mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> CL <flothru@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> 
> [Lottsa descriptions of places to go deleted]
> 
> Almost forgot; Izu penninsula is also a great trip. Be warned; if you
> don't like wasabi, bring your own food. EVERYthing has wasabi in it.

Wasabi is good for you.  The other thing about Izu-hanto is that the 
specialty in all of the ryokan is inoshishi and all of the different 
fish that come from either of the bays.  It's all cheap and good.

I'm always nervous about staying on the Suruga-wan side for any length 
of time, though.  If you look at an underwater map of the area, you'll 
see that Sagami-wan is a big flat pan while Suruga-wan is a deep V-shape 
that points directly back at Fuji-san.  Every time Fuji gets ready to 
erupt, there are offshore earthquakes that produce high tides that wet 
the rocks at Atami but Shimizu, Numazu, Fujinomiya and other places 
close by get hit by a 1.5 km high wall of water traveling at supersonic 
speeds that goes as high as the Sixth Station on Fuji-san ... and vanish 
from the face of the earth along with their entire populations.  The 
cycle is every 300~400 years and the last one was in the 1770s.  At that 
time they believe that about 750,000~1,250,000 people (out of a total 
population of about 35 million) vanished without a trace in one day.

Which reminds me that another place I recommend gaijin to travel to is 
Hiraizumi in Iwate-ken.  It was the largest city in the world in the 
12th Century with a population of over one million people, and now 
consists of 2~3 buildings in the middle of a field.  And, it is just 
down the road from the grave of Jesus Christ and His Brother.

> Also reminds me; an awful lot of the seas around omote-nihon have 
> bioluminescent bacteria. Not as prevalent as the Yucatan penninsula,
> but from Izu to western Shikoku (at least) their're there every 
> summer.

If you take the car ferry from Tokyo or Kawasaki to Osaka, Shimonoseki, 
or Oita ... or down to the Ogasawaras, you can camp out on the deck free 
and watch the ship's wake turn luminescent blue behind you for hours 
every night and the sky does the Outa' Sight Light Show.  Unlike some of 
the car ferries I have taken in other countries, the crews of Japanese 
ferries take exception to you rolling a big spliff of Thai purple and 
sharing it around while you all watch the colors in the ocean and the sky.

>> With a bike or little bore motorcycle (under 125cc), island hopping on 
>> the ferries through the Seto-naikai or down Izu-shoto is also a lot of 
>> fun for just a couple of thousand yen a day if you camp out along the 
> 
> Last time I was on a motorcycle in Japan, I got caught in the typhoon.

That's pretty difficult to do, don't you think?  I have been caught on 
my motorcycle in hailstorms and tornadoes in places like Oklahoma, 
Kansas, and even western China with about 10 minutes warning from bright 
sunshine to black clouds.  Typhoons, on the other hand, don't exactly 
spring up out of the ocean and storm all over you without warning.  It's 
more like the attack of the killer snails and you have like three day's 
advance warning on a fast one.  Most people can at least find a big 
garage to hide in in three days ...

> More fun than I bargained for.
> 
>> way or talk your way into a minshuku with just one spare bed left for 
>> the night.  Tohoku can be done the same way, but takes a lot more 
>> planning as there is 'way more Nowhere there than in the rest of Honshu. 
>>   I wouldn't ride anything less than a nana-han down through Mie, 
>> Wakayama, and Okayama nor Hokkaido.  Both places have too many asshole 
>> big truck drivers and half-blind jiji-babas.
> 
> Better hope Mike Cash doesn't hear you say that.

I somehow think that Mike Cash knows that he's not one of those kinds of 
truck driver.  And he's not a half-blind jiji ... yet, at least.

-- 
CL