2023 jan 30 TJ Bike from Tokyo, Koji's, Richards, Vipassana center in Kyoto

10:13AM Jan 30, 2023

Speakers:

Rob Nugen

Keywords:

bike

bicycle

trip

tj

ride

koji

tokyo

highway

day

wrote

yen

point

farm

hills

raining

stay

road

bought

centimeters

map

Today is Monday, January 30 2023. And I'm going to sing a little rap singers song new thing that I wrote. This is in quotes while riding my bicycle TJ bike from Tokyo to Kyoto and back to Tokyo. When a little something according to my memory went a little something like this.

TJ Bike is the bike I like; we don't cause trouble when we hike. TJ bike, TJ bike, TJ bike, TJ bike. TJ bike is the bike I like; we don't cause trouble when we hike. TJ bike TJ by TJ bike, TJ Bike. See a river. we go through it. We see a mountain go do it, see a highway we go to it and just use it. TJ Bike TJ Bike. And so that was basically it on repeat in my brain.

For hours and kilometers and miles of this ride. I made up this little rap for my bicycle it was like my my version of Dory singing Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming and Finding Nemo movie so yeah. In approximately 2006 per my memory. After I finished my second voyage around the world with peace boat. I was out of money. I had 20,000 yen to my name. And I had a plan to go to Kyoto in order to do the 10 day Vipassana sit that was scheduled for like two weeks later or something. And I was like, Alright, I need to be there in two weeks. I've got 20,000 yen. So if I if I go there now I have to run out of money on the pay for the train. not have enough money to stay anywhere. Okay, if I so I was like, you know, just stuck for how to deal with this situation. And then I was like, I have an idea. I'll ride my bicycle to Kyoto, and sleep, you know, on the high along the highway on side of the road on the way there. And I had just been on peace boat as I said. So a couple of people during the voyage were like yeah, come on. Over, you know, whenever you like. And so during the this very poorly planned trip. I did stay with a couple of friends along the way. Koji is a man who has I may still be alive. I don't know. This was what 12 years ago. More than 12 He and his wife had like a woofing farm willing workers on organic farms. Set up down in me a spelled mi E and he was like yeah, come on over so i did i i got I'm skipping so much the story but I here's the important parts. Forget about all the bicycle stuff. I had this plan to ride my bicycle. And this is going to be the point of this chapter. I had this plan to ride my bicycle to Kyoto. And there was nothing stopping me so to speak. I didn't have a job. I had just gotten I just finished the peace boat voyage for like 100 day voyage back in Tokyo and had this plan and I was like kind of working out in my mind. You know what, you know how I could possibly do this bike trip. And I discovered I was like, essentially looking for permission to go. And it's it comes back to the like this thing of like wanting to be good. I think that if if someone says that, oh yeah, it's okay for you to do it. Then or I want you to do you know something? Okay, perfect. I'll do it. If you say I should do it, then I'll do it. But in this case, I didn't have that. And it would, it would have taken too long to like, set up some fake. Like, it was a situation of like, okay, guys, it's going to be I'm going to leave on this day. On Thursday. Come on out and wish me well. You know, not that that would be fake but that would take two weeks of Tokyo time because everyone's busy and all of that and to schedule something in like that. And the entire trip, I only had two weeks. So that was that didn't even cross my mind that I could like make an official thing and get some buy in from people who would care which I did do it for my walk but not for this bicycle trip. And I because it was so curious. I was like, Huh, I'm waiting for permission and it's like, dot dot dot, from whom? Who is it should be free from him. Yeah, from her from whom? From whom? Who was going to give me permission. When I was literally free. I just could I could just go and I was like, Huh. And so I just went very unceremoniously. I packed I had, I had already bought the bicycle T I had already bought TJ bike. I had purchased it with like saddlebag racks on the front and back, plus the saddle bags. And I just worked out a way to like, put my back. What was it I had a couple bags in the back. Basically it was quite overloaded with all the junk I had. But I was like, huh, I can just go and I just went this at this time I was not living anywhere really where was my bicycle at that time. But I keep thinking that I was in the place when Bo zaru which is the name of a place down near Socrata Shane mochi name of a building. I was staying with Jesse. But the main part of this the anyway, I'll get to that in a second. So I saw I just left I was like, okay, I can just go and I jumped on my bike. I know I do know that. 90% Sure. I had ridden my bike or had my bicycle at the Peace boat office up in Takadanobaba. And I remember one of the other teachers named Carl was like he was flabbergasted Are you serious? You've really fucking just gonna go without planning and anything. I was like, Yeah, I might as well you know. And I had, as I said, 20,000 yen to my to my name and I had no map. So I needed to go to a book shop and I bought a map that was like the motorcycle touring guide of Japan. And as I speak this I'm turning around in my seat to grab this book. Mapple three and it has a ratio. One to 140,000 is the size on this thing and it shows a motorcycle on the front. publish date and obviously on the binding or anything but it was 1600 yen, apparently. And I I remember spending 4000 yen.

