Home » Japan » The top half of Japan… and the decision to head onwards alone

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair” (Robert Frost) .

The top half of Japan… and the decision to head onwards alone

Rob Lilwall
2007-12-01 14:32:32

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magazine (they wisely ignored his request to do a photo shoot wearing leopard skin swimming trunks)!

After 10 days meeting old friends and new, and feeling the existential angst of endless possibility (and overwhelming responsibility) which comes with being in a global city, i had a sunny ride out of town, with a days worth of glimpses of glorious Mount Fuji... and I have now got the city of Nagoya... which brings me up to date.

Observant readers may notice that Al and I are no longer cycling together... we have been friends since the start of University, and been on many journeys together over the years: by bicycle, hiking and hitching... in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America... we have camped in deserts, forests, mountains, dunes, tundra, and once even in a sewage pipe (unused!)... we have now just survived 4 months of ultra intense, friendship testing endurance across a wintery Siberia, after which we each badly needed some space... (something we probably should have planned to do a while ago?)

Whats more, in Japan, we discovered an equation to describe the experience
of staying with generous hosts:

2 English wildmen
+ massive bicycles
+ tiny/tidy Japanese house

= very full and messy Japanese house

In addition to all this, due to being at different stages of our respective expeditions, we have decided to take very different roads home across Asia...

... I am only 5 months into this journey, and in no hurry to get home... from Japan i will head for Korea, then China, and from there (in a year long detour) island hop south for Australasia, before island hopping back to Singapore and back home west across the Asian mainland somehow ... (hence this journey should now perhaps be renamed: Cycling home from Siberia via Australasia )...?

Al, on the other hand, has already been riding round the world for a heroic three and a half years, and (understandably) ...