Kuji Goodnes

Today has me resting at Kuji where I arrived yesterday. My shoes were completely busted and chaffed a hell of a blister on my foot. Even walking is painfull right now, so I`ll rest here untill tomorrow and head out towards south tommorrow. The weather is currently very rainy and cloudy, so now bombing hills today.

Yesterday was one of the best days yet, I made good progress early on and met later this guy called Yasu. He speaks wery good english and has a lot of friends from the USA and New Zealand. We hooked up with a bunch of them later on at a nice little restaurant, had really tasty food and a few beers. It was SO nice to talk with someone properly with proper english. Basically the first normally flowing conversation since I talked to some german guy at the Kansai International on the first day. Nice meeting you guys!

I did some laundry, in a laundromat, not river like the last time, cleaned and lubed my bearings (the ceramic bearings are working really good but still need lots of caretaking), took a shower and made some shopping. New shoes! Now I consider going to an onsen to heal my feet and examine the roads a bit. If the weather gets better I might do some downhill riding later.


There was a solar eclipse here today, but the weather made that pretty insignificant, not much to see of.

A few pictures again!




I don`t know what it says but I think something along the lines of "Awesomeness ahead"






A abandoned roadside restaurant at Hokkaido. It had a nice feeling to it.




Some mountains at a ski resort town





Lake Toya?


The Buddha Of Heavy Metal! Allmost. But he seemed so benevolent that I decided that he is, donated him some of my small changed and told him to Rock Hard! He is now the patriot saint/englightened entity of my trip.


My poor shoesole. The Merrels finaly gave up. Damn, those were some good shoes.

Honshū Here We Go

I really have to recommend the Freaks Internet Cafe chain. Very comfortable places with "all you can drink" to an extensive soft drinks bar included to addmission fee. This particular Freaks cafe is at Hachinohe, norht Honshu.

I arrived to Aomori a couple of days ago, stayed there for the night and a second night due to rain. Then I set of towards the coast/south down the route 103 in a blasting heat, then in a absolute downpour of water and massive winds. It took a couple of days to cross the mountain range to Misawa. I really oughta make a route map at sometime, here`s basically how it went down. Route 103, Route 40 (absolute murder that road), route 394, route 22, and route 165. Then to Misawa via road 8 (that sucked too) and after spending the night there I set on the route 45 out towards Kuji, 60 something kilometers to south.

The morals are high now as the weather is fair and I have reached the nice, smooth, spacious, and foremostly FLAT(ish) coastal roads. Concerning mountains... You might remember what Samuel L Jackson had to say about snakes on his plane.... Enough Is Enough... Srsly, it was really hard work walking up those mountains in rain and even harder in sun. The roads are very narrow and curvy. Allthough that sounds fun, it isn`t that nice when there are cars going around with you. First you climb up for two days and then spend one day going down leaving behind a trail of your shoesole on fire, blasting like a bat out of hell and trying desperatedly not to wind up as meatloaf on the grill of a oncoming truck. Seriously fun roads to hit at the quiet hours of morning, without a backpack tho.

Speaking of early mornings, the day before yesterday saw me leaving my campsite in hurry at 5 am. It seemed like a good idea to hide from the onslaught of heavy rain and passersby under a small bridge at the mountains. There was even a small trickle of water running under it in which I thought I might take a bath in the morning if it were sunny. Well, I allmost did take a bath in it because the rain kept on coming down hard the whole night and I woke up to find that the small trickle was now a raging torrent on muddy water about 10cm from my tent doorway. I am truly sorry I didn`t take a picture of the scene, because it was epic. Too bad my first thought was "I have to get my stuff outta here" rather than "Damn, it`ll be a kickass picture when all my stuff gets floated down the river". Luckily I keep my campsites tidy, so nothing else was lost to the water except a pair of boxers, a t shirt and my Gorillapod. The clothes were set out to dry and I had forgotten the tripod on a rock when contemplating a photo of me bathing. Hope they find their way to somewhere nice. At least I had a nice early start.

Otherwise, I have become totally oblivious to the passing of time. I was genuinely surprised yesterday when I realised it was sunday. Had someone asked me the time or the date, my best guess would`ve been "Umm, maybe July?". Same goes with the time. I usually wake up when it`s light, head out, skate untill it gets dark, eat and go to my tent. So it`s basically two times in a day, light and dark. A very pleasurable way of life, I could get used to this.

Other thoughts so far.

