Although it was a bit early to go ski even in Hokkaido, I tired to be there, fortunately at 1st night, got heavy snow and got ready for ski there. Here was Tomamu, located at center of Hokkaido. Fully enjoyed 1st time ski in this winter with good condition. Since from this autumn, JP gov reopened board control, so there were some many foreigner travel on there.
Actually this place was memorial ski resort for me, when I was 18th years old, started ski on here as first time in my life. After that, Hoshino resort acquired this place and fully renovated. Not only for ski, also there is an indoor pool as well. Highly recommend place to go in winter season.
As I posted, I went to Okayama and Kagawa pref as ride trip. From Kagawa to Tokyo, I took a reservation for “Sunrise Seto”, which is one of the last normal sleeper train in Japan. There are many special decorated sleeper trains in Japan, but those are luxury train with very expensive price like “Seven Stars Kyushu“. “Sunrise Express” has two lines, one is this “Sunrise Seto”, another is “Sunrise Izumo”, which is from Tokyo to Izumo.
The reason at this time to get on the train was “possible to bring road bike to single room like below. It’s famous for rider.
Caution: some other type of room may be difficult to bring it. Please be careful to book the room time if you want to bring road bike to the train.
Train fee for the single room from Takamatsu to Tokyo was mostly 23,000 JPY, including room fee. It’s quite reasonable as hotel and transport fee.
It’s very popular train in Japan as limited regular night train, so not easy to book a reservation for Sunrise Express(both Seto and Izumo). But this time, it was lucky, only retune trip (from Takamatsu to Tokyo) was available, even if I tried to get ticket just before 3 days.
There is no shop for food and no cafeteria car. Only small drink vending machine is there. So if you will get on the train, highly recommended to buy drink and food in advance.
This was second time in my life to visit Naoshima in Kagawa prefecture. It is located in center of Seto Inland Sea “Setonaikai”. Also Setouchi Art Festival 2022 has been holding around the area. There are many displayed objects in islands.
I brought my load bike and ride in the island from Kurashiki, Okayama-pref. It was a bit cold, but still nice weather to ride around the area. I posted many photos on Instagram like above.
During riding, recently I’ve got a cramp in my leg. I thought it was caused by long interval between riding, but I found an article about position of SPD-SL Cleats on binding shoes. If position is not well fitted with body and pedal, it may be reason to get a cramp in the legs.
Coindidentally found another article about fake cleats, and I checked my stock for cleats, since I brought the cheapest one from Lazada in 2020, and merchants was in China. Comparing with picture in article, my stock seems be fake:_(.
I’m ordering new binding shoes, so will repurchase cleats together….
It might be 2nd time to go to Kanazawa in my life. 1st time was private trip when I was 21 years old. But completely forgot where I visited in that time and atmosphere of the town. And this time is for biz trip, so there is no time to visit anywhere in daytime. After finished work in the bi trip, dropped by one of the famous spot. It seems be late to come to there. Lively time might be day time. Hope I can visit again to the historical town.