Day 34-37 A Flat Tire Can’t Stop My Appetite in Nagasaki

May 23 • Blog, Kyushu • 1068 Views • 8 Comments

The inevitable moment came in the morning just as I was leaving Kumamoto. A flat. As some of you know, I had never been on a bicycle tour before, and that meant I had never ever fixed a flat tire of a bike. I do carry two spare tubes and some tools, but using them was another issue.

It took me two hours to fix this simple flat by watching several videos of “How to fix a bicycle flat” on my phone. Go ahead and laugh, but there’s always a first time for everything. I sat, turned into a little ball in front of my bike with tools and my phone as a teacher.

What took the longest time was putting the tire back on at the end after changing the tube, which was really hard and didn’t want to go into the rim of the wheel. Arrrghhh! After a sweaty fight against the tire, I eventually won and was off to Shimabara Bay to take a boat.

Because of the morning struggle, I was half a day behind schedule. Isn’t it funny how the wind is always against you when you’re in a hurry and someone is waiting for you? I had to pedal in strong headwind to my relative’s house in Isahaya City in Nagasaki Prefecture, where my great-aunt and uncle were waiting.

Though I was in a hurry, I had to stop at this beautiful Shimabara Castle with sakura trees. It was a breathtaking site and looked like a movie set.

Pretty sites are even better with something yummy. I found a cute bakery along the coast of Shimabara Bay. Cycling in the headwind made me hungry!

I got to my relatives’ home in Isahaya at sunset. My great-aunt and uncle were so worried that I wouldn’t get there until a few hours later, and were amazed that I actually came to visit them on a bicycle. I hadn’t seen them for almost ten years, and who could have guessed, including myself, that I’d be cycling my way to see them. Auntie had made a huge dinner, which included this lobster. I was jumping up and down with my camera and asked why she’d got something so expensive.

Besides the fact that they wanted to welcome me with a nice meal, there was also a serious reason behind this feast. Because of the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster, tourists from abroad have decreased dramatically even in the western part of Japan, where there was absolutely no effect.

These expensive produce that used to go straight to hotels and restaurants are now being sold in the regular consumer market with affordable price tags. My aunt cooked some other fish too, and showed me the price tags. I was surprised, and was also sad to hear the story. As you can see on my cycling tour, all these places in Japan that I’m cycling are safe and fine to visit. I have not felt a single earthquake, even though my cycling tour started a day before that big earthquake.

During my few days of stay at my aunt and uncle’s, I drove them as they guided me around the beautiful sights around Nagasaki Prefecture. One of such sites was Obama City, where onsen (hot spring bath) was famous. We stopped at Japan’s longest foot bath, which was 105 meters long!

Not only did they have the free hot spring foot bath, they also had a big outdoor hot spring steamer, where you could bring your own vegetables and seafood to cook in the hot spring steam for free. I saw onions, sweet potatoes, crabs and shell fish in baskets. People were steaming all kinds of veggies and seafood and having a picnic right there. What a great place and a great idea!

President Obama and me, taking a bath in Obama Onsen.

My uncle requested a drive to Mount Unzen, so I did that too. It is a beautiful volcano, which was active a couple decades ago. You can see in this picture where the lava flow ran all the way to the ocean at the time.

One of Nagasaki’s famous dishes is called Nagasaki Chanpon noodles. These egg noodles in pork based soup are topped with lots of vegetables, pork and seafood.

Auntie bought me a green tea ice cream. One of these is hers, just to let you know.

We also went to Saikai Bridge. The current below is very fast and pretty. It was another beautiful site with sakura blossoms!

A happy dessert time with strawberry wrapped in mochi, called Ichigo Daifuku. It looked like a strawberry was sleeping in a fluffy futon!

Besides the beautiful sites, I was able to visit the cemeteries of my late relatives and ancestors’. My uncle and I cleaned the tomb stones, placed flowers and told them that I was visiting with my bicycle. I bet they were surprised to hear that one.

After a couple days of long drives, I was taken out to a kaiseki ryori (Japanese multi-course meal). As there are quite a few photographs, I made a slide show of it. The beginning and the end photos are my aunt’s breakfast and dinner.

With the sites and meals both so beautiful, everything around me was a feast to my eyes in Nagasaki. My aunt and uncle told me to stay longer, but there was still a long way ahead of me. I promised them that I’d visit again very soon and would take them out to other pretty places.

(If you have not read the blog post about me visiting Nagasaki City right before I started my cycling tour, have a look at that one too. I went to Nagasaki Lantern Festival during the Chinese New Year celebration.)

Nagasaki

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