September 28th to October 1st: Fukushima to Sendai to Morioka

Tomorrow morning marks exactly 1 week since i packed and left Tokyo for the north and in the past few days i've stayed in all 3 capitals of the 3 prefectures i've cycled through. I'm just really thankful for excellent weather (no rain this whole week! that's amazing!) and i'm 2 days (or 208km) away from Aomori (Aomori Pref.), the northernmost city of Honshu. From there it's a 4 hour ferry ride to Hakodate in Hokkaido. I'm a bit disappointed i won't get to go through the Seikan Tunnel (the longest rail tunnel in the world, 2nd would be the Channel Tunnel between Britain/France).

September 28-29th: Fukushima to Sendai (77km, all pictures condensed here)

I actually spent an extra night in Sendai to recuperate. So for this past week in 7 days (6 if you minus the extra day in Sendai) i covered 529km in total. Sendai is well, just another city to me. I've passed through so many cities that they all look the same. Supposedly, it's supposed to be 'greener' (it's known as the 'City of Trees') than all the other cities, and to its credit i did notice more roadside trees than anywhere else, but compared to the greenery in Singapore, it's really nothing.

Door to Aisaki Ryokan, 3990JPY a night.

The city logo on the way in, was however, the nicest one i've seen so far (it beats all the other city logos of flowers and animals). And before you go thinking "that's just a guy on a horse!", that's Date Masamune, founder of Sendai city, and distinguishable by the trademark cresent-moon on his helmet and also his eye-patch that earned him the nickname the "One-Eyed Dragon". To me he's the 6-sword wielding guy in the PS2 game "Basara 2". Yup, 6 swords.

And because i didn't want to walk the city, i took a train to the nearby towns for a walk and lunch. Much more comfortable riding the trains here than having to always squeeze in the trains like in Tokyo. It's pretty funny how i was waiting for the doors to open but somehow it didn't. Then someone came up and pressed the "OPEN" button on the side for me. And it was in English as well. I just didn't know you had to open the train doors yourself.

September 30th: Sendai to Ichinoseki (85km)

Less houses and more open fields now.

I like how there's much more fields and plantations than houses on the roadside now. It's a nice change from the roads in Central Honshu. The air is also 'fresh', that is, if you consider fertilisers and the smell of cut grass 'fresh'. At least it beats having to smell fumes from factories.

Ichinoseki is the first city in the Iwate prefecture and a nice quiet stop for me. Nothing much to do at night but the fruit stalls on the street were nice. Bought a bunch of bananas for my breakfast the next day and had an early night's sleep cause i planned to start my day earlier from tomorrow onwards, mainly because it's getting dark around 5:30pm.

October 1st: Ichinoseki to Morioka (90km)

Overnight stop at Morioka, capital of Iwate Prefecture and for a change i'm not seeking accomodations near the train stations but in the outskirts of town beccause there seems to be alot of supermarkets and big 2nd hand shops here. I can't resist browsing around 2nd-hand shops, especially for DVDs and CDs, which are about the only things that are cheap (when 2nd-hand) compared to Singapore.

The 'magic' 500km sign. And the many spiders hanging their webbing on it.

Temperature tonight is 11 degrees, which is not as cold as it sounds..until the wind starts blowing, then i start wishing i didn't come out on the streets. Going to rest for a 100km ride tomorrow.