Unofficial Guide to Biking in Boulder: Biking in Japan Continued （続く）

Alright!

I managed to siphon through more of my pictures from Japan.

There are SO many of them it’s overwhelming. But I finally found the perfect pictures to explain a rather humorous story about getting abysmally lost in the suburbs of rural Nagahama.

The number one coolest thing about Japan is everything is local (within biking distance), which was good for us since bikes were our only modes of private transportation. The number one UNcool thing about Japan, however, is that there are NO street signs! This can make finding a new place next to impossible, unless you have an amazing sense of direction and a massive amount of luck.

One VERY sunny June afternoon last year, three fellow American college students and I set out find a ramen noodle store in downtown Nagahama. The first thing to note here is we were following directions from our dojo master (Master Abe), who spoke in an incredibly difficult dialect, even for us Japanese majors. So right off the bat, we knew we’d have to rely on instinct. With almost no idea of where we were going, we set off on our bikes in the general direction Master Abe pointed out.

We must have looped around the same freaking neighborhood at least five times before we finally found someone to ask for directions. Even with directions, we still had to turn around at a few dead ends and stop for a water break. At this point,

we had been biking in the hot sun, at high noon, for over an hour and a half with no food in sight; we were STARVING.

After some bickering amongst the group, we finally agreed to let the one and only guy in the group lead us, since he seemed to have a more confident grasp of where we were headed. At that point, anyone who had an inkling of where to go was better than nothing.

At long last, we finally reached the tiny restaurant and were greeted with a hearty “IrrasshAAAI!” as we walked through the doors. It was only until we sat down and I tried to take my bag off my shoulder did I realize how badly sunburned I was. As you can see from the image, it was pretty darn painful, BUT TOTALLY WORTH IT! The ramen was neither freeze-dried nor pre-processed; they were definitely the best noodles I’ve had in my entire life.