A ride in the rain

Today brought the moment we had been waiting for - the beginning of the scooter trip, as well as the first bit of rain that has fallen since we arrived. We found our way back to Mr Tanaka's shop where we took care of all the paperwork despite language difficulties, and at last we were on our way. The ride through Osaka was very easy as we were in either 40kph or 50kph speed zones all the way. Although Osaka has a huge population, most of them use the excellent public transport system or ride bicycles, so the traffic is not as difficult as we had imagined. On the outskirts of Osaka, we stopped in at a little diner (for want of a better word) and spied a wonderful looking meal that a customer was eating. We ordered 'two of those' - and it was as wonderful as it looked. When we got to the very edge of Osaka, the place that we had seen on Google Earth was there in real life. This was the beginning of the old road over the mountain pass that connected Nara to Osaka. It is still open to traffic, but would not be used by the average sane person as it is extremely steep and narrow.

Before heading up the mountain, we visited the nearby Shinto Shrine which we had come across when planning the trip. There was some sort of ceremony taking place, with the priest(?) in beautiful traditional robes, and Japanese flute music playing. We felt like we were witnessing something from hundreds of years ago - until a young Japanese girl came jogging up the steps in her tracksuit, listening to her iPod as she arrived.

We realised that the rain had no intention of stopping, so we wiped down the scooters' seats and started on our way. After a reasonable start, we came to the very steep part of the road. My scooter didn't want to go up such a steep slope, so John had to do a bit of pushing and coaxing. Eventually we swapped scooters and he rode it like a man and got it to the top. We visited the cute little shop at the top which sold a few souvenirs (nice ones, not 'made in China' plastic things). I think the people in the shop thought that we were crazy people, but they were very friendly and polite nonetheless. The view along the top of the ridge was great, especially after the hustle and bustle of Osaka. The area is mostly forest but also has rice paddies and a few houses. We passed an area of bamboo plants (not sure if this is called a forest??), which was an eye-opener for me as I hadn't realised how tall the plants grow.

We carefully rode down the other side of the mountain and arrived in Nara. Our lack of knowledge and experience with the GPS that we had hired meant that we had no idea how to get to our hotel. We pulled in to a petrol station (know locally as a 'gasorin stando') and asked the obliging young attendants for directions. One of the guys asked us to wait a moment, and when he came back, he had been into the office and printed out two maps from Yahoo Maps for us and then did his best to make us understand how to follow the map. While we were waiting, we witnessed some more amazing Japanese customer service. Two attendants looked after each customer, and when they were done, one of them would step out into the road and stop the traffic to allow the customer to exit the service station. As the customer drove out, the attendant bowed and thanked the customer.

We soon discovered that we didn't understand the maps or the instructions too well, but this resulted in an interesting ride around Nara so we didn't get too concerned about it. Eventually, we arrived at the junction of two roads which showed on the map in our atlas and we were in the hotel before we knew it. The hotel is part of the Toyoko Inn chain of business hotels and is fantastic value for money.

We went for a stroll to find somewhere to eat and once again we hit the jackpot. We found a very traditional place where customers sit at low tables on a platform. Shoes are left at the edge of the platform but these days, shoehorns are provided to assist in the process of getting them back on again. They also cheat with the 'low table' thing, as there is a hollow under the table to put one's legs instead of sitting on them. We had a delightful meal of a tofu starter, followed by chicken, noodles, fish and salad, and I had my first taste of Japanese beer. Kampai!!