YES! SUBTITLES ON!
Japan by Bicycle
So, Dylan just woke me up, and we're now going to leave I think.
Start of the awesome.
Japan by Bicycle!
It's... uh... what time is it?
It's 4:30 in the morning. The sun is going to come up soon.
Hopefully
Let's go!
Woohoo! We made it to Yakushima
for our pre-trip bonding in the woods.
It was a challenging day.
I hope none of the other days are this hard.
We had to take our bikes apart...
Twice!
we took them apart part of the way to get on one train.
Then we had to take them apart some more to get on another train.
Then we got off the train and we put them back together
rode to the ferry and found out that we had to take them apart again.
And then we put them back together and got on them.
Now we've been riding for about two to two and a half hours.
What's up? This is where we camped for the first night.
It's a pretty sweet location.
Check it out.
Hello. I just got up to the trail head after forgetting Andrew's stove.
I'm going to be camping tonight in the mountains.
I think they're going to head back to the campsite.
And I have fashioned a backpack from my pannier.
Here I go!
Hey there.
I just hit the railroad tracks
which I knew existed, but I didn't know it is along my path.
But this is great news because it means I can pick up some time.
And I would really like to get to Jomon-sugi before dark
I didn't make it to Jomon-sugi before dark but...
I am about 30 minutes away.
Well, I got here.
This is Jomon-sugi in front of me. I'll show it to you in a second.
It's another 10 minutes to the hut where I'm going to eat something and sleep.
I'm exhausted.
I would say it was worth it. It's pretty amazing
You won't be able to see very well, but just take a look.
Ok, so I'm at the hut. I just had dinner.
I'm about to go to sleep.
I want to show you this visitor that keeps on trying to eat my food.
Where'd he go?
There he is.
Completely fearless.
Oh hey Internet.
Here we are hanging out at Cape Sata the Southernmost point in Japan
about to start out Japan by Bicycle end-to-end tour of Japan.
Alright, we are about to start our first kilometer of the trip
Here we go!
Start!
Day two of the trip and we already have rain.
Hot!
It's really hot.
Scott has just eaten his first takoyaki.
...or "octopus ball."
Squishy
Ok, here we are in Nagasaki.
We just landed here by ferry
and we're going to follow the coast up and around to Nagasaki City
so tomorrow we can tour the atomic memorials.
My spoke broke.
Woohoo! We made it to Nagasaki!
We're going to have some champon.
It's kind of later than we thought it would be because today...
...we did a lot of things we didn't expect we would do
and now we're in an elevator
awkward with other people.
Scott, why don't you just pick up that egg?
Use the chopsticks to pick up that egg.
That's what they're there for. Just pick up the egg.
There you go. You almost had it that time.
There it is. That's it for sure.
Heeeey, what do you know?!
We're here on Day 6 of Japan by Bicycle.
about to see the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.
I'm not entirely sure what to expect.
Let's see what it looks like.
So... uh... I crashed.
I kind of road-rashed my whole left side.
A little bit disappointing... really scarey actually.
I guess that's what I get for looking backwards while trying to ride forward.
Not the smartest move.
So the x-rays show the I have no fractures,
They bandaged me up and I should be good to go.
My left hand hurts a lot.
I can't really grip anything.
It's good to know I'm safe and sound more or less.
So what I did was I just took out that spring.
Here we are making final preparations to depart Lori's for the second time.
Amazingly Dylan has found time to fix her burner.
That's awesome.
And Scott is doing creative things with his iPod.
And the guest room is it's usual state of disarray
as we finally try to depart Lori's for the second time.
It was a good stop... a little bit longer than we expected
because I got a blood infection on my hand.
but we made good use of the delay here
recharged and ready to head out to Honshu tomorrow.
We are at Joyful, a popular restaurant chain in Japan.
If you could take one thing on the trip with you,
and it would fit in your bags, the weight doesn't make a difference.
what would you take?
Maybe...
a nice, soft recliner
that has coolant running through it.
So you just get off the bike
and you plop into the cooled recliner.
That sounds pretty good.
Ok, what else we got?
I mean... maybe like a Vespa,
if I could fit a Vespa in my bags to swap out.
Maybe a really live person to pedal my bike for me while I just sit around.
I'm thinking...
A commercial kitchen.
Nice big counters, a gas range, some ovens, and a fully stocked pantry.
That's a bit more than one thing.
No! It's a commercial kitchen.
I would bring a commercial kitchen
With all those things inside of it.
This is going to be a really hard video to edit.
Ya, definitely.
So, should I just cut it off?
Ya -
Good news. The doctor, as expected, said that the blood infection has passed
and so now we are back on the road finally.
We're going to break into Honshu today, the main island of Japan.
That's about it.
aaaand go
Kyushu was easy.
So easy.
Here we are in Hiroshima.
This is the second atomic memorial museum
so it will be interesting to see what the differences are.
We're in Hiroshima, about to have okonomiyaki
It's the specialty of Hiroshima
especially their noodle okonomiyaki.
It's sort of a Japanese omelet slash pancake slash whatever you want.
I'm pretty excited, it's going to be delicious.
