Thursday, July 19, 2007

On the Road: Osaka to Nagano

Distance traveled so far: 1103km

The typhoon hit southern Kyushu around noon on Saturday. I was in Osaka. I wasn't about to hang around and wait for 100 mile an hour winds blowing rain at me sideways, so I got the fuck out of there.

Ugh... since Osaka is a metropolis area, I had to take the expressway out. Its pretty much poo riding all around there, so I spent the yen and stayed on it for a few hours. I could have gone straight to Nagano, but intead of staying on the Chuo expressway, I jumped on the Tokai-Horuriko expresway to Takayama. From there I took route 158, a mountain road, to Matsumoto. The plan was to camp somewhere along the way, but the rain was just too shitty to really want to stop for long. This was too bad, cause Takayama and Matsumoto seem like they might have some random shit to see. I got some lunch at Royal Host, a Japanese chain diner. I got some funny stares when I walked in. Well the usual stares for being 192cm tall, but also I was dripping wet. Every step in the restaurant left a puddle behind on the floor.

I took the expressway again to Nagano. I only took a couple pictures on this ride, but it basically all looked like this:



Yeah, this shot is kinda nice, at least I could see the mountains in the distance.



This couple was riding all the way from Kyushu, the southern island in Japan, to Hokkaido, the northern island. Their bike had blue siren lights and C.H.P. stickers. I told them I was from California, but they didn't seem to make the connection. They were blasting what sounded like Japanese instrumental country music.

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