On the books maybe I bought two because I remember also that it didn't cover the entire area I wanted to ride but yeah, so this map book is kind of has some water damage on it a little bit pages a little bit bent. Have a bunch of little tabs on the side and dirty edge because you know I was you know, I was basically camping. And I wrote a bunch of notes in the little little Little Book Notes. So this one says I didn't write the year that's amazing says like 10:25am May 28 Breakfast granola Megamart and there's an arrow. This is written in the water and of the map and there's an arrow pointing up to this little dot and I've got these little dots that are alone the road pointed to by arrows and then on the map here, this is like four centimeters away. 10:25am four centimeters away. Unbelievable. deal that's 28th of May 27 of May Ah there it is a year 2006 Perfect. So okay, this is going the other direction. Anyway, the few centimeters away as a different night and then here's a.by a river. This is on page two of this map. And there's a.by The river it says May 27 9:11pm Sleep 2006 And before that was 7:31pm so to an hour and what 40 minutes before I was 1234 centimeters away on the map. As a dot that says, Say 7:31pm looks like just has it hold G or an O six. I don't know what that means. And yeah, here's another one says seven April 2006. So maybe Yeah, going the other direction or something. Anyway, it's like little Discovery Zone of notes in this map that I've put together. And to the point, I was looking for permission. When I've realized suddenly, I was blocking myself it was up to me to give myself permission and just go and just do it. So I jumped on the bike and headed out and this is perfectly in line with the answer I got from Joe mcmoneagle This is way back in the night. 1995 or six I think

yeah, so I had asked him I was like, Hey Joe, I want to I want to travel around the new moon and just like do all this traveling as I how do I how do I start? And his answer was perfect and beautiful. The the perfect kind of guidance that I needed. He said just start planning. He didn't say it all dramatically like that. He's like, well just just start planning. And I was like, just start planning. That's amazing. You know, and he didn't have to get tied up in any details and he was empowering me to take care of myself and to to do this thing and the whole purpose of this chapter is to empower you to do what you need to do. Just start planning meal, put the thing together, ask for help as needed. Help will arrive and just do it. So yeah, that's the first bit of the chapter for two TJ Bike Adventure. Let me click my notes again real quick here. Ignore message Ah, okay, the notes I've written. I haven't even gotten that far in the trip. So let me I'll just keep out just keep it rolling didn't matter.

