Thursday 17 October
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Our first day of cycling in Japan! It’s been a while between trips and the last time we cycled Japan was back in 2020 a few weeks before Covid hit.
We start cycling at 9am and decide to take the coastal route towards Karatsu. It adds about 10km to the journey but means we avoid the congestion in the big city of Itoshima.
It takes a good hour or so to finally get out of the traffic of Fukuoka and get to the coastal road.
We stop by a Yamazaki convenience store and chat to the owner who is a YouTuber.
He keeps giving us QR codes for his videos and even plays one on the TV for us while in his shop.
We keep the pile of QR codes to watch later. Here they are below if you want to check them out.
Most of the cafes along the coastal road are closed as it’s the off season but we eventually find one that’s open called Hona Cafe.
We haven’t had breakfast and decide to carb load with some fries and drinks.
The chiffon ricotta pancakes looked good but they are a 20 minute wait and hunger waits for nobody.
Not far down the road are the Futimigaura Couple Stones, which is a rock formation in the sea just off the coast. There is an archway installed so people can take photos but we notice this creates a massive line-up, and if anyone likes a good line-up it’s the Japanese.
We continue cycling along the coastal route and stick mostly to the road, occasionally heading onto the footpath when the traffic gets busy.
The scenery changes constantly between highways, coastal roads, forest, mountains and rural farmland. Japan is so easy to cycle and there seems to be blue arrows marked for cyclists most of the way.
We finish the 75km by 2:30pm, without any rain thank goodness! We check into our guesthouse for the night, Akariya Home & Hostel, and get shown around by our host.
There is a giant Maizuru shopping mall around the corner so we stop by to pick up some supplies and return with a bagful of goodies.
After settling in and getting a bit of rest we decide to head out and explore the town. Unfortunately everything seems closed in the evenings aside from a few smaller restaurants.
We pick up some dessert before heading back to our accommodation and stay in for dinner.
We have a nice chat to some of the other travellers before preparing for tomorrow’s ride to Imari.
Next post: Day 6 | Karatsu to Imari
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