During this segment, we slowly got back on our tandem saddles and only cycled two days. Like most first time visitors to Japan, we spent a fair number of days visiting Osaka, Nara, Kyoto as they were considered must-see destinations.

Although our original plan after returning from our one week stay in Italy was to continue cycling north on the main island of Japan, we opted to modify our cycling itinerary for several reasons. Firstly, we had recognized in our early planning that we would not be able to cycle the full length of Japan at our pace due to time constraint. Secondly, Japan’s humid summer weather had already started to be noticeable upon our return to Osaka. As the local Japanese typically find refuge from the torrid heat by visiting Japan’s most northern island: Hokkaido, we decided to leverage once again Japan’s extensive ferry service to fast track our cycling visit of the island of Hokkaido. Thirdly, finding a good location to wrap-up our cycling journey and easily flying out of Japan were very important to us. Taking another ferry from Hokkaido down the eastern coast of the main island of Honshũ would also allow us some more cycling days to finishing our journey in Tokyo with an extended visit of this unique city. And finally, with our shorten cycling itinerary days, it made it possible to include a 10-day (or so) visit of Shanghai on our way back home as we had not seen our family in China since the summer of 2018. The following map snapshots compare our initial and updated cycling itineraries.

2024.06.05 – [JP] Etihad Flight ==> Osaka (0 kms | Total: 1573 kms)

We were pleased that we had an extra unoccupied seat on both of our Etihad Airway flights (Rome-Abu Dhabi & Abu Dhabi-Osaka). Upon arriving at the Osaka Kansai airport, we slowly passed the immigration and passport control, after which we retrieved our duffel bag from the carousel, reloaded our IC transit cards and took the 1h subway ride back to the Bentencho district. Near the subway station, we successfully reunited with our tandem after being in storage for 13 days since our arrival in Osaka. The cost for this secure bicycle storage service was quite reasonable at less than $18 cdn. We promptly returned to our favorite activity in Japan – waiting for our hotel check-in. Luckily we only had to wait for 30 minutes. In fact, we were very appreciative of the hotel staff for having stored our extra luggage at no cost for the past week while we were in Italy. Once in our room, we re-organized our panniers in preparation to resume our cycling journey in a couple of days. In the evening, we walked over to a Japan Post ATM to replenish our cash fund. We also visited a large grocery store nearby for some deli staples for our evening meal.

2024.06.06 – [JP] Osaka ==> Osaka (0 kms | Total: 1573 kms)

We were looking forward to our hotel’s complimentary breakfast as we had previously enjoyed it at other outlets of this hotel chain. Sadly their offering was not to our liken. We dedicated our day to sightseeing including the Osaka Castle, the Osaka Tenmangu Shrine and a stroll in the Naka-no-shima district. We stopped for a rest at a river front cafe in the Naka-no-shima district where we had some nice (and expensive) coffees. We walked over 12kms during our sightseeing. In the evening, we returned to the grocery store for some more deli staples for dinner which we ate in our hotel breakfast room.

2024.06.07 – [JP] Osaka ==> Osaka (0 kms | Total: 1573 kms)

We both did not sleep very well possibly due to some jet lag. Although we felt tired, we still went down at 8am to have breakfast before it finished at 9am. We opted to skip our optional planned sightseeing instead we spent the remainder of the day in our room resting and planning our next cycling stage. In the evening, we took the subway to reach a lively area of the city where we located one of our favorite local restaurant chain. After dinner, we strolled along the streets overflowing with people. Along the way we also tried some octopus dumplings. Surprisingly on our last public transit commute in Osaka, we struggled a bit with the train platforms in order to return back to our hotel.

2024.06.08 – [JP] Osaka ==> Nara (46 kms | Total: 1618 kms)

After breakfast, we packed our panniers to head back on the road for cycling for the first time after a two weeks break. We left our hotel at 9:20am under a sunny sky and temperature of 28C. We expected a fairly leisure day as we had a relatively short cycling day. We clearly underestimated our route. We started our day by navigating Osaka’s urban street/sidewalk chaos for almost 10 kms, then we moved on to another 10kms along a cycling path parallel to major road. We were surprised by the steepness of the hill we encountered before the salvation offered by a long tunnel which avoided us a further climb. With the high temperature and the extra effort from walking up the hills, we ran out of our water supply. Thankfully, we managed to locate a grocery store on our way. We bought some lunch staples and water. Although we expected our climbing to be done after our big hump, we encountered many more short steep climbs before reaching our hotel. We did not struggle with our hotel check-in as we arrived 30 mins after its 3pm check-in started. After a well deserved shower, we did some clothes washing at the hotel’s laundromat. It seemed like our 2 weeks without cycling caught up with us. We had dinner at a local fast food across the street from our hotel. Later, we dropped by the train station to top up our IC transit cards and bought some water for tomorrow’s Nara Park visit.
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2024.06.09 – [JP] Nara ==> Nara (0 kms | Total: 1618 kms)

