I haven’t ridden a century since I moved to Japan but with a bit of spare time on my hands before baby number two is due, I decided I was going to get back into decent enough shape that I could pull one off.  I’ve been using mornings and weekends to get back into riding longer distances, and slowly building up toward the goal of 160 km by riding further and further up the Tama river every weekend.

Five minutes looking at Google maps yesterday morning at 6 am convinced me that Lake Okutama was exactly the necessary 80 km away, so without a minute to lose I got dressed, headed out the door and rode north up the Tama river.

The ride along the river is gorgeous, one of the few places in Tokyo you can ride uninterrupted through a green belt that runs from the ocean at Haneda airport all the way into the mountains in the northwest corner of Tokyo.  The bike path ends at the south Hamura dam, but by then it’s pretty inaka, so you can continue by road from there without much worry about traffic.  At the north Hamura dam, I crossed over to the west side of the river, to pick up Route 411 through the towns of Oume, Sawai, and Mitake before leaving the city completely and starting the climb up into the mountains.

The trip on from Mitake is a long, slow ascent along a narrow, winding road through small towns and villages while criss-crossing the river.  Particularly this time of year with the leaves changing colour, the trip is visually spectactular, with the mountainsides lit up bright orange and red.  Okutama is the last major town before the final hill-climb up to the lake.  At its westernmost edge is the world-famous Tokyo Conbini Shuten — the final convenience store of Tokyo.  Complete with latitude and longitude figures on its sign out front, it is a site of pilgrimage for cyclists headed up to the lake and the border of Tokyo and Yamanashi prefectures.  Too bad it’s a Daily Yamazaki and not a Famima, but either way it’s got Pocari Sweat!

From the town of Okutama to the lake is a 13 km hill climb up through tunnel after tunnel to the dam at the edge of the lake.  My the one route change I’ll make the next time I do this is to go around the tunnels instead of through them.  I can’t possibly imagine why someone felt the need to put (very expensive) tunnels in on this road given that almost every single one can be bypassed on the road.  I can only assume that this has something to do with the government trying to buy the powerful rural vote with thousands of unnecessary, environment-destroying construction projects per year.

The good news is that once you hit the top, the views are spectacular, the roads are flat, and you’re back in jidohanbaiki-land where Pocari Sweat and Aquarius are available in abundance!  I’d accidentally left my cycle computer off for a 3km stretch out of Okutama, so I cycled 3 km down the road to make up for it and be able to claim a recorded 160 km.  I ran into a German cyclist named Ludwig who’d also ridden in from Tokyo; he had a drool-worthy Canyan carbon-fibre bike, and interestingly, it turns out he’s part of the Positivo Espresso cycling group whose blog I’d been reading for a couple months.

Ludvig continued on up towards Yamanashi-ken with the plan of packing up his bike and taking the train back when he got as far as he wanted to go.  Good plan, and something I’ll give a try next time.  I turned my bike around for the long trip back home.  The best part of that trip was the 30 minute descent back down out of the hills at car speed, before hitting Mitake, and heading back out to the flat cycle path along the Tamagawa.

All in all, a pretty awesome day of cycling and a trip I’d definitely do again.  While the trip included a nice hill-climb, it wasn’t severe, and didn’t last more than 15 km.  I’ve included the GPS map below — there are a couple errors where I’d accidentally switched it off for 3 km near Okutama, and for about 5 km near Hamura on the way back.

It hung around for close to two hours while commuters, shoppers, news crews and a posse of net-wielding cops showed up, before finally deciding to make a break for it.  Police never did catch the cheeky monkey, and its current whereabouts are unknown.

Apparently this is the third incident of a monkey getting into a train station in Tokyo in the last few weeks.

But it turns out this is not the case: an article in Metropolis unveils the answer to The Big Tokyo Trash Mystery.

So it was with some trepidation that I went to see Dr. Nakasawa yesterday afternoon at 3 o’clock. I stepped into the office, swapped my shoes for slippers, filled out some forms, and took a seat in the waiting room, attempting to pass the time by reading ads in Japanese for Sonicare toothbrushes.

Eventually, I heard the receptionist call out “Bracken-san!” The door swung open, and I was escorted to a chair and told to have a seat and wait for a few moments with nothing to do except stare at the assortment of torture instruments laid out on the table in front of me.

