Pastime in the rainy season

Chiho is busy with Umeshigoto for this year. Umeshigoto literally means Ume=plum and Shigoto = work in Japanese and it is a traditional seasonal event for Japanese people to make plum wine, plum juice or pickled plum in rainy season. Rainy season in Japanese is Tsuyu and it is 梅雨 in Kanji character. And 梅 …

Cycling in Beautiful Fukushima

Last year I went to Setouchi area for cycling with my Brompton, and this year my bike mate, Haruna with whom I had traveled last year suggests me to go to Aizu area in Fukushima. I have been to Aizu many times, mainly for skiing but it is first time for me to go for …

Setouchi Great Journey – Side trip from Shimanami Kaido cycling road – Day 3

We left the hostel on the next morning, after cycling in the historical heritage district in Mitarai. It used to be a very prosperous port in Edo period as there were many important shipping routes and channels in Setouchi and sometime seamen needed to wait for the good condition of the wind and tidal current. …

Setouchi Great Journey – Side trip from Shimanami Kaido cycling road DAY 2

We had a reservation of a kayak tour in the afternoon, we left our hotel very early and head back to the Koyo port. There were a few hills along the north coast of Etajima but we could make ourselves to be in time to get the ferry to Kure. Kure is the 3rd. big …

Setouchi Great Journey – Side trip from Shimanami Kaido cycling road DAY 1

This is my forth trip to Shimanami Kaido (please see this article for the previous trip.) as well as for my cycling buddy, Haruna, thus both Haruna and I wanted to try something new. Under searching on the internet, we found that there are some more cycling courses in Setouchi (Seto Inland Sea) area. Especially …

Special ride in Nagano

We, staffs of Tokyo Great Cycling Tour traveled to Karuizawa, Nagano during Golden Week holiday in this year as has happened in the past. This year, we have decided to head to Kirizumi Onsen which is located in the deep mountain in Gunma prefecture.  The first 2 hours were rather easy ride with lots of …

Travel deep into the rural Japan – Akita

Tourism Agency announced yesterday that the total number of visitors to Japan increased by 21.8% from the previous year. More than 24 million tourists visited Japan last year but the same number in 2006 was just about 7 million, so this is really a big jump! However, still tourists are visiting only specific areas such …

Tsuyu …. Rainy season is not fun at all but…

  As you may already know, it is the middle of  rainy season in Japan. This year it has been raining a lot, Tokyo has the most rain in the last 1/4 century… Oh, just too much… we look outside of the window with the bitterness when we need to cancel the tour. ~~~~~~ Rainy …

Matsuri – Summer festival – season has come

We have many festivals and events all year round, but especially summer is a season when a lot of Matsuri (festival) are held in Japan. The world “Matsuri” literally means “enshrine” and so the origin of Matsuri comes from the ritual to pray and thank God for the abundant crops. Also it is very humid …

Free Wifi spots in Tokyo – Update and wifi friendly hotel

There are more and more places starting to offer a free Wifi service these days compared to the time when we posted our blog last time about free Wifi spots in Tokyo. [Convenience Store] Seven Eleven : Seven Spot Family Mart : Famima_Wi-fi [Cafe] Starbuck : at_Starbuck_Wi2 Denny’s : Seven Spot (Same as Seven Eleven) …