The Osprey backpack is worrying me, I doubted the starps from the beginning, and now they are slowly coming undone. The problem is that the buckles are loose and akward and the starps curl around them and chaff down. I`ll have to figure out something to counter this soon.

The Jack Wolfskin tent has been awesome, it has been very breathing and comfortable in the heat and lasted a few very hard storms. But the bag it`s packed into isn`t. It sucks. It`s very fragile, smallest scrape to a say tunnel wall and it tears. And the shutter system, while wery cunningly designed, just doesn`t work. Stuff keeps falling out. Just today I`d have lost my tent sticks if my iPod had been working. Fortunately(?) it still isn`t and I herd the noise when the the sticks hit the ground. I have now secured the tent bag with a lenght of string and hope it stays togehter.

First signs of shinsplits yesterday, due to walking so much with my other shoe being far more worn out than the other. No worries if the skating stays good.

The Pocari Sweat sports drink doesn`t keep you best. I had awfull cramps all over my body yesterday, due to the lack of salt in my body, caused by intense sweating. Those sports drinks aren`t doing their job. Luckily, salted and dried fish and beef jerky are widely awailable as are salted nuts. I`ve changed back to drinking mostly water and eating salty stuff to counteract the effects of sweating.

Japanese people are very friendly but do not speak english much... at all. I have gotten so bored with the engrish that I barely even notice it anymore.


I`ll better get going now, I`m aiming for Kuji today!

Mountain Madnnes At Hakodateyama

I went to Mount Hakodate yesterday evening. The sunset view was certainly very scenic, pictures don`t really do it justice so I didn`t bother to take any. Actually I left my camera at the hotel and went to ride down the sucker. It was a rather incredible and dangerous experience too bad (or maybe actually good) that my ride was interrupted by security guards and I was driven down the mountain. They told me it was too dangerous and interfered with the buss traffic that was indeed very heavy.

I consired going back up and waiting till late at night to try again, but it started raining and the road was rather poorly lit. To compensate my defeat I went sliding down a 8 stories high parking garage and had a good time at that.

The two worst things in my life currently are:

1.A infected gum around my wisdom tooth. Annoying but not life threatening.
2.My iPod has gone completely catatonic. No more music unless I purchase a portable radio. Damn.

Music reminds of the night before yesterday! Music reallly is the great communicator. I was wondering around Hakodate with my skateboard in the evening and a array of guitars at a bar called The White Beatles. I promptly wandered inside and discovered much to my delight that it was in fact a open stage jam bar. Soon a bunch of musicians wandered in. The bartender occasionaly took up the drums or the bass. We jammed trough the night untill it was closing time at 02.00. Allthough we didn`t really understand each other linguisticaly, the music was understood by both parties and lots of fun was had. Awesome!

If you are a musician and/or like blues, jazz and rock`n roll, you should most definetly check this bar out! It`s a few blocks away from the Hakodate station, along the "main road" of Hakodate. If your`re coming from the station, just keep your eyes peeled to the right side of the road, you can`t miss it!

One Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

I got my camera hooked up so here are some pictures.

The pictures are HUGE, this computer didn`t have any decent programs for optimising the images. Sorry about that, I`ll fix them when I get home.

My skateboard!

Some local delicacies. Needles to say, my hair was on fire and my energy bar was full after those.

From skateboarder to skateboarders. Japanese asphalt is REALLY smooth! And the hills are awesome!

Misc. Stuff

I`m Still Alive

Yo! Sashiburi!

I`m writing this from a web cafr in Hakodate! I have now cleared Hokkaido island. I`ll stay at an hotel tonight and skate down the mountain Hakodate tommorow, if the weather allows me to. I`ll go trough the happenings on the way first.

Day 0

I began the journey by going to Toijala, Finland. From there I wen`t to the Powder Flower workshop where my board was being completed. After a lot of shaping it was finally completed at 03.30 am. 15 minutes later a got into an bus to Helsinki Vantaa airport. The next day I spent flying and wondering around Charles De Gaule airport. CDG is absolutely horrible.

Day 1
Was spent in Osaka waiting for my board. Good drinks and nice company

Day 2
Airfrance graciously paid for my cancelled flight to Sapporo and I got my board from Kansai International Airport. I flew to Sapporo where I stayed in a Capsule Hotel. Unless you like to sleep in a small pod separated from a middle aged japanese guy wathcing porn by only a thin bamboo sheet, I can`t really recommend this form of accodomation. I spent most of the evening outside tho, getting to know my new board. The asphalt in Sapporo (and rest of Hokkaido as far as I know) was absolutely fantasticly smooth. I nearly got lost cruising around the city. I allso found couple of awesome 8 stories high parking garages that I skated. Too bad i didn`t have my slidegloves with me and the harder Cult tires. That meant that I had to take it easy, accidental stand sliding isn`t nice.