Now, in Canada, this is the point where the hygenist comes in, cleans your teeth, and tells you what a poor job you’ve done of brushing your teeth over the last six months, asks you whether you’ve actually bothered to floss once since the last time you came, then takes off and the dentist comes in and pokes around. In Japan, it goes only slightly differently. The dentist comes straight in, cleans your teeth, tells you what a poor job you’ve done of brushing your teeth, and asks you whether you’ve actually bothered to floss once since you last came in, then starts poking around. Normally, that is.

Chotto akete kudasai. I opened my mouth. Dr. Nakasawa looked around for a moment, poking at things with his tools, then paused.

Kono chiryou wa Nihon de moraimashita?

“No, actually. I got all my fillings in Canada.”

Another pause. Aah, Canada-jin desu ka? Furansu-go hanashimasu ka?

“I speak both; school was in French until I graduated, then university was in English; but I grew up in English Canada.”

Daigakusei no jidai, Eigo o benyou shimashita kedo, mou hotondo wasurete-shimaimashita.

“That’s ok, I’ll try my best in Japanese.”

Dr. Nakasawa takes another glance in my mouth, does a bit more poking and says to the hygenist “Number 14 looks like an A. 18 looks like a B. 31… is A-ish.” Dr. Nakasawa sits back in his chair. Another pause.

“These fillings… the grey ones,” he says, “how long ago did you get these?”

“I don’t know, maybe when I was in middle-school. A long time ago. I haven’t had a filling in years.”

“Yes, they’re really old. This one here looks like it’s chipped away on the edge and the tooth underneath has a little bit of discoloration that may well be a cavity. We don’t really do this style of filling in Japan anymore, but what I’d suggest — it’s up to you — is that we remove these, check for cavities underneath, do any cleanup you need, then replace them with modern fillings.”

“Interestingly, the last dentist I talked to recommended replacing a bunch as well, so sure… sounds good. Let’s do this thing.”

“Ok, but this one in particular, I’m really worried about so we should start with this.”

“Sounds good.”

“Would you like to book a time next week, or if you have time, I could do it today?”

“I’ve got no plans for the rest of the day, let’s just get it over with.”

“Alright. Masui wa dou? Hitsuyou desu ka?”

Now here, I want to remind you that although I can get by in day-to-day life and carry on a conversation in Japanese, one of the unequivocal facts of gaijin life is that there are some words you simply don’t know, and to keep the flow of conversation going, you skip it and pick up the general idea from context. So when someone says to you “What about masui? Do you need it?” in a tone that suggests that really, you don’t, your instinct tends to be to say “no, no.”

One of the wonderful things about living in another country is that occasionally you get to experience something that under no circumstances would you ever get to experience in your native country. These experiences often upend long-held, fundamental beliefs you’d never even think to question. Occasionally though, these experiences simply reinforce those beliefs.

I am going to tell you right now, getting your tooth drilled with no anaesthetic hurts about as much as you’d imagined.

What I had just said, and what was about to transpire became crystal clear when Dr. Nakasawa picked up the drill, looked me in the eyes and said “Open wide, and put your hand up if you can’t handle the pain.” I swear I could have detected just a hint of a smile when he said that. But I didn’t have long to think about it because it was it was at this point that I began focussing my entire being on keeping my hand down.

I walked out of the office that day with a shiny new hole in my tooth and a temporary filling while they create the permanent one. And I managed to do it without raising my hand, but I swear I almost ripped that armrest off the chair.

In Japan, getting engaged isn’t strictly just proposing. You’re really not truly engaged until you’ve ‘officially’ proposed, which means not just deciding to get married, but getting together with the finacées parents and proposing to them. A long time ago, one might typically say O-jou-san o boku ni kudasai. “Please give me your [honourable] daughter.” I decided I’d pass on that line…

In any case, after a few trips back and forth to Kyoto, we settled on a Japanese ceremony just before noon, followed by a party with friends and family at a restaurant. The nijikai party in Tokyo will be western-style, but we haven’t even begun to think about when or where yet.

For those questioning the sanity of a November wedding, keep in mind that in Japan, this is kōyō season — when all the leaves turn red and Japan is at its most beautiful. As Fall and Spring are the two most beautiful seasons in Japan, we were lucky to reserve when we did, back in April. Even then, some restaurants we talked to were already booked solid until mid-December.

In any case, with the shrine and restaurant out of the way, all we have left to figure out is wedding rings, kimonos, invitations, flowers, food, gifts, speeches, photos, …