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03/28/2026 JPBT Day 6 : Trash Talk

by Brian · Published March 27, 2026 · Updated April 4, 2026

We didn’t talk to as many people today, but still had some translator humor such as the guy who rolled down his car window and had me come over, only to yell “tomato, tomato, tomato!” Into my phone. I find that “older” people (or is it “un-young now?)… are less compatible with using the phone as the intermediary. But with some patience, you can get it right.

Take yesterday for example, when we met à thin, wiry guy who had lost many of his teeth walking in the road. He seemingly introduced himself by saying “I can disco”… but turned out to be asking, “are you having fun?” as we were ascending à 12% grade. Of course we both answered, “yes!”

And it is fun. So far, Japan cycling is exactly the terrain I dream of. Quiet one lane roads. Climbs that are steep, but not TOO steep like the 1,000’ per mile we’ve done in some places. The cycling is a 10/10 so far.

But I can’t just leave you thinking everything is perfect. The big complaint for me is the trash and packaging situation. You may think it uncouth of us to be burning our packaging, so I wanted to talk about that today by first explaining that we do bin everything that is recycle-able; there are systems in place for that. I did some research, and it turns out that there is a story behind the lack of trash cans.

On March 20, 1995, the Tokyo subway was hit by a sarin gas terrorist attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Trash cans were removed from public areas (especially train stations) as a precautionary measure, and 30 years later they’ve largely never come back.

So what does Japan do with its trash? Turns out that there are thousands of incinerators around the country, and they burn it - Just. Like. Us. The difference is they have turbines and emissions controls. We have a cigarette lighter and a pot of water to recycle the heat. Japan is a very mountainous country, making it hard to have landfills - though I suspect you could fabricate a “mount trashmore” and put a vending machine up top and tourists would happily climb it… and snap photos upon the top with nowhere to put their empty soda can.

Photos:

Janet

How we start the morning now. You can buy these hot or cold (i discovered after buying the cold version from the vending machine)

I appreciate that Janet is also into learning Japanese! I have learned 36 of the 46 Hirigana, a few of the Katakana, and about 14 kanji. We can occasionally read signs now! Janet and I stopped and studied frequently as an excuse to take rest breaks. I’ll write a post about the language later.

Lots of tunnels this morning; many had go-arounds.

This is “small” and “big” - for flushing. Like if you had a “small dump” or a “big dump”? I also tested out heated seats and “enema mode” which (unless I interpreted the diagram wrong) was the gentler of the two butt wash settings.

Almost all the roads we ride are narrow-gauge like this.

It seems the Japanese have modified nearly every part of the land. Today we encountered more road construction.. 🚧.. again. We now have had construction every day of the trip. Luckily no major go arounds or long waits today.

Big fish!

I saw some stairs heading up the mountain and couldn’t resist and on-foot explore. We found these beehive looking things!

Campground camping! It’s rare for us but we wanted to see what it was like. And we met 3 bike tourist! A guy named Nicholas and his wife and her sister. They have been on bikes the last 9 months on-and-off. They started from Albania and went across parts of China. They skiied in Hokkaido and started in the same place we did here in Japan. They’re using the same MapOut app as we do and from what I saw, their upcoming route is similar to ours. Uncanny.

Strava Comments:

Janet W.

Never a dull moment touring with you! Nor a bit of boring scenery. No worries except where are we going to find a trash can tomorrow?

Stan H.

That sign Janet is studying? It says “All Cars Stop” 😉

Brian L.

Stan Hooper - do you know Japanese? We have been breaking the kanji down into its parts. We got: “all/every, vehicle?, passage, go, stop”. The part that is interesting is the go&stop right next to each other.