Here's Jody having breakfast at our hotel in Hakodate, the Toyoko Inn. Jody and I often joked about the Japanese breakfast, which basically consists of rice (balls) and miso soup, day after day after day after day after day.
That's me, seeking to confirm that we were in the right place to catch our ferry to Aomori. Jody took this picture at 7:21 a.m., a mere 19 minutes before our ferry was scheduled to depart! When we left our hotel, we knew roughly which way to go to the port, but the 8 kilometers seemed more like 8 miles, since we ended up taking a rather roundabout route to get there. As you can imagine, I got more and more nervous as the minutes ticked by.
That probably explains the big smile on my face when I had our tickets in hand five minutes later (even though that big monster behind me was about to chomp down on me!).
Jody boarding the big monster.
As you can see, there were very few people with us on the ferry. (Nevertheless, the fact that I booked our tickets online got us a 10% discount.)
If you tell Jody to strike a pose, this is his classic choice.
About two and a half hours into the ride, we finally reached the western tip of Honshu, the main Japanese island. We still had a ways to go before reaching the port in Aomori, and we still had a long day of riding ahead of us (longer than we expected, actually), but we were all smiles on the ferry. We had slayed Hokkaido in a mere three days and were making the most of our time out of the saddle.
Finally, at 11:20 a.m., roughly four hours after leaving Hakodate, we docked in Aomori. You can just barely see some peaks off to the right, but, for the most part, the roads that day were flat.
The night before, as we approached Hakodate, we rode on some ridiculously unnerving roads, with cars and trucks zooming by non-stop, way above the speed limit. That's why, on our way to Akita, I was happy to direct Jody off of the main road and onto this smaller road.
Our little detour lasted all of about 5 kilometers (3 miles), however, before we connected back to the main road, Route 7. I wasn't real happy about being back on a busy road, but the payoff was twofold (at the very least). For one, we didn't have to worry about getting lost on a bunch of side roads, since the 7 went all the way to our destination. For two, we were able to ride fast, since the main roads are always wider and in better shape than the side roads.
Speaking of riding fast, here's Jody pulling away from me as he catches a ride behind a relatively slow-moving car. Since I was on media duty at that moment (when wasn't I, actually?), with camera in hand, I was not able to catch up immediately. Over the course of the trip, we hitched rides in similar fashion about four or five times, but I think this is the only time I caught the action on film. One time in particular, a truck driver figured out why Jody was tailgating him and, remarkably, purposely drove at a speed that Jody could match, thus pulling Jody along for several kilometers. That time, too, all I could do was watch, since I was a little too late to react.
This picture was actually taken in between the last two. It shows us on the biggest climb of the day, making our way up to 814 ft. Jody had his jersey unzipped because the temperature was about 86 F at the time. I obviously didn't mind the heat as much.
This is one of the last pictures of the day I took, at 5:54 p.m., about two hours before we made it to our day's destination, Akita. As you can see, it gets dark pretty early in Japan. I usually made sure my rear "blinky" light was on by 5:30, whereas Jody, riding directly in front of me, didn't necessarily need his on until later. Side note: During the day, I made sure to put my rear light on whenever we entered a tunnel, even though Jody didn't, since he was the point man. Basically, my job was to make sure that the drivers behind us saw me, because that would protect Jody, too (up to a point, of course).
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