I had some troubles with the board at the beginning, for some reason I constantly staggered while pushing speed. I soon understood that it was because the board was so low. Even lower than my Lush Spooky, because this Powder Flower has more subtle concave adn is a bit thinner. Low is ofcourse good when doing long distance and downhill skating. I could go on about my board for hours but I`ll leave that into another post.

Day 3
Finally time to do some real skateboarding. After aquiring a map of Hokkaido I kicked of from the Sapporo TV Tower (I only realised I had actually started right from the root of the tower only days later) and pushed trough the endless flat suburban area of Sapporo for about 20km and camped in a thick forest somewhere at the base of the mountain range

Day 4
The walking day. I trodded up the mountains for the whole day for nearly 20km of uphills in sunny weather. Hot and tiring work. I camped at the top of the mountains in a place called Boyanakayma. There was a shop and a closed ski resort. I was too tired to ride the hills that night and went straight to my tent. Luckily I interpeted the weather correctly and set my tent up with it`s weather proof outerlayer on.

Day 5
I woke up to the sound or rain. It wasn`t just a slight drizle, the whole mountain top was inside a rain cloud. Visibility was about 20 to 50 meters and rain came down heavily. No weather for downhill skateboarding. I huddled in my tent eating food and reading Dan Simmons`s The Terror. I really like Simmons`s books, especialy the Hyperion saga is... Unique. The weather remained moist but the asphalt dried up by the evening so I got down to business and really skated them hills. I got used to my board`s downhill cababilities at the quiet, about 1km strip that led to the closed ski resort. When the night fell and the traffic calmed down I skated down the route 230 that I had been following. And I mean really skated, without my backbag, with slidegloves. It was incredible. Endless downhill, smooth asphalt, stunning views. Whoa... Better than I even imagined. I slept the night at the same place and set out to

Day 6

Allmost uneventfull day. I made my way down the hill, about 17km of downhill.　Too bad that it was very hard work to skate it down with my backpack. Increased weight means increased inertia and that means braking is hard. My right shoe sole is all but busted trough. After the downhills came some flat groung that I cleared in nice weather. Then I fought the law (but the law won). A police officer stopped me at the side of the road. After some discussion I came to understand that Skateboarding is illegal in Japan (this is not true). His main concern was my place of residence for the night. He insisted on taking me there (I lied about staying at Lake Toya Onsen) with his car. on the threat of getting arrested and jailed. After about 3km of sitting in his car he luckily got some more important assignement from his radio and dropped me on the road. I then made my way to Lake Toya. Nice 6km downhill leading to a Cyampu Jo at the north shore of Lake Toya where i stayed for the night. I met some friendly elderly locals that showed me around and gave me a tomato. Domo Arigato!

Day 7
I made quick work of the about 15km from the camping grounds to the seashore. Last about 3km were nice downhills trough tunnels that actually had bicycle paths at the side. I must`ve blazed about 40km/h at best in those tunnels. I stayed the roof of a terraced tunnel since it was the only flat spot I could find.

Day 8
The rain day. It started to rain like 15 minutes after I left my campsite. Soon I was too wet to care anymore and decided to go on to Oshamanbe, 20km away. There I checked into a nice japanese style hotel. Not quite a ryokan but close. The place had a Onsen. After a hard push in the pouring rain, the experience of lolling in hot bath was incredible. It remainded me of the one time I got injected morphine intraveneously in a hospital, absolute bliss. The food was good beyond imagination aswell. I cleaned myself, my laundry and my bearings and set out early in the morning for what would be my longest push so far.

Day 9
The monster push. I cleared the whole coast today. About 70/80km of pushing. This country truly is the country of extremities. The trip so far had been only hills and mountains, today was only flat ground with the exeption of few railway overpasses, slight headwind but good asphalt and wide space at the side of the road. I saw a lot of rather rundown looking fishing villages. I went on untill i reached the mountains again, climbed few kilometers uphill, about 30km from Hakodate. The rain came then and forced me to stop in a thicket of the forest.

