Japan: Ecliptic Tour

[colin]

I planned to head to Kagoshima, Kyushu to meet a friend for the eclipse on the 22nd of July.... How to get there? Iron butt seemed to fit the bill. Of course, it really isn't far enough, so my route took me up the kanetsu from Tokyo to the Hokuriku around Niigata and then through Osaka and a bit of Sanyo and finally Chugoku to finish off Honshu. From there, headed south, as far as I could get in order to get the miles....

I started off around 1pm, and about an hour on the Kanetsu I passed a friend of mine Kohei who races Duc Monsters. He was in the car, heading up to some hospital to see a friend of his who had a bad crash at Tsukuba!

Got quite a bit of rain from Niigata on out. Not terribly fun. I was going to take the Sanyo through to Kyushu, but decided to get a few more miles going up on the Chugoku. That's when the rain really started bucketing down.... miserable. Doing most of the rain through the dark was no fun, since there were lots of standing water puddles, which is not fun on a bike.

2:30a.m. at Miki SA

6:30a.m. or so, needed a caffeine stop at that point.

Here's Mito SA at 8:30a.m.

The rain was so bad that my previously impervious Fog City Hyperoptiks got water in it. How messed up is that? Was kind of like a little wave toy when you leaned your head left and right, watching it move around.....

Absolutely poured going down the Kyushu highway. It was so bad that visibility went down to about 100m due to rain, and probably about 50 due to visor not having windshield wipers!

As it approached 1pm, things were picking up again and I needed to find somewhere to get gas and get a witness! I had to overshoot the guy I was meeting since he was coming in from the West, but not far enough to get the miles, so I had to wing it. I got off at Yokogawa and searched for a gas station. Found one, and they were nice enough to serve as a witness, even taking a pic for me:

 

[colin]

GPS distance = 1616km, Odo: 1631km. Hope that works.

 

[colin]

Next, time to meet up with Kurt and hit some good roads! I was a bit tired, waited at the Sakurajima stop for him. Weather was kinda crappy, headed south to stay in Ibusuki, as that is as south as we could really get, and then the next day (wednesday) we'd have the most ideal viewing position for the eclipse.

Near the top of the Ibusuki Skyline:

Stayed at a youth hostel just across the street from the famous Sand Bath:

If it's sunny, they'll put these umbrellas over your head. hehe.

That's us! Sand baths are awesome.... sand is at 50 degrees (celsius), so a bit hotter than a normal onsen (40 is normal, 42 hot, 45 ridiculous)

 

[colin]

Sand bath at night:

The yakiniku place we ate at gave us a free bottle of local shochu. Kagoshima shochu is famous for using sweet potatoes. It was all right, never was a big fan of it, but got me through the night.... Bought some ice, potato chips, chocolate, and hung out by the beach.

In the morning, took off from the hostel.

The big sand onsen is this:

Scrambled around a bit to find a Joyfull (family restaurant) that was open before 10a.m..... One of my favorite family restaurant gigs....

 

[colin]

In the morning, my Fog City was now less of a wave, and more rainy spots and minor fogging. Yay. Time to find a shop to get a new visor....

Eclipse day, weather not great.... hmmm. Over there is Kaimondake, where I camped at last trip out. Can't see much!

The eclipse started at 9:30, but peaked at 11a.m.

Around 10:45, we saw a few bits of sun peaking out from the clouds as we went along the south coast, and a handful of cars on the side looking up! So we pulled over to a less famous Eclipse Viewing Point.

Most pictures came out like this:

But here and there got some nice pics, which only would have been possible with this cloud cover! Didn't have any special filters or anything.... maybe I should be a bit more hard-core, but, um, i'm not.

Click here for bigger pic

Here is the best coverage I saw, can barely see the sun here:

Click here for bigger pic

It got noticeably darker, crickets started going nuts....

Kinda neat. Glad to have seen it....

 

[colin]

The third day (for me, anyway), including the eclipse, had us going up the west coast, and take the long way to Kagoshima, where we stayed for the night. Going through Chiran, then up around to Kirishima shrine and the goodness of the roads out there....

 

[colin]

Heading around the left coast now.

Swung by the Kamikaze museum.

Chiran is also famous for it's green tea....

Lunch was kurobuta curry (black pig pork)

 

[colin]

Things were really going south with my visor....

Went looking at a bike shop for a new visor. This guy saw a couple foreigners and refused to talk to us and hid behind his desk. I'd like to think it was something other than our foreign-ness that had him ducking, but that was the vibe I got....

Eventually got fed up and cut it out.... oh well.

 

[vabrzn]

Thanks for the report and pics. I'll have to get a sand bath one of these days!

 

[colin]

On to Kirishima Jingu.

Bizarreness on the side of a building...

You can hang with the Sakamoto's there.

Shrine ahead!

Our hero.

 

[colin]

Thanks for the report and pics. I'll have to get a sand bath one of these days!

you definitely should!

It is hard to describe the awesomeness that is the sand bath.... ! :assassin:

 

[colin]

Some olde tree.

Kurt demonstrates proper use of the hand washer.

 

[colin]

Found some wildlife out there.

From the twisties, took them the long way around and then back on the highway to Kagoshima.

Great way to finish the day, had yakiniku for the second night in a row with plenty of nama beer like this!

 

[colin]

Here's the route up to Beppu.

 

[colin]

The next day, my friend went south and took a ferry to Yakushima (i think) and I went north, aiming for Beppu, as I'd never stayed there before, big onsen town.

Swung through Aso, as that's always a great place to see, in addition to the awesome roads....

Went to Nakadake again, was able to park to get a shot of me and the volcano....

 

[colin]

Aso over there....

 

[colin]

man, this is getting long. surely nobody is on dial up?

don't mean to be a post whore, but could really use a page 2 right about now.

 

[jordylad]

This is great stuff man, thanks for sharing, I dream of doing this!

Thanks again.

 

[colin]

Beppu!

Takegawara Onsen. Very old onsen, has a sand bath as well. I did the regular one, was one of the more bizarre ones. From the street you can see inside the changing area (for starters). There are no showers to speak of. I was actually confused and asked a guy in the bath. Was just rinse with the water and go... ! And it was hot, very hot. An old dude pulled up a stool and a bucket and washed right next to the bath, so I did the same and then was outta there. Neat to be in there, room is kinda cool, but a bit different from what I was used to.