I can imagine this will be a paragraph break here. In in my freedom, my my free time availability. I had nowhere to go or be or do or whatever. This was like basically headed toward Cody's farm apparently had an address. I had a who, how would this have worked? I guess I had a laptop laptop computer because I've always been a computer type type person. And he must have just been using free Wi Fi from McDonald's or what have you. And I could check email that way and stuff and I guess there must be yeah cuz I have photos and stuff from the trip. It's probably instead of blabbing all this stuff from memory to look up those stories but

writing to down into me a can from from Tokyo took me I think it was like eight days and just like basically alone the entire time. With just your superficial interactions at supermarkets to get granola or rarely one time I went to McDonald's That's how desperate I was for food. And I remember there was a like a some to one or two teenage teenagers had. Oh hey, we saw you writing before. An hour ago. And now you're here and they asked about my trip and bought me a hamburger or something. It's just really a generous kind of interaction in my mind and at that time, though, I was craving connection. And, you know, oh, thank you. Oh my god, you know, and thinking that we're going to be friends and hogs and there's like, Okay, here's hamburger Bye. Good luck with your trip. But it was like the human connection I had received up to that point during the trip. And is it it was really nice. And how many years later that I'm still remembering it. Can we do the math this time? Four plus two 610 So 16 years ago 17 Because we're in 2003. And yeah, so they, it first it was all fine with just basically flat flat flat and then got into a few hills and it was like a slog. Going up and down some hills and I got there was some something something roadway that I couldn't go through and I had to go around the mountain I thought turns out it probably could have gone through the tunnel but I went a long way around. But I finally I got to Cochise house and it it had been like hour so along the way there. I just slept in parks basically to say oh, here's a good Park. Crash out next to it not crash but like sleep next to a tree from 9am to five uh Sorry 9pm to four or 5am and then be like book jump on my bike. Zoom, zoom, zoom, keep it rollin. This is a I say bike. I mean bicycle. TJ bike was a bicycle. steel frame. Louis Garneau brand. heavy as hell. Plus all the the the bags and and I don't wanna say shit. This is not for kids. Anyway, all the bags and shit that I had on the bike. It was it was overloaded and heavy. And yeah, but just stayed in parks and no one. No one bugged me. It was really great. The one thing that I don't recommend about this kind of trip that I was riding along the roads listen to motorcycle touring map, which were roads and highways, not my like tollways but sometimes they didn't have sidewalks or even really curbs on or what's the pads on the side? And it was it was dangerous with big ass trucks going in June, June back and forth pass me. But yeah, it was it was. It was cool. One day on the way there. I had it's, I don't know I didn't know the details but it started raining. And I went under a bridge. That was like, I have this sense that was like we had been going up a hill and it was raining is like Ah shit, I need to stop but there was nowhere to really stop. But we had the road was like going up this hill but there was like valleys and stuff underneath the road. And so I had found a way to get down under the road and there was a flat big flat concrete section that was holding the the pilings of the bridge. And I just had a view out over this valley but the road itself the highway itself above me was the roof, no walls. It was temperature was fine. But it was just raining like you know, solid rain for a full day. So I had I had a day of rest at this location. With without food. Well, I must say without food. I had food but without any other resources. I just always like sat there and slept or read or wrote for a day have no real memory of that. Those details and probably a lot of sleeping. And then the next day it had stopped raining so I jumped back on the bike kept on rolling because I was under the highway literally zero people except me knew I was there. And it just the road traffic just had some guy on the underneath the highway. And yeah, it's just a curious thing. So I got to Cochise house after like seven eight days. And they already had another worker there. Woman from Australia I want to say and it was the first her speaking to me in English was the first time I had her English in many days and it was like wow, English, you know, kind of thing and I was like, Oh my God, you know just so grateful again for the connection. And you're wondering if we would become best friends and all that but again is just passing workers in the in the farm and she was actually on her way out that day. And but I remember as well we were talking a bit and she was talking about and that she used to grow up grow up on a farm that they made yogurt and maybe she's from New Zealand anyway. I remember being so entertained by like with my joke that I made I was like you can make yogurt I thought it just magically appeared in the store. But I I just have the sense that she didn't get it cuz she's like, Yeah You're a big dummy. You make yogurt. Yeah, bacteria available. I know how it's done, but at that point, it was anyways a funny joke. What my brother and I call a location joke. You had to be there. And I remember like taking a shower at Cody's places the first shower I had had in seven or eight days after riding my proverbial butt off for all that one of those days. My the the thickness of dead skin on my skin was amazing. And it was just like my I would like scratch my arm with my fingernails and just had this like, glob of gray under each fingernail all these dead skin cells. It was a whole gross and like my I don't even want to say how like I don't have one I have a guest two millimeters thick it seemed. I have no idea if that's accurate or not. But it was just like holy crap. It was just so much and really interesting to have that experience of taking a shower after seven or eight days of writing. And yeah, but then I was a if they showers and baths and in traditional homes like that in Japan are great who just have have a shower have a big big bathtub kind of thing. Although I remember it wasn't that big, but it's just we have the bath space just to relax and chill. So that was nice.

