Day 17: Fukuoka – Shimonoseki

[post of Friday 24^th of August 2012]

Today we managed to wake up early, although we don’t feel 100% ready to the 90 km stage that awaits us.

That’s a stage as plain as boring the one we have ahead of us. We have to cycle for 30 km just to get out from the massive city of Fukuoka and its suburbs. Then we get a little bit crazy looking for alternative routes to avoid the traffic we’ve just been dealing with, as well as the high mountains that scare us so much.

We drive with sunglasses on through a never-ending tunnel. In theory, bicycle are not allowed in any tunnel in Japan, although no alternative road, or advice, is provided. Usually, you can go through a way reserved for bike, even thou that quite different from the only-bike-ways we have in Spain. In Japan, the pedestrian routes alongside the road are for both pedestrians and bicycles, and there is such a route in all highways too. Often the pedestrian/bike routes are as nicely laid down as the highway itself and, some time, we can even cycle side by side and have a chat. At times, the vegetation has overwhelmed them and is nearly impossible to cut through it without a machete. In any case, to travel on a bicycle in Japan is great. When these kind of route are missing, or you want to go faster through the highway, that’s reasonably safe, and you don’t to worry too much about cars. Because of the layout of the land, highways are usually stuck in between valleys, so they proceed in a snake-like way, where the speed limit is below 50 km per hour. Cars go very slow, drivers are quite nice, they never get too close to the bicycles, nor they beep at you ‘cause you’re going too slow for them. In addition, the majority of the road signs are in both Japanese and English, so it’s quite easy to find out your way around.

Going through the massive city of Kitakyushu, it seems like we’ll never get to the strait of Shimonoseki. Finally, quite late in the evening, we say goodbye to the Kyushu region. It’s being great to visit it.

We cross the sea surrounding the island of Honshu. We go to the wrong way to the hotel, get into the city centre by mistake and have to turn to go back. The hotel is full, and we have to go back to the city centre. We stop at a mechanic to ask directions to another hotel, suggested by the staff of the full one, and one of the guys working there jump on his bicycle and comes with us to check on different hotels of Shimonoseki. We’re looking for an hotel no too expensive and the guy brings us to a hotel that looks quite good if compared to its cheap prices. To celebrate, we treat ourselves with beers and ice-cream.