Day 10
The nightmare day. I woke up around 5 am and waited for the rain to end. As it did so around 7 am I set out to Hakodate. The weather kept degrading from tolerable to wet and windy to absolute horror. Head wind was so hard that even walking became nearly impossible. I had to push even on the steepest downhills, I was soaked to the bone, cold and miserable. I blasted some Manowar from my iPod and fought on. I finally reached Hakodate. It took me nearly 7 hours to make that 30km push.

Of course, right after checking into a hotell, the weather calmed down...

Phew. That`s about it. I try to get back with more detailed explanations of the highlights and some pictures later today.

Seagull Hotel

I`ll go to Kansai airport soon an retrieve my skateboard and try to rebook a flight so Sapporo. I`ve seen a bunch of great engrish phrases here but I`ll just take a moment to tell about the customs inspection upon my arrival.

I heard that it is a hassle to get into Japan so I expected lot worse. Actually I only had to fill out to forms, other one about me stating my information, lenght of stay and location and the other form about my stuff.

The problem appeared when I had left the Location of my stay blank. The clerk started asking the name of my hotel with broken english. After a moment of badly understood explanations from one side to another I answered "I don`t know yet, I`ll go to Sapporo and seek out a Hotell there". The clerks face brightened as he answered "Ahh, Seagull Hotel! Please to write it down there"

Barely containing a burst of laughter I chose the way of lesser harm and obediently wrote down the imaginary Seagull Hotel as my place of residence for the trip.

I have now dubbed my Jack Wolfsking tent as "Hotell Seagull"

I`d post some pictures but this computer doesn`t have a usb port

Good tidings

Phew. I got mail from Osaka airport that they`ve found my skateboard and I`ll get it tomorrow.

After a shower, shave and a fresh pair of socks I decided to make the best out of a grim situation and stop brooding. I set out to explore Osaka wich is a town that seems to be suffering from schitzofrenia and/or bipolar disorder. On the other hand it is ultra clean, ultra modern megacity. But every there are shady back alleys full of small bars, food places and weird and wild looking people. I prefer the backalleys

When the sun set at around 19.00 the city changed again from a bleak and hazy photograph into a HDR picture. Everything just lit up and started blinking. I`m writing this from a manga cafe while eating delicious Onigiri. Soon I`ll set out to check out some nightlife in Osaka and hopefully get lost somewhere interesting.

Tomorrow will see what happens to my route because of this delay.

I`m so Fucking Hostile right now

Okay, I`m writing this froma a manga cafe in Osaka. Yes, Osaka, NOT Sapporo like intended. Seems like my worst nightmare came true.

Yes

Airfrance lost my skateboard.

My brand new custom made Powder Flower longboard is now somewhere and nobody seems to know where. I packed it according to the instructions from a very friendly clerk at the Helsinki airport and when I got　to Osaka where I was going to switch planes to Sapporo the longboard was nowhere to be found. I`ve sent a flurry of emails and hopefully it`ll turn out allright.

That aside, Osaka is a HUGE city. It`s quite hot and humid but not unbearably so. I`m gonna stay here (you can sleep in a Manga Kissa for about 20euros) atleast till tomorrow when they hopefully have a clue where my board is.

I`m as cool and composed as a irrate badger right now, hope nothing else goes wrong. Now I`m gonna grab something eat and a couple of beers to sooth my nerves. At least I`m not jetlagged as I slep the whole flight.

Conserning Equipment

Now i have finally managed to pack my backpack and equipment in an satisfactory manner. The list of stuff is about as follows

Osprey Argon 70 litre rugsack
Jack Wolfskin Termite 1 Tent
A light sleepingbag
Self inflating travel mattres

Merrell Linear T-Shirt
Merrel Balance Technical T-Shirt
A sleeveles T-Shirt
Hoodie
Sports pants
Dunderdon P7 work cargo pants
Three pairs of boxers
Three pairs of hiking socks

Hello Kitty shower bag
Some soap
Some laundry detergent
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Small microfibre towell

First aid kit
Thermal blanket

Trangia Kettle and Pan
Set of Wheels Cult Death Ray with Ceramic bearings
Extra set of bearings (Lush Night Riders)
Leatherman Wawe multitool
Lush Skatetool

Nokia 6210 Nav 3g Mobilephone
iPod Touch 16gt
Canon G10 camera

Sixsixone helmet (pink ^_^)
Lush slide gloves
Merrel Chameleon Cargo shoes

Here's a picture of my stuff packed and spread out