Yeah, so I If this message ever gets back to koji and his wife somehow i I want to acknowledge now i i stayed too long while I was there because they there was very welcoming and, and was that I was uh, you know, working on the farm. But wasn't that much work to do? I don't think they really needed me. And after a while his wife was like, Yeah, so when are you leaving it? Like oh, I guess I'm leaving pretty soon. And yet I remember staying one more day because she had asked in the afternoon. I didn't want to start late in the afternoon. And plus, it was much nicer to sleep in their, you know, fluffy farm bed at their farm instead of on the road. But I left early the next morning and headed down to Kobe, where my friend Richard lived. Now, Richard, was he I know kiwi. Sorry. I know Richard a much more than I know. Koji or the groin that Richard is definitely a kiwi from New Zealand. He had been in Japan for quite a few years. quite fluent in Japanese like a million times more than I am even even now. And he was working in like the some government office and also on the side doing work as a like a fake marriage, where they call it like, basically like officiating the marriage. But it doesn't take much training. Just have to memorize all this very fancy, fancy Japanese stuff. You can tell I've never done it. And so I he's like, Yeah, meet me at this park or whatever. And so I I arrived there and and he took me out to dinner at whatever, you know, his favorite restaurant or something, and then went to his house for an evening the next day. I had a free day. Maybe I was there a couple of days. Had a free day or two in Kobe and went to the the the I forgot to like the coast but there's a park on the on the bay there. People flying kites and all this stuff. And he unfixing on the Saturday after he had finished his wedding to fishy ation, officiating stuff. We met again. And he's like, You know what? You need this money more than I do. And he handed me 20,000 yen. And I was like, Holy shit, you just double that my budget for this entire trip. And again, it was such a gift from you know from him that was in a way it was very simple and easy. And to me had a huge profound impact. I was like, Wow, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, you know, really, really beautiful blessing. And it was so so so so great. And with that money, if I recall correctly, I immediately went to get the bike, you know, TJ bike, tweaked and tweaked that's the right word, but like one of the pedals was had gotten loose. So I got new pedals and probably, you know, that Titan new brakes or something and then you know, whatever, just get some maintenance done on the bike. So that was good. And then the days had gotten a lot had gone through and I had the next day I had to be up in Kyoto for the 10 day Vipassana thing. And I basically went straight north from Kobe, to the location and I up and down some hills and finally Okay, now we're finally here and i i I remember the hills were like, like, big, you know, lazy turns and lazy hills. and down hills and just a nice little hill country. But I got to the location turn left and go into their the property. I don't know if they own it or renting it or whatever. But I basically I arrived. And I recognize that I was looking for a grand welcome as i Wow, you rode all the way here from Tokyo. And it's a passenger train and so I mean, the whole point is to just, you know, to drop all of that. And so there there was no ceremony or grand arrival and this kind of gave them my my buy bags and my computer and we didn't have phones at that point had a phone but not like an iPhone. And there's handed everything over and they're like, Alright, there's your room. Go take a shower to go to your room. Kind of thing. And yeah, it was. It was a good experience. So now I'll pause this recording. It's been 32 minutes. That's that's quite a bit. And thanks for listening. If you ever do, again, this is January 30 2023. It's now 7:46pm Japan time, and I'll talk to you guys later. Bye