean types in each turn, going around a sharp blind corner, and doing a narrow S shape at one point. I was in the second group to go, so during the first half I watched everyone's technique as one of the instructors pointed out some tips to me. This part wasn't too difficult, but I got railed on for not turning my head toward the exit of the turn-- something I had gotten out of the habit of doing on Japan's many blind corners (since in many cases if you try to look at the exit of the turn you'll be looking at a wall or rock face). It was an important point, though, and the second time around I tried to consciously look into the turns; it worked a lot better.

During the hour lunch break, we watched a short film on how to carry a passenger on the rear (not something I intend on doing, but interesting nonetheless) and then discussed some mistakes the instructors had noticed in the previous exercises.

The afternoon started with a follow-the-leader all-around course with several parts. First was what they called a "slalom" but was more accurately an extended series of tight U-turns; next came a series of right turns through narrow cone lanes, an actual slalom through a straight line of cones, followed immediately by a slalom series through offset cones-- think a staggered line of cones, where you have to ride around the outer edges, set to make a sawtooth pattern about 6 meters apart; after that an S-shape, an immediate U-turn back into another S-shape. After a couple laps around this harrowing challenge I began to tense up. My boot hit one of the cones with a resounding crack. I was leaning the bike quite a bit, pressing and rolling, but couldn't seem to turn hard or fast enough. I pulled off the course in frustration-- everyone seemed to be able to pull it off smoothly without any problems, at any speed, while I was jerking around at the low end of my revs and wrestling with the little beast trying to get it to go where I wanted.

One of the instructors pulled up, and I explained my frustrations. He chuckled, and told me not to worry, that most people didn't get it their first time. I pointed out that nobody else seemed to be having any problems at all with the course. "Oh," he said, "well he's the Miyagi trick champion, and that guy over there is the trick champion from 2 years ago. The others have all taken this class several times before."

"What about that cute girl I was talking to before?" I inquired.

"She's the women's champion from last year." Ah hell. So much for trying to impress her. She was kicking my butt.

He asked me to stretch out a bit, get off the bike, and relax for a minute. "You're starting the turn too close to the cone; let the bike go wide, set your throttle, and then lean hard off the bike into the turn. Don't look at the rider in front of you; each rider and each bike ride differently, so pick your own line and look through the turn." Meanwhile two of the other instructors had pulled my bike up on its centerstand and were tightening the chain up. "Drop your shoulders and relax. The handlebars are going to turn, so don't fight them. When you want to stop turning, open up the throttle and the bike will straighten out. Don't use your clutch at all or you'll fall over." One of the instructors jumped on my bike, I nodded, and he ran the course once to make sure everything was in order. "You should be able to do this whole course in second gear, but if the engine is lugging it's OK to drop into first. See how he's relaxed and everything is smooth. Watch his head." He finished up the lap and all the riders filed in.

The rest of the afternoon was open course; everyone split up and practiced different parts of the course. I hopped back on and tried to tackle the U-turns again. First gear, run wide, lean in and look, don't wrestle the handlebars. The front turns in by itself as if by magic and I'm diving into a tight left. Wow, it worked. Transition to lean off the other side and look in, and let the bike do its part. A few more runs and it's starting to feel a lot better. I pull off with a big grin on my face. "That was a lot better. Why don't you try it on the Honda over there?" I told him I wanted to run some other parts of the course first.

He followed me to the "narrow bridge", a test where you try to run the bike as slowly as possible along a raised straight curb about a foot wide. I flubbed it once but came back around and passed it on the second try. I went back and tried the offset slalom but didn't have much luck and decided to pull it in and take a break. "Go ahead, try out the CB 400!" Sure, why not.

I ran a couple U-turn laps in first gear on the slightly bigger (and much smoother) Honda before cranking it into second. If anything, it was a little bit easier on that bike because the throttle was smoother and the handlebars set out a bit more so the front wheel could turn farther. By the end I was able to almost keep up with the others practicing.

I ended the day all sweaty, but I feel good about what I accomplished. I still need more practice, and there's another session next month. I think I'll go to that.

I would have posted this earlier, but I haven't had access to a computer the past several days, and the computer forwarding my keitai-mails bit the dust.

Wednesday night one of the PTA members invited me to eat and drink at his restaurant. As this is Japan, of course the emphasis here is on drink. This same PTA member had originally chatted with me at what I think was the official public farewell for the teachers who left in March. Like quite a few others around this area, he has a stable full of motorbikes and rides on a regular basis. His restaurant is quite possibly one of the highest-class establishments in Nakaniida.

So he invited me, and told me to walk there (not drive). When I arrived, he was nowhere to be seen, but I sat down at the table provided. The server brought out a beer and some snacky food, and I waited. The only other people in the restaurant were a married couple in their 40's; the woman kept glancing over at me as if she wanted to talk to the foreigner, so I nodded and said a little greeting. As it turns out, her English pronunciation was fantastic. She works at a sushi restaurant in town, which I guess I'll have to try to find one of these days. We chatted for a few minutes while the waitress brought out more and more food before she and her husband eventually left. But the conversation was a nice surprise.

Afterwards, the PTA guy came out and we sat at the bar. He whips out this shrink-wrapped stinky fish he'd gotten as a gift, and asked if I wanted to try it. So I figured, what the hell, I've tried pretty much every weird food in this country. He handed the wrapped package to his assistant, who came back shortly with a fish on a plate that reeked of manure. Apparently it's a delicacy. Um. I just took another swig of beer and turned the other nostril.

Somewhere along the way we had a conversation about what each of us would do with a million dollars. I think it came from some TV show that was playing where the "contestants" tried to see how close their dream was to a mark (100 million yen, about a million bucks). I got to thinking, and I figured that I wouldn't really change much about my life. I wouldn't quit my job or change jobs or do anything totally drastic... although I guess some people would consider moving to Japan drastic. I guess I'm a pretty happy camper overall.

Post content removed due to popular demand. I guess there's a good reason.

Last Saturday was the big festival for Nakaniida, called "Toramai." People dress up in tiger costumes and then dance around on rooftops. It's big enough that it draws quite a few people from neighboring towns. The weather was perfectly sunny, almost hot. Excellent for kicking back with a beer and some yakisoba and watching the festivities.

The people in the tiger suits are my students. I didn't think the photos really did it justice, so here's a video instead.

Click to play the video (1.0MB). If it doesn't play properly you'll need to download and install the codec (xvid).