I ate everything I saw including the local delicacy-the skin that forms when you boil bean curds. It tastes like tofu (so it tastes like nothing) and I ate it a few different ways. In thin slices dipped in wasabi and soy, rolled and plopped into a bowl of soba noodles, and wrapped around sweet rice and deep fried. All good.
With 150kms left to tokyo, rainy days, and navigating traffic, I planned to break it up into 2 days. Since there weren't any hotels less than $200 per night in between, once again I found myself wild camping, this time in the very strange park of Koba.
The park looked like an old military base and most of it was head high bamboo and foliage. Now it was perhaps a nature refuge for enthusiastic super boars.
It got later and later and I started wondering where I was going to pitch my tent. Since the park surrounded a river there were people fishing in every mowed area. Rusty loud speakers lined what looked like an airstrip and guard towers were spaced along what now was a bike path. There were police cars at the entrances and big signs saying the park closed at 5pm. Not the most comfortable feeling place, but this was my option, and the mosquitoes were coming after me in droves so I made the best of it. I tried to pitch my tent somewhat out of the way, and despite being on pavement, the area I found was at least blocked off to cars.
I woke up with the sunrise and made great time into Tokyo. I sat at a river park watching kids play baseball just reveling in the fact that I had ridden my bike from sapporo to tokyo.
a short distance to my hotel took me over 2 hours to navigate. I was unused to the amount of people that are just walking around everywhere. Some food and a beer gave me the sustenance to brave the hoards, track down a bike box and book a bus ticket to the airport for the 19th. Long, tiring, but successful day.
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