slow travel on four wheels
(for those keeping track of or progress, I actually wrote this 5 days ago but have only just been able to upload – we’re now in Hokkaido – more to follow soon!)
Yesterday something caught our eye – peeping out from below the road was a thatched roof. Finding somewhere to pull over and scrambling down a verge, we found a train track flanked by beautiful pink Sakura (cherry blossom). This was our first Sakura viewing for over a week and a half we left Tokyo, when it had been very much in its final stages – specks of pink dotted along branches – but the season sweeps up the country and, driving north, we’ve now caught it in full bloom once again. Just along the train tracks we came to the roof that had caught our attention, a mass of ancient-looking but fairly well preserved thatch, sitting atop a wooden building that actually turned out to be the train station. Historically vernacular architecture utilised thatch in many areas of Japan, however (at least where we have been) it seems that few remaining examples survive, and of those we have seen, the accidentally discovered Yunokami Onsen Station was definitely the most majestic, the thatch piled high into a steep sided roof with sweeping eaves and topped with decorative woodwork. The north side was tinged with quite a bit of moss, presumably being harder to keep dry with less exposure to the sun.
The other side of the station harboured a foot bath big enough to serve lots of people – this is what the onsen in the station’s name means – a natural hot spring. We’d seen these feet onsen before but not had chance to use one and, living in a van and having spent the previous day hiking, we jumped at the opportunity. The water is not just warm but delightfully hot, and soaking our feet, exchanging words of greeting with other bathers whilst admiring the cherry blossom and the mountains for a few minutes was an unanticipated pleasure.
This is one of the best things about travelling free from the constraints of public transport – stumbling across things that you’d never have come across otherwise. Yunokami Onsen Station isn’t in the guidebook and there’s only a little bit of info about it online; we definitely wouldn’t have known about it if we hadn’t caught sight of it as we rolled past.
Travelling by bicycle also leads to much stumbling across the unexpected – probably more readily than travelling by van, but there’s always the constraint of daylight (finding a suitable spot and making camp and food is a lot less fun in the dark and cold) and the fact that those miles aren’t going to cycle themselves – interesting diversions add up and can lead to a shortened itinerary or sleeping in a ditch by the road. A motor, on the other hand, really gives you the freedom to follow your fancy, scout interesting looking roads, checkout interesting looking things and then easily make up lost time by driving a little faster or a little longer. And whilst we certainly seek out beautiful places to spend the night, making camp a lot easier in the dark when your camp is already right there in the back of your van.
van life
It’s been about 10 days since we collected our van, which actually isn’t a van but a large car with two seats up front and a bed in the back with storage underneath. The bigger, more expensive vans have heaters that you can use at night – we were worried that this could be a problem but so far things have been just fine with sleeping bags, thick blankets and an electric blanket which runs of a big battery pack that you charge as you drive. We’re now at the very northern end of Honshu (Japan’s main island), not far from the ferry crossing to Hokkaido, Japan’s mountainous northern wilderness, weather reports are looking on our side, all well above zero although if things turn i think we’ll just pick up a couple of hot water bottles before we make the crossing.
The van allows us freedom to self cater (and to drive to decent shops) which is to important for saving money and saving animals. In the past i’ve found the pleasure you might expect from al fresco cooking is usually offset by the fact that you’re sat on wet grass, hunching over a tiny pot on a tiny stove – now, with a table and chairs, two big hobs and other proper equipment cooking can be a real joy, particularly when done admiring a splendid view. We tend to time our cooking with the weather, stowing extra portions in our coolbox for later, but the boot door does create a shelter and can be set up to cook sat out of the back in case of rain and no other shelter available. When we want something quick we delve into our stash of instant ramen – if you read my last post you may remember that we took a delivery of a large box at our hostel – inside were 40 packs of vegan instant ramen (only available from special suppliers online). With a few bits of veg thrown in they make quite a lovely meal!
a few places we’ve been in our van
michi no eki – japanese road stations.
I was a bit skeptical when I read that most people touring Japan in cars or vans tend to stay at road stations – naturally the first thing that comes to mind are the grim motorway service stations of the UK, and the idea of sleeping at the Japanese equivalent wasn’t an exciting prospect. Happily, Japanese road stations are totally different. Firstly, there’s no petrol and lorries are rare. Secondly, they are usually on local roads rather than right next to motorways. Thirdly, they are actually nice places to stay! There are always 24 hour toilets and usually some sort of cafe and shop (but these are very much not 24 hours and usually have an independent vibe rather than open all hours tesco or blandspensive costa), and they usually seem to have been designed to be at least somewhat aesthetically appealing. Everything else varies station to statio: some are sprawling urban affairs with slick modernist architecture, some are small log buildings high in the mountains, some are double as community centres with event spaces, some harbour posh grocery shops and nice restaurants. One fantastic feature for us is that they seem to frequently host local veg markets and so are great for stocking up on good-value and good quality veg. I’m actually sat on the grass just over the road from a michi no eki right now, and about 50 metres is a roaring waterfall, crashing out of the forest.
We’re usually not the only ones sleeping at the michi no ekis, although vehicles like our ‘camping car’ (as most interested bypassers refer to it) seem to be fairly unique, sitting in the middle of an otherwise polarised spectrum; most other people seem to be either sleeping sat up in the driver’s seat, as if they are just breaking some awful extended drive, or else have an enormous RV style camper with upper level sleeping section, septic, tank, swimming pool etc. It was apparently with regards to the former that the michinoeki network was established – to help people driving the length of the country take breaks safely.
Although these road stations have made the majority of our sleeping points, it’s actually legal (and seemingly also socially acceptable) to sleep anywhere you’re legally allowed to park in Japan, so we’ve also had some nights in forests, on a beach, national park car park. As long as there’s somewhere to wee then we’re generally ok.
