04/07/2026 JPBT Day 16 : Kakkoii desu

How many cities can you name in Japan? Or Russia? Or New Zealand? Janet and I got on this topic today and realized that before we came here, we could rattle off a dozen Japanese cities without breaking a sweat.. But in Russia, we could only manage two (Moscow and St. Petersburg), and in China, just a few: Beijing, Shanghai, and… uh, Wuhan.

Well, if you can’t tell, we really like it here. Today we were very rural and didn’t talk to many people; the only guy who came to talk to us said of our bike “かっこいいです。” (the bike is cool). He said a few other things too, but “cool” was one of the few useful words Duolingo has taught us! I was kind of surprised to hear an old guy say it; I thought this was a word for the J-pop generation. He walked over with an umbrella in the rain - just to tell us that.

We had a grand old time at the laundromat! For less than à dollar and 8 minutes, we had a life-changing experience. Sitting in your house it may be hard to realize how profound of a difference 8 minutes of tumbling hot air can make to your life. My perma-damp sleeping bag and down jacket both fluffed right up. The tent, with no coaxing from the feeble sun, was static-cling dry. Wile we waited, we plugged in our battery packs and got high on “コーヒー” (coffee - hot metal cans, right out of the vending machine).

We also keep noticing how nobody ever yells at us to move the bike. Here, the bike seems to fit right in.

At one point, we started talking about how governments can shape the way people act and feel. Without diving too deep into politics, on the surface at least, Japan seems to have figured out a balance that promotes courtesy, calm, and general well-being. I’m sure someone out there knows enough to give us the full story - like the not-so-great stuff (i’m thinking of the whale episode on South Park). But until someone gives us more info, we’re staying blissfully uninformed, pedaling through one-lane mountain and valley roads.. with our ostrich heads happily buried in the sand.

Oh ostrich! That reminds me.. we saw another badger yesterday and also a brown colored crab walking in the creek.. at about 2000’ elevation! And we saw a weird worm thing today in the photos.