walkabout-japan

Day 40
Getting a good night's sleep? Not in Japan!
Place: Hashimoto on the river
GPS: N 34 °, 18.879 ' E 135 °, 36.946 '
Etmal: 22 km
Total: 889 km
It's Sunday! At half past six I'm woken up by the bikes having races on the other side of the river, this time without exhausts. Restless and suspicious pensioners are already tiptoeing around my tent with their dogs pooping everywhere, 30 m far away adult men are playing this funny game with zeros, catching a ball and sticks. The sun is shining and I still feel
bad from my yesterday's trip. Actually, the backpack has become pretty light, but my feet are swelled. I don't know how long they will keep up without a break... At muggy 28 degrees below zero, I am dragging myself along a wonderful lonesome riverside, after I've gone shopping in Gojo. This hick town
wins the price of the loudest town in the world. On the federal highway with a width of 5 m, mostly white cars are standing in line again, among them bikes without exhausts as I've already told before, the air is tan, it is calm... I don't care; it's already past! The river way is the contrast-program. Silence, nearly no traffic, a grandma is weeding under blossoming cherry trees and out of her radio a Japanese pop singer tries to do his
best. In this marvellous weather nearly everything comes out,
I see a lot of Mamushis (the most toxic snake of Japan) lying
in the sun close to the road (always look ahead!). On a sandy field marked out with burgees, old men hit coloured balls with hammers having a shaft longer than one metre (maybe they
are too old to pick up the stick for the "catch the ball-game"). Fascinated spectators are standing in a corner under a gigantic cherry tree and blossom leaves are snowing down
on them: Sakura! Later, I'm swimming together with a
65-year-old Japanese who looks like a bodybuilder with his well-trained upper part of the body. During the night it's
raining cats and dogs, but at least the mugginess disappears at the river where I've taken refuge. I'm out of order!


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