Wednesday September 2025

I am not getting a good night’s sleep, I keep waking up at 4:00 and struggle to get back to sleep. I should be sleeping like a log with the fresh air and exercise I am getting. This morning I was ready to get up and moving at 6:00 a.m. at home I must set an alarm to get out of bed at 8:00.

Ralf opened the drapes, and we realized that we had a stunning view of Mount Fuji from our hotel room. What a beautiful site.

View from the hotel room

The provided breakfast at the hotel was excellent. It had everything from cereal, croissants, boiled egg, to miso soup, fish, salad hot beef sauce and everything else you could possibly think of.

Breakfast buffet

After breakfast we rebuilt the bikes and were ready to leave. An older Asian gentleman was very interested in our bikes, and we told him we were cycling from Tokyo to Hiroshima. He appeared impressed and gave us the thumbs up. He might have not been so impressed if we told him were only doing 50 to 60 kms per day.

Last view of Mount Fuji for a while

RidewithGPS found us a nice route out of Fuji and almost all the way to Yaizu. We went through a traditional Japanese Village and then GPS tried to direct us on to the Highway.

Map of walking trails

Village photos

Ralf spotted some stairs and from looking at the map realized there might a temple, so off he went up the stairs to check it out.

Temple photos

We followed the East Coast Route Sign but got a little confused as it took us down to the highway and indicated that we cross a busy four lane highway. First, we had to negotiate the train tracks then press the pedestrian traffic light button, which would stop the traffic on busy four lane highway so that cyclists could safely cross the road.

Crossing the highway

Doug Ford would have a heart attack – he just recently said that bicycle lanes should be removed because they are dangerous to cars.

The traffic was busy in areas and the route was not as scenic as yesterday, but not too bad really. Then we got Mochimune, we were stopped by a postie who told us the road we were going on was not passable. The tunnel had caved in two-years ago and was slowly being rebuilt but we were not able to go through it. We had to go over the big beejesus hill that we had wanted to avoid.

This meant another 22 km ride and over hills again, we had already done 49.5 kms. I noticed that we were near the train station. We went to have a look and there was a train going to Yaizu.  We asked a young fella if he could help us buy tickets while he was also packing his bike to go on a different train. We packed the bikes into their bags, packed the panniers into the blue bag and lugged the whole lot onto the train. Of course, the platform for the train to Yaizu meant that we had to go downstairs and then back up again, fortunately there was a lift. Those ruddy bags were heavy, but we managed to manhandle them all onto the train and off again at the next stop.

We rebuilt the bikes and got to the RePort Hotel and settled in.

The RePort Hotel is a really cool place. It is a converted Fishing gear warehouse.  The owners have converted six of the storage areas to rooms. The ground floor of each space is the shower and toilet facilities and a place to put our bikes, and the second floor is a large space with beds, table and chairs, a fridge and a kettle. It could do with a couple IKEA chairs. It has an industrial look to it, but very cool looking.

Photos of RePort Hotel

The front of the building houses a reception area and a café. There is a Food Court with various restauranteurs sharing the space and providing different foods on different days and times.  There is also a co-working space. Approximately three private office spaces with all the equipment that can be shared – photocopier, printer even paper and inks. This is where we could get wi-fi which allowed us to find a place to stay for tomorrow and Friday/Saturday in Hamamatsu.

Back to the room to drop the computers off and then out for dinner. But….. Ralf told me not to come upstairs!!!!! There was a large spider on the wall. I have arachnophobia, I can barely look at a spider on a screen let alone have one in my room. I am getting better, if I see a small one in the garden I deal with it, if I see a web and a spider I don’t scream. However, when I see Ralf trying to find something bigger than a coffee cup to catch it in then I begin to panic. I stayed downstairs, I could hear Ralf talking to the damn thing – hell you are a big bugger, wow you move fast etc. Then bang with his slipper, then three more bangs, and its dead and he sends it out of the window. He had tried to relocate it, but it wouldn’t co-operate, so it had to be killed. I am not posting a picture of this beastie. Ralf has one on his Facebook page.

We left and walked to the restaurant that was recommended to us by the owner of the hotel and was only a three-minute walk-away. It was busy, the staff was very friendly but spoke limited English a fella at the next table helped.

We had Tuna Jaw, which is a specialty at this restaurant, freshly caught. They have a limited supply it was really good, cooked in a soy and ginger broth.

Enjoying dinner

When we got back to the room Ralf checked to see what kind of spider it was. Yep a Huntsman, they have them in Australia, we didn’t see one when we were there. If I had known that this monster was here in Japan, it might not have been on my bucket list.