bike rides

It all started a few weeks back when I had a little extra time before work and decided to ride down a mysterious path near our house. Shortly after I got on the path, it headed away from the busy street we live on and through some rice fields. There was a beautiful white crane standing in the middle of the path that lifted off as I approached.

That's when I realized that in the midst of this noisy suburbia in which we live, there is a bit of country after all.

I continued on the path past some very old, traditional Japanese homes, a pen of ducks, lots of gardens and flowers, and maybe even a small rice processing shed. I ended up at a driving range. (Hm, hello suburbia.) On my way back, I took an alternate route and proceeded to get very lost. After a while, I turned up at a lake...none of those near us. I shouted at a passing cyclist who very kindly stopped to answer my questions, although the answer was primarily "I don't know." He didn't even know what Yukarigaoka was (the town I live in) and when I asked where I was, I didn't recognize the name of that town either. But we were near a bike trail, so together we guessed which direction I should probably go (I was totally turned around). I headed back quite happy to discover that not only was there a bit of country around...there was also a bike trail!

Last weekend, Jesse and I looked up the bike trail on our map (it said "saikuringurodo"...if you say it out loud, you'll hear "cycling road"). We hopped on our bikes and took it up past the windmill I posted a picture of and on to a history museum we've been meaning to go to for quite some time. Most of the trail was through rice fields and along a river....so nice. The museum was great too. The only bummer was when we looked out into the courtyard of the museum and saw a downpour. The rain lightened up by the time we left and we had a pleasant trip home. Feeling brave, we stopped in a mystery restaurant which turned out to be a pretty good, although quite expensive, sushi shop. The owners (a husband, wife and son who also live there) and the other patrons, were very friendly and nice. The woman even came out to wipe off our by-then wet bicycle seats. What a nice day!