Two to Tango

Tuesday April 6th

We awoke early in our gorgeous seaside Inn and were not sure whether breakfast was included in the deal. I had a big think about the right way to construct a sentence to ask about it, but when we arrived downstairs, we were immediately directed towards a table with two places set for breakfast, full of plates of all kinds and two braziers for roasting a small semi-dried fish each, plus a small gas stove boiling up miso and fish soup, so that dealt with that problem. We will never know what it was that we had for breakfast today. The things that we could identify were rice, miso soup, salad and fish, but there were a number of other things that will forever remain a mystery. I think that they were once living, but whether they used to be flora or fauna we're not sure. There was a pickled something that made John pull a 'cat's bum' face, so I didn't have the other one of those, but we were very adventurous and ate the rest of the food. It was all very nice and quite yummy! The view from the breakfast table is one we'll never forget, with expansive views over the bay, and no more than 3 metres from the sand. Whether we continue to have seaweed for breakfast when we get home remains to be seen.















Before checking out we decided to go for a stroll along the beach and as I had learned 'going for a stroll' in Japanese, I was able to tell the staff what we were doing so they didn't think we were running off without paying. We stuck our fingers in the The Sea of Japan and I put a little stone in my pocket so I could bring a bit of it home with me. We saw a number of people coming in on their boats and it turned out that they were harvesting seaweed. John helped one of the guys who was unloading crates of seaweed from his boat. John took one of the crates off his hands and hoisted it onto the truck for him. That's not something he's ever done before! We took a few photos of the bay, the boats and the people and went back to the Inn to reluctantly check out. We were presented with a set of chopsticks each as a gift (hmm, I think they were intended as a gift!) and then the ladies at the door bowed us on our way. We passed more washing lines of seaweed and, come to think of it, I didn't notice any clothes hanging on lines. They probably use their clothes driers for that. They did have a giant washing machine for washing fishing nets which we stopped and watched for a while.
The weather was perfect for riding, and we didn't need our neck-warmers on today. Whenever we could, we took the coastal roads to our destination of Amanohashidate (pronounced a bit like “Arma no harshy dartay”), which means Bridge to Heaven. It is situated at the beginning of the Tango Peninsula. I expect the Tango has different meanings in Japanese and English but I am deprived of Google tonight so I can't investigate.
The journey was a mixture of coastal roads and highway travel. The coastal roads were wonderfully scenic, with beautiful bays with pretty little islands floating in them, and some lovely sandy beaches. No daydreaming allowed on this road - the consequences would have been quite unpleasant! When we arrived in Amanohashidate, we went to the 'bridge' which consists of an actual bridge and then a 4 kilometre sand bar which is covered with 8000 pine trees and has a path along its length. It is used as a walking and cycling path to cut across the bay, and fortunately for us, it is also OK to ride scooters of 125cc or less along it (ours are only 100cc). The bridge at the beginning of the sand bar is a revolving bridge. It is mounted on a single pole in the middle of the channel, and rotates to allow vessels through. The guy who was directing the human traffic waiting to cross bore a close resemblance to the Dalai Lama but he was wearing the wrong coloured clothes.
We located the Youth Hostel which is tonight's accommodation and then rode back into the centre of town. We visited a large shopping centre as we had a few things to buy and we had dinner in the food court. We had a kind of Japanese/Chinese fusion meal of sweet and sour chicken with rice and miso soup and some red bean ball thingies. On the way out of the shopping centre, we met an American couple who were eating interesting looking ice creams. We decided to give the ice cream a try, so John had a purple one and I had a green one! Despite the strange (to us) colours, they were very nice. We checked into the hostel and did a few mundane things like watching TV, doing the washing and sorting out tomorrow's route and then it was time to hit the futon.












Here's the Dalai Lama's long-lost brother!