Say that again.
Yesterday we passed our 1000th kilometer mark.
Nice!
Here I am on the ferry to the start of the bike bridge route to Shikoku.
This ferry ride is one of the shortest ferry rides in the world.
Hey! Here we are in Okayama and it's laundry day.
OH YA! WOOHOOOO!
And look, Dylan made it back.
and he is drinking milk!
Kansai!
Ok, we're about an hour out of Himeji in Kansai area.
We were on our way to a bike shop to change one of my spokes that broke.
No big surprise. It's a little bit frustrating.
We were just stopping off at a Lawson's
and Dylan hits a weird bump in the road
and tacos his wheel.
Check out how this looks.
Geez. It's pretty bad.
Finally, we have someone who is going to fix my wheel.
Not just one or two spokes, but they have a new wheel
that they think is going to carry the weight all the way to Hokkaido.
Here's the bike.
Right here if you can picture it is a new shiny awesome wheel
that can bear the weight of my heavy bags.
Also, Dylan's wheel, they're going to fix that.
Scott's bike, which is usually fine, they did some free work on that.
Cycle Shop Tomato
for the win!
Come here.
That hot!
Hot, but good.
blah blaah~~.
We are in Himeji and we are eating yakitori
which is skewered grilled stuff.
And Andy is about to try his first heart.
Grilled heart.
How is it?
It's got a very rich flavor,
kind of chewy.
Not bad.
I like it.
We've got some squid here and little octopus here
so I'm going to go for it.
It's delicious.
Ok, here we are at Fushimi Inari Dera
This is a temple in Kyoto.
known for its red arch walkways.
It's dedicated to the goddess Inari which is the goddess of rice.
And there are apparently thousands of temples
smaller but similar to it all around Japan with this sort of red arch walkway
but this, this is the original.
They're orange.
Nope, one more one more one more...
One got it, that was in!
One yen, here we go.
Ok, second.
Oooh, I've got no more.
That's ok...
...not really. Scott has bad luck for the rest of the year.
Bummer.
Important fact about Japan for those of you with a Western persuasion.
One thing they seem to not care about at all is men's washrooms and sight lines.
Case in point...
right off of a busy road we have...
a pair of urinals.
This is the men's washroom.
Let's just go back for a moment to illustrate.
That guy is walking right past the... open men's washroom
Oh hey Dylan, are you about to pee?
No, I just went and saw the urinals... that's all.
Oh, ok.
Here we are in Osaka. We found an Internet cafe.
and we even got neighboring booths which we can see each other through.
Woohooo! Internet cafe Osaka!
YAAA!
Per the usual, we get a matted cubicle that's fairly small,
Internet and free drink bar.
This one was only 1500 yen, but the showers are 500.
so it still comes out to about 2000 yen.
It's a good bargain for cheap travel in Japan.
We are just coming from Osaka now, trying to get to Nara
There appears to be a large mountain in the way.
We tried biking up and had to give up get off our bikes and push.
Osaka is back that way
and we really hope that Nara is up over the mountain this way.
Hey Andy, what's up? What's up?
Oh you know...
...just biking up a mountain.
Cool.
And although it was supposed to be an easy 30km, we ran into mountains.
and ended up sadly missing the last entrance time by 20 minutes.
So now we are stuck here looking through the slats
at the biggest freestanding building on Earth.
Probably wasn't going to be any fun anyway.
I've been here before, three times.
It's awesome.
God it's cold!
So cold...
but nice... but cold!
Hey Internets.
This is Dylan with Japan by Bicycle.
We're taking a bit of a rest and relaxation day today.
We already took care of the rest, and this...
well, this is the relaxation.
We're here in Kameyama in...
Are we in Nara Prefecture?
Mie.
Mie?
Camping next to a bamboo forest next to a river
also next to rice fields. Figure that out.
Dylan is making caramel.
Check it out.
How do you make caramel, Dylan?
Start with sugar, a little bit of water
dissolved at this stage.
Then I've got some cream here set up.
A little bit of butter, a little bit of salt
Dylan can basically make anything, given time.
I'd like to think that's true.
Check out this spread.
These are all full of caramel. Like, every dish we have.
NOM. So good.
So we are in a Japanese restroom in McDonalds
and it's one of the nicest restrooms I've been in.
Classical music playing,
very clean,
And as you walk into the stall,
the lid opens.
There's a nice little control back here.
It gives you a time so you can see how long you've been in here.
They also have controls for large or small flush.
It's kind of a pleasant experience.
Restrooms in Japan
very nice.
Where are we right now Scott?
Shizuoka station.
Alright.
About to bike another 35km
and we've already biked 160.
Dylan has also only had about two hours of sleep.
It's going to be a late night.
We love Japan by Bicycle!
Ok, so how many mouthfuls
do you think you can finish Scott and my Coca-Cola in?
Two
Two mouthfuls.
Here we go...
No chugging.
Stretching is allowed.
Oh, I think he can do it in one!
I don't think one is going to happen.
He has opened his gullet quite a ways.
Definitely in two.
I want him to just spew it right now.
This is too easy.
