11/11/2012
Final skateventure Japan blog
Hakatajima to Hiroshima
Salt? I'm the king of salt.
Hakatajima island is world famous for its salt. But I'll tell you what, after 12 hours of skating, I was world famous for salt. I was covered in the stuff head to toe.
I took a cool photo on my iPad that shows the salt lines across my arms and t-shirt. I'd get like that everyday, I was continually pushing my body to the limit. At the end of each day I would be so dehydrated that I craved all salty foods. Sometimes I would have to go into restaurants and eat salt straight from the shaker. Earlier on in the trip I would drink Horley's replace sports drink, but I could only carry so much in my bag.
I found rebeccas and yasu (couch surfers) apartment pretty easily. I didn't want to knock on the door as I had enough salt on me to season all the French fries at the local restaurant for the next fortnight.
I manned up and knocked on the door. Yasu opened the door and told me I had the wrong house, he was such a funny guy. After I showered, we made takoyake which is little pancake balls with different fillings. The main filling is octopus, ginger and spring onion, but after a few rounds of normal takoyake we started to get creative and play surprise takoyake. Some of the takoyake balls were filled with wasabi or m and ms , mustard or wasabi. It was all good as I love spicy food, but the wasabi hit Rebecca really bad. You bite into a tako, if you get a wasabi one, the heat just explodes into your mouth and you get the burning in your nose really bad. The m and m ones were a good surprise. You would bite into the pancake ball and gooey chocolate would go everywhere.
Yasu was a boat builder, hakatajima also had a few large boat factories, I skated past them the next day, they build the huge cargo container ships that travel all over the world.
I thanked my hosts and left early, I was excited to see more of these beautiful islands that linked shikoku to Hiroshima. There were five islands linked together by spectacular white suspension bridges. The islands all had special cycle roads and many different attractions, it was perfect to skate.
The roads were all quite new. The uphill didn't really matter, where I was skating was so serene and mystic that the pain bounced off me. It was no good to me, it didn't matter that my legs were a mess after a month of kicking the road, my toes we now hardened with blisters after constant stress, my back was no longer bleeding from the bag rub, and my 10kg pack seemed lighter as the trip wore on.
After a few hours of skating I took a break on one of the islands. I kept stumbling past these picture perfect beaches with absolutely nobody there. I had to check one out while I was here, it would be rude not too. The water was really refreshing, still warm considering how that the dry season was now ending.
I could skate over this terrain all day long, I pretty much was.
I stopped for lunch at a local ramen joint. The owners loved that I had chosen their restaurant, it was an honor for them. I had just walked into a random shop hoping it had food, I didn't even know it was a restaurant. So I was stoked myself.
The ramen was a soy sauce style with fried rice on the side. I'm going to miss japanese food so bad. They have everything, delicious rice, many different fried noodles, noodle soup, sashimi, cooked fish, squid, octopus, prawns, sushi, don buri, and egg dishes like okonomiyaki or tonpetsuyaki. The beef is so tender, in nz we always think that we have the best beef, but japanese beef melts in your mouth, kobe beef is a whole new level. The effort that goes into Japanese food is similar to Thai. It not only looks and smells amazing, but it looks like artwork. Everything is in a dish for a reason, the color , the shape, the texture, the contrast. Take me back to Japan any day.
I looked back over the spectacular scenery behind me as I crossed the last bridge onto the mainland. I was in a very special place, both physically and mentally. Once on the mainland I was on the home straight.
The lavender and peach sunset across hiroshima city was a warming sight to see as I skated into Hiroshima to finish my 2000km skateboard journey across the land of the rising sun. I wanted to cry, I wanted to hi five somebody, I wanted to celebrate. But everybody looked on as I skated the final kilometer of my journey into town, no big deal, it was like this kinda thing happened all the time.
I smiled and skated on, that's how life is in Japan and I love it, thank you for the memories.
