Yesterday was a tough day of riding. Some steep hills and lots of riding on busy roads and navigating cities. We were pretty tired. Our room is small, the bed is small, yet we slept. Today we are excited to take a 2 hour ferry ride to Taketazu on Kyushu. Yesterday’s ride convinced us to find a less busy area.
This is the breakfast room at the Toyoko Hotel where you can watch TV while you eat. Breakfast was not the best…the Inigari were good, the coffee hit the spot but we passed on the Heinz soup.There were monitors placed above the elevators. People could watch elevator passengers riding the elevators. Who needs a TV?
The last few days have been Culture Days….no school and lots of fun activities for children and food stands everywhere. We enjoyed that. This holiday took us by surprise. Now we know why some businesses were closed!
When we rode up to the ferry terminal, we were greeted by large crowds of people sitting by the terminal. We assumed that the ferry would be full. Actually families were resting in the shade and taking a break from the festivities.
A very old and pretty rusty ferry will be our ride to Kyushu. I think there were about 10 passengers, including us.
Farewell to the island of Honshu and the city of Tokuyama. We were a bit impulsive in taking the ferry to Kyushu, but the last few days have had some challenging riding due to large cities we have had to pass through. We are looking forward to a less populated route for awhile.
But this was the prize….so creamy and delicious. When we asked for cones, the woman ran to another room. It turns out that her daughter was at home due to it being a Culture Day holiday and she wanted us to meet her. She shyly came out holding our cones. We enjoyed a delightful moment connecting with her and her mom.
The ride to Usa City from the ferry was everything we had hoped for. Our route closely followed the shore with spectacular views and continuous uphills and downhills. It was such a fun ride..
The community did a good job of transforming a non-descript tunnel into an interesting place. We met a local couple who were out for a walk and enjoying the tunnel.
We were getting tired and needed a Conbini…coffee and a bathroom. We met this lovely couple Nigel and his wife (sorry, can’t remember her name) who live near Fukuoka. Nigel told us about his walking adventure around the perimeter of Kyushu….2200 km. Wow!
A productive stop…these cyclists were waiting at the road for us to finish our conversation. They were most curious about our trikes. The fellow on the left ran a cycling touring company in Oita.
And then things didn’t go so well. We had a route downloaded that should have taken us to our accommodation. We ended up riding several miles out of our way and ended up in a rice field in the dark being bitten by a horde of mosquitoes. We found a different hotel on our phone and headed towards it. At this point we didn’t care that we had already paid for the first hotel. But, the strangest thing happened…several km later, we stopped at a Lawson’s and the accommodation we had paid for was next door. It turns out that it had been open only 3 days, so it was not yet on GoogleMaps, and the address on booking.com didn’t exist. No matter, we were so happy to find our hotel. It is part of a chain of hotels called R9 The Yard. Their concept is using individual containers for each guest….they are small, inexpensive but comfortable. Plus they give you a frozen meal for your dinner. A happy result at the end of a wonderful day.
Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles) Total: 350 km (217 miles)