One concern about car camping was that we might miss out on meeting people, becoming car dwelling recluses. Happily, we’ve met a variety of friendly people on the road. On our first night we were just settling to bed when there was a sharp knock at the window – expecting the police or worse, we found a kind fellow car-camper offering us a pack of heater bags – like teabag style hand-warmers but much bigger – worried we might be cold. The next morning Yusuke added us on facebook and has been sending us handy tips since. We’ve had various other people stop and chat to us about the van and our trip and give us tips and advice – most recently was Yugi this morning with whom we shared breakfast snacks – and this afternoon I bumped into a man after my own heart – a french cycle tourist named Sylvian who has cycled the length of the country, up from Kagoshima, and, like us, is heading for Hokkaido. Hopefully we’ll meet up for a beer and maybe even an afternoon skiing.
washing woes
We have had a few car-camping hiccups so far. Most frequent is the treacherous velcro on the curtains coming dettached at inopportune moments, although this has been mostly put to a stop by a few well placed clothes pegs. Contender for most embarrassing moment, however, was this morning. We’re up in a forested area of national park, not far from a huge lake called lake Towada. We were the only ones here when we arrived last night and by 9am the place still seemed pretty deserted, only the odd solo driver stopping to use the loo. This is fairly unusual, we thought we were maybe far away enough from civilisation for local visitors and far enough north to be out of season for domestic tourists, and so decided to do some laundry. It was, of course, just as we were settling down to breakfast, with a line of our freshly laundered underpants strung from the car to a nearby post, that a coach arrived, pulled in right alongside us and disgorged a great number of Japanese tourists. I haven’t been told this directly but think it’s a pretty safe bet that publicly displaying underwear isn’t particularly good manners here in Japan. Japanese bus tourists often seem to sightsee with something of a military efficiency, and I hoped that they would make a beeline for the nearby waterfall and miss our pants, but alas, I think that every single one of them stopped to look or point at our flapping unmentionables; some laughed, some raised eyebrows and some about three or four people took photos (someone even took one of us, too). We felt trying to take it down in a hurry was probably going to just embarrass everyone even more, our only option was to wave, smile and munch our cereal in shame. A few of the bolder pant-viewers came over to speak to us, the main thing they wanted to know was where we were from. Answering, we both had Mattie’s mum’s parting words ringing in our ears – ‘remember that you’re ambassadors of your country!’
fast drivers on slow roads
The last thing to mention about driving a van around Japan is the driving itself.
Japan has two classes of roads – normal roads and expressways, which are usually toll roads. The toll roads are much like the Shinkansen to the local trains the normal roads – much faster and very expensive.
The expressways have higher speedlimits than the local roads but their main advantage is bypassing settlements and their never ending daisy chain of intersections and traffic lights. Around Tokyo this virtue pays dividends and the expressways can almost be twice as fast as the local roads. Being relatively time rich and cash poor we had initially opted to do most of the driving on local roads, and the hours spent driving in the urban sprawl of Tokyo in those first few days were some of the slowest hours of driving i’ve ever undertaken. My heart started to sink at the thought that next month might be a choice between 20mph stop-start driving and blowing our budget on toll roads, and during the final leg we paid a toll just to get out of the urban quagmire
Thankfully, outside of the metropolis the advantage of the toll roads is much more marginal and as we have headed north the non-toll roads we have taken have been wonderful to drive. We’ve driven two particular roads famous for their scenery and stacks of hairpin bends, but following the spine of mountains that runs up the centre of the country has yielded views of many snow capped mountains and forests of evergreens, and has been light on traffic and intersections and almost entirely toll free.
The most curious thing about driving in Japan, however, is the speed limits. They are very low – 40 kilometres per hour, (25 miles per hour), seems to be the standard for many roads. Fast single carriage is 60 kmph, and even the expensive expressways are only 80 kmph, with abundant numbers of speed cameras. Slow travel indeed. The thing is that nobody seems to stick to these limits, or indeed anywhere near them. I would say that the average speed is usually 20–30kmph faster than the limit, with many people doing double.
Attempting to obey the limits I’ve invariably had a queue of traffic form behind me within minutes, and Japanese politeness doesn’t seem to rule out being flashed and over taken wildly on blind corners. Even more surprisingly, nobody seems to slow down for the very obvious speed cameras, and these never seem to flash either – I’ve read that a lot of the older ones are now out of film!
After our stop to see the thatched roof station yesterday I was cruising along on a narrow mountain road and noticed a white car topped with a blue light behind me. I braked and ensured I wasn’t exceeding the speed limit, only to have the car come right up behind me and start flashing its headlights. It seems the police were wanting me to break the speed limit right in front of them – what to do? Should I speed? Is this entrapment? Eventually I found a place to pull over and let them past. As they did I saw the words ‘Akita Taxi’ emblazoned ok the back of the vehicle before it sped off, followed by the long queue behind it, hemming me in for several minutes. I should have remembered – police cars in Japan have red lights! Still, I have actually seen actually police cars exceeding the speed limit on dual carriageways and there are a lot of them about, so I fear it may only be a matter of time till I have one up my rear on a single tracked road, unsure what to do.
Googling this unusual state of speeding affairs yields advice that speed limits are rarely enforced in Japan, and that there is generally at least a 20kmph leeway above the marked signs. This seems to me very odd for a country that is otherwise so saturated with rules and etiquette, but after some time puzzling it I have sussed it out! The turning of blind eyes to speed limitations must be the the nation’s therapy outlet for the secret anarchist rule breaker inside that lives inside every law abiding, etiquette bound Japanese citizen!
