Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Cycling across Japan - From Soya to Sata

As you know by now, Yumi and I will cycle from the Northern most to the Southern most tip of Japan.
What is it going to be like? To be honest, I don't know.

What I know is that it's going to be about 3,700 km long. That's about 2,500 miles, but even these numbers don't really talk to me, so I did a bit of research:
3,700 kilometers is the equivalent of:
= Madrid (Spain) to Helsinki (Finland)
= New York to Las Vegas
= John O'Groats to Lands End, a tiny bit less than 3 times
= Paris to Toulouse, times 6
= A lot

Japan's countryside is said to be breathtaking, (which is probably because of the mountainous terrain) and the best way to discover it was to cycle. It all started from the idea to cycle from Tokyo to Makurazaki, where Yumi's family is from, but then we asked each other the question "how many times in our lifetime will we get the chance to cycle all the way across Japan?". Now I think about it, maybe I asked myself this question. Anyway, Yumi agreed on the idea in no time.

Since we were going to start such journey, Yumi mentioned it would be good to do it for a charity, and very quickly, we decided to do it for Advance, for which she's been working over the past 6 years.

In terms of the route, we've been advised to avoid Nagano to Nagoya, as there are plenty of tunnels and it not so cyclist-friendly, so we'll probably go down the west coast of Japan before arriving in Kyoto.

That's it for now.



1 comment:

  1. So exciting for you both, It is going to be amazing. I will be following you on your travels and may meet you under a clock somewhere in South America with my smiley face and a rucksack. Congratulations on making this happen.Love Bear

    ReplyDelete