Settled in and ready to ride

My first two weeks in Japan have flown by and I am happy to say that I am finally feeling settled in. It's been incredible thus far, but it's been tough to find the time to sit down and put together my thoughts for a blog post - here we are. I have been keeping a journal and will likely include excerpts from it on blog posts here and there, but here is a brief overview of what my first chapter of Japan has looked like.

Incredible Hosts

I was extremely lucky to find an amazing couple (Rika and Yuki) who hosted me for my first ten days in Japan. They live in Meguro City, in the southwestern part of Tokyo. Our family first met Rika at Hostel Cue Taketa in southern Japan in 2018 when she was working there. At the time, we were cycling from Fukuoka to Tokyo for two months and had taken a small trip through the south island of Kyushu. Earlier this summer, I was looking through my few contacts that existed and came across Rika's Instagram and decided to reach out to her. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that she now lives in Tokyo with her husband Yuki and their two cats, Lua and Nala.

Staying with Rika and Yuki allowed me to have a home base in Tokyo while I put together some of the last items in preparation for my trip. Some of these items included a camping pot set, a paper map of Japan in English, bungee cords and a phone mount for my handlebars.

They also shared some of their favorite parts of Tokyo with me, which included a Japanese pop/hip-hop concert, a dance show featuring Yuki's co-worker, and numerous restaurants and bars with delicious dishes. To say thank you, I made them crepes one morning and on one of the final nights together, I offered to make steak tacos for them (one of my favorite meals to cook/eat). Yuki lived in Los Angeles for six years when he was younger and was brought back to the beach with the fresh tacos. It was a true pleasure to stay with them and it really warmed me up to Japan in a comfortable way.

After my cousin Jared arrived on October 15, they welcomed him into their home for one final night before we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Kyoto. In Kyoto, we were kindly welcomed into Amrew's house, a friend we were introduced to through my friend Leo in Montreal! Amrew is a 24-year-old English Teacher from Ottawa who has been living in Japan for two years. Last night we all went out for dinner at a yakiniku restaurant, a type of place where you grill the meat at your table and it was extremely tasty. It was fun to meet somebody who had immigrated from Canada, learned to speak Japanese comfortably in only two years, and is living here as a part of the community.

In a few nights, we plan to stay at a Warmshowers host in Fukui. I know that both Jared and I are excited to meet more locals and learn about the Japanese culture. Warmshowers is a network of cyclists around the world that our family has connected with extensively on both a hosting and visiting level. Similar to Coushsurfing, people open up their homes to travelers visiting from abroad for a night or two and offer a place to stay, sometimes including a shared meal and normally time spent exchanging travel stories and routes.

Adapting to Japan

One of the biggest things has been adapting to the Japanese culture. The people here are so kind, so patient and so helpful. People are extremely respectful here and albeit not speaking very much Japanese (if any), people have been more than willing to help me find wifi, help me register my bike (with a cool yellow license plate for the back of my frame), and point me in the right direction.

There are however, many 'unspoken rules' or 'social norms' that I've found interesting to learn about. Some I heard about prior to arriving. Some of those include:

• Don't eat while you're walking

• Don't talk on the train/metro

• Don't expect to find trash cans - hold onto your trash

A couple that I am figuring out through experience include:

• Wear pants, unless your doing sports. I knew I was going to stand out in the crowds as one of the only blond people, but I noticed pretty quickly I was the only one wearing shorts, almost everywhere. It's still been incredible weather (18-30° C), and I've been pleasantly surprised with the minimal rain that I've gotten given it's shoulder season and leaning into fall.

• Bows (even if they're small), expressions of gratitude (arigatougozaimasu - meaning thank you) and (onegaishimasu - meaning with pleasure/please), and general manners of respect are always used . From the people working at the konbini (convenience stores), to the people working at grocery stores, and even people helping me out on the street for directions, the people here are insistent on being courteous and polite.

Although there are many amazing parts of Japan, which I am quickly falling in love with, it has been more challenging and exhausting, than I had expected to adapt comfortably to a culture where I don't speak the language at all. Although I had hoped to learn a bit more Japanese before arriving, I got caught up in tying up loose ends in Montreal and getting everything in line for my departure.

I am loving how clean it is and how smooth the roads are. I rode about 200km while adventuring around Tokyo (which can comment on the obscene size of the city), and didn't come across a single pothole. People take their trash with them, and it seems that every single garden, road, and sidewalk is consistently maintained and upkept.

Getting ready for the ride

Jared and I now both have our bikes set up to ride and our panniers packed. Jared was able to rent a bike for a month from a spot in Kyoto, hence determining our starting location. This will be his first bike trip, and I am stoked to share my tips and tricks for travelling by bike with him.

We've got a tent with us alongside all the equipment to cook and camp on our own. Although we will aim to camp the majority of the time, we will likely stay at a few hostels, guesthouses, and hopefully be hosted through any connections we make on the road.

I will do my best to upload more photography as we go and give them titles/captions when I can. If you happen to notice any bugs on the blog, please send me a message as I put together the blog over the last week, but it has yet to be 'used', so I'm sure it'll improve as the year goes by.