No...
This is impressive.
He makes it look easy.
This is how talented Japan by Bicycle is.
OH NO!
There still a little left.
That was close.
That was just your backwash there.
Heeeey! 167!
Scott and I just did our first century
which means 100 miles in one day.
Unfortunately we still have about 30 more KM to go
before we're done for the day.
And Dylan!
We got hit by a typhoon last night at about midnight.
The rain seems to not be letting up until
sometime tomorrow or day the afterward in the morning.
Fortunately, we are at Dylan's friend near Mount Fuji
and it's pretty nice accomodations.
I can think of much worse places to be stranded.
Here we are at Yakiniku King which means "grilled meat king."
It's an all-you-can-eat meat place.
You order meat, they bring it to your table, you cook it yourself.
Check this out.
Excellent demonstration Dylan. Thank you.
Scott?
Well, this is hot, but bibimbap!
Here we are on Day 31
Dylan is making breakfast. What have we got Dylan?
Here we have some oatmeal that is part of an ongoing series of experiments
to determine if kimchee really does make everything better.
Kimchee and eggplant oatmeal with caramelized onions.
Hmmm... thank you.
We're now biking through the Southern Alps.
They're quite impressive.
Just finishing the Northern Alps
We are currently sitting on the seacoast
after having successfully surmounted the North and South Alps
in about two days
just watching the sunset into the Sea of Japan.
WOOOOOO!
woot
Alas, a flat tire.
So we were just wandering through this town
and we asked these people if they knew a good place where we could camp-
Pretty much only because they're dog barked at us.
Ya, and they offered us their lawn.
And then they invited us in and they fed us curry and rice and yakisoba...
and yakisoba
Yakisoba
And now we're watching "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant."
Ya. We would not have had this experience had they not let us in.
It's amazing.
Japanese hospitality.
Thank you so much.
You can use chopsticks right?
Yes
Thank you very much.
We made it to Niigata earlier than expected today.
We are hanging out at a shrine right now. Dylan's cooking dinner
and we're waiting for our couch surfer
until we can meet with her at eight o'clock.
This paper is for protection.
Check this out.
Did you get the instructions?
I think the instructions probably melted off the page.
Don't hurt yourself.
Your glasses are fogging.
Ya, they do that.
Dylan got another puncture in his tire.
Nice day riding though.
Day 36
After about 140 km we made it to Akita City in Akita Prefecture
and we met up with our couchsurfing host tonight
and look at this spread that he prepared for us.
This is amazing.
This is junsai. Akita's specialty.
Kind of like their soul food.
I'm going to try it with a little bit of garlic, or not garlic, ginger.
Green olive...
so good.
Here we are, day 37.
When we stop at supermarkets we're looking for calories for cheap.
So, here's what I've figured out.
You buy a tub of yogurt for 100 yen. This thing has about 400 calories in it.
Then you buy a sleeve of cookies. This has about 300 calories in it.
This is 100 yen. This is 100 yen.
I've already got one sleeve in there but we're going to go double-time.
Check this out.
You just put all the cookies into the yogurt.
You mix it up. Get a little on your fingers I guess.
Nice spoon.
Oh thanks.
Under 300 yen, tons of calories, delicious, it's the way to go.
This might be the last video that I take from Honshu
which is kind of cool because we've biked the whole thing now.
I'm excited for Hokkaido.
This is the ferry that's going to take us there.
See you on the other side.
Good morning day 39.
Our first morning in Hokkaido.
We camped in this park.
nnn k.
Hokkaido.
Oh ya! 3000 kilometers! Woohoo!
Dylan, what just happened?
Andy just ran into a car that cut him off.
Here we are, day 42 of Japan by Bicycle.
We are on the outskirts of Shosanbetsu which is in the Northern part of Hokkaido
about 120 km from Soya Misaki, Cape Soya, that's our goal
So only one day left we'll have 43 days total.
He just poured us... he just brought out some really nice...
Thank you very much.
It's the last day.
Here we are in a ramen shop.
Ok, this is Japan by Bicycle. The last day, day 43.
I am taking on an ice cream challenge.
Every Seicomart that we pass, which has this delicious ice cream bar,
I am going to eat one ice cream bar.
He can't do it.
I can do it.
I will do it.
mmmmm
The flat scenary never really changes as we go by it. It just stays the same.
This is the last combini stop, Seicomart, before the trip is over.
We just biked the length of Japan!
That's 3518 kilometers.
We were on our bikes for 175 hours and 1 minute.
What's next?
So, Dylan has two minutes and few seconds
to finish his 10th ice cream of the day.
10 Seicomarts, 10 ice creams.
I think he's going to do it.
I think I'm going to do it.
2600 calories of pure ice cream today
almost the only thing I ate.
Still delicious.
Count it.
Hey, just wanted to take a second to give a quick update.
We're here in Wakkanai, Japan
and we just finished the bike trip.
We almost met our fundraising goal of $10,000
and raised over $10,000 and it's thanks to you all.
We're here now with our Nepalese couch surfing hosts
and we're about the celebrate our completion of the trip.
Thanks again. Bye.