It seemed like our yesterday’s tough cycling day contributed to us having an excellent night sleep. We enjoyed a wide-range breakfast offered by our hotel. Later we walked over to the nearby city bus terminal for a ride to the Nara Park entrance. As we disembarked from the bus, we were surprised to see so many visitors already on the site – especially by the fact that it was raining lightly. The deer population roaming everywhere were clearly the main attraction for many visitors. An estimated 1,200 deer live in the park surrounding the shrines, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The animals are also designated as a “natural treasure” of Japan which are considered sacred. Jenny had a tragic experience when she crossed through one of the park’s main gate, she accidentally stepped into a large, fresh and soft mount of deer poo. She almost wanted to cut her feet off but I managed to convince her otherwise. She quickly found the nearest water puddle to clean off her shoe. Many large temples and shrines scattered throughout the park. We started our visit with Nara’s star attraction – the Buddhist temple of Tõdai-ji which highlighted one of the largest bronze statues in the world. The statue was (unsurprisingly) housed in the largest wooden building in the world. After that, we quickly visited the associated Tõdai-ji Museum. A light rain continued to fall throughout our visit but the deer’s enthusiasm did not appear to be affected. With so many paths to choose from throughout the park, we opted to follow the self-guided walk from our Lonely Planet travel guide book. As we exited the park, we decided to walk back to our hotel. Along the way, we stopped at McDonald’s for some snacks and coffees. Back at the hotel, I took the opportunity to replace the tandem’s front and rear disk brake pads as they were clearly worn out. We rested in our room for the remainder of the afternoon. During our trip, Jenny has mastered the use of Google Maps for reviewing restaurants near us. We had a great dinner at a Chinese restaurant she recommended based on her research. On our way back to the hotel, we witnessed a sad scene where three distress deer were running down a street followed by cars. We suspected that this scenario must occur quite frequently given the close proximity of the Nara park to the city’s urban area.

2024.06.10 – [JP] Nara ==> Kyoto (53 kms | Total: 1671 kms)

After another extensive hotel breakfast, we resumed our cycling by 9:20am. Shortly after leaving the city limit of Nara, we found ourselves cycling on a bicycle path for the entire distance to Kyoto. Except for the heat, the cycling infrastructure which reminded us of South Korea, made our cycling journey fairly smooth. Along the way, we stopped for a good rest while enjoying an ice cream cone. Upon arriving to our hotel by 2pm, we were surprised that the reception staff allowed us to promptly check-in into our room. As we were eager to enjoy the hotel’s onsen (public bath) facilities after a long cycling day, we had to wait until 3pm for its opening. We both enjoyed our gender separated soaking in the onsen for half an hour . We were looking forward to visiting the nearby Nishiki food market for our dinner. Sadly, most of the market stalls closed in the early evening. We had to resort to have our dinner, once again, at our favorite local Japanese fast food outlet. Exceptionally our hotel in Kyoto did not include any complementary breakfasts, hence guests who wished to have breakfast at the hotel had to purchase it ahead of time – as we did for the next morning.

2024.06.11 – [JP] Kyoto ==> Kyoto (0 kms | Total: 1671 kms)

As we showed up to our hotel breakfast room in the morning, we thought for a brief moment that we were back in Italy as an Italian tour group were loudly talking among themselves. We had learned from past hotel stays that tour groups were always on tight schedule, hence the breakfast room promptly returned to a quiet environment after they departed. We left our hotel at 10am for a sightseeing day. We took the subway to the start of a self-guided walk of Kyoto’s Northern Higashayama district as described in our Lonely Planet travel guide book. After completing our initial walk, we took a city bus to visit the ground of the Imperial Palace. We were somewhat disappointed by our sightseeing day as we skipped the various temple visits along the way as each one had a hefty entrance fee. The ground of the Imperial Palace was also less than captivating. We took the subway back to our hotel district. We stopped at a grocery store for dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast staples before returning to our hotel. We rested in our room for the remainder of the afternoon. We had dinner in our hotel room. Later we went for a stroll over to the Nishiki food market and adjoining shopping area. We covered 16kms during our day.

2024.06.12 – [JP] Kyoto ==> Kyoto (0 kms | Total: 1671 kms)

As we opted not to purchase our hotel breakfast this morning, we did not need to wake up early. We had a simple breakfast in our room. We did a bit of more trip planning before heading out around 11:30am for another sightseeing day. The sun was very strong and the temperature was over 30C which contributed to us sweating merely by walking. From our hotel we walked over to the Gion district, Kyoto’s geisha quarter, where we followed a loosely self-guided walk of the area. After wrapping up our visit and on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a McDonald’s for a rest while having some refreshments and snacks. Later, we also visited another Uniqlo clothes boutique where Jenny was eager to purchase a few extra tops (tax free with a purchase over ~$45cdn and a passport). To-date, we probably visited over 15 different Uniqlo stores across different cities in Japan. Back at our hotel, we enjoyed another 30 mins onsen soaking/bathing just by ourselves in the gender separated areas. We had dinner at a nearby Udon restaurant after we gave up on some shopping mall restaurant offerings. We covered 12kms during the day.