I woke up very early in the morning, eager to go pick up my scooter. Unfortunately that was not happening until 10 am, but I had the crazy idea that I would walk to the rental place. A look at the 4 hours Google map estimated for the walk quickly convinced me that I had to look at an alternative plan: The metro.
The Osaka metro is composed of many parts (subway, monorail, light train, local trains), so getting from point A to point B is not trivial. I also thought it was my responsibility as a tourist to visit the Osaka Castle Park, so the first leg was to get into The Osaka Loop to go to the park. A helpful policeman directed me to “the next door” and I even managed to figure out and buy the correct fare.
Osaka Castle Park is like Chapultepec Park in Mexico City. Sure, once in your lifetime you visit the “Castillo”, but for most city dwellers the park is a place to go exercise in the early morning, walk the dog, our just take a shortcut to get to school. The Osaka Castle is a museum and a fine exponent of the castles the Shoguns were building in the Edo period, but I had zero interest in visiting it.
After crossing the park I got back to The Osaka Loop, successfully transferred into one of the radial light train lines, ran for about 20 km, navigated the “add fare” machine, and by 9 am was sitting in front of the bike shop, waiting for the owner. Luke, a red-headed Scot, got there at 9:30 am, and heartily welcomed me to Osaka and the local world of motorcycling. He came in on a very large bike, and I was beginning to have a moment of low esteem when he opened the shop and I saw a dozen beauties. Honda ADV 150, 3,000 km on the odometer, gleaming, and large! Luke assured me that I could take this baby in the freeway with no problem (although I repeated my silent bow that I would never, ever ride on the freeway). He is such a nice man, and he spent a good hour going over the bike, the puncture repair kit, the tire inflation cartridges, the documents, and the set of useful sentences in case I had to deal with the police.
At 10:30 am I left the shop, relying on Google maps to navigate me out of the greater Osaka metropolitan area. The bike has a nifty holder for the cell phone, as well as a charging port, so I was all set. The route I had chosen, without any freeways, should get me to the town of Gobo and my hotel for the night in 4 hours. And then my beautiful plan met morning traffic in Osaka, and I turned right when I should have turned left, and before you know it I am in the freeway, racing at 80 km per hour, and trying not to be blown by the wake of the 18-wheelers. I was funneled into a rat race, and I had to run as fast as the other rats; fortunately I had a fine machine that rose to the challenge, and like it or not I managed to get out of the metropolitan area and into the toll road to the south. Once again I was faced with smiling clerks who expected something from me, so I gave them money and accepted whatever pieces of paper they wanted to give in return. Note to self: Whatever paper you get, hoard it with care because you are likely to need it at a later time. I didn’t, and when I finally came out of toll road 100 km later I caused a small commotion because I had lost the ticket that showed what station I had entered in. A friendly operator came and sorted it out, and once again I handed cash without understanding a word of what was being said.
The toll road was not as stressful as the urban freeway, but it was still fast and with lots of 18-wheelers. Furthermore, it had tunnels that were 1,000 to 4,000 m long. Tunnels are really hard on the motorcycle rider, because they funnel your vision, and after a while you start loosing your artificial horizon and start swinging on your lane, a bit mesmerized by the infinite horizon geometry of the tunnel. Fortunately I found a rest stop with a restaurant half way down to Gobo, so I stopped to have lunch (Udon noodles with deep fried pork skins; yummy!) and stretch, and by 1:30 pm I had reached my little hotel south of Gobo, Marine-Q.
Marine-Q is a bit of Americana. It sits around a small bay and is, for all practical purposes, a surfer hangout of the 50’s. It is a bit run down, but the view of the bay is magnificent, and the decor is a heartfelt tribute to surfboards, VW buses, beach bunnies, and surfer dudes. After unloading the bike and washing clothes I went for a joy ride along highway 42, and it felt like I was riding highway 1 through Southern California, the central Coast, and Monterey Bay. I don’t know what gave me the feeling of being in a time machine, but riding without the heavy jacket, shirt sleeves flapping in the wind, and seeing weather-beaten buildings made me think of places like Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Castroville, and Half Moon Bay. Maybe it is because signs in Japanese are as meaningless as unreadable placards that have been blanched by the sun, or maybe it was the plastic-covered greenhouses, but there is something familiar in this place.
Tomorrow I start my exploration of the mountains of southern Honshu. I haver labored for three days to get to this happy place, so now I am going to try to relax and enjoy the life of the low-rider.
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