Yamanobe no Michi Trip. Ten Days Golden Week. 13th Month in Japan

There're a lot of things I can say but I don't know where should I begin. Uhm, let's begin this with my first paper acceptance. Hahahaha... Apparently, my 1-page paper got accepted for a poster presentation at a conference in Berlin on 23-27 July this year. Actually, this is my save move since honestly, I have not produced any usable result so far and after the Golden Week holiday, I have to redo my experiment again. Anyway, this will be my furthest place I will go after Tokyo.

I spent the last week before the Golden Week holiday reprogramming the stimuli presentation to be used after the holiday but I don't know where did I put the sticky notes of the computer password used for the recording. Damn it.

During the beginning of the ten-consecutive-day Golden Week (due to the change of the era from Heisei to Reiwa), the first two days I dreamt about my ex. I knew that she got a problem with her last partner (I don't know the details but idgaf anyway), and suddenly she appeared in my dream for two nights in a row. What a terrible nightmare.

The story always begins with the same scene. We were chilling in a living room watching something I don't know what. Everything was so perfect and then we started to cuddle like a normal couple. Then she got angry out of nowhere, threw her tantrums, and started the physical abuse. Fuck it! I woke up from my peaceful sleep because of that. I didn't even know the reason, I did nothing wrong, we were barely in contact after the incident 2.5 years ago. Why the heck with that bipolar attitude?

So I decided to go on a trip. It was 67.58km in total. I went out at 6.30 to Sakurai station which located 31km from my campus by bike. From there I went through a trail path called Yamanobe-no-Michi which is well known as the oldest road in Japan and also written in some ancient romance novels (Genji Monogatari for example). It took me around 2.5 hours to get at the starting point. To be honest, I did make some stops at Nara and Tenri looking for some clues and the full course map.

There were no clues aside of the road signs spread at several hundred meters away from each other.

See that brown road sign with the red plate and white texts on it? 

Lucky I didn't get lost. Beside of those road signs, I got an offline map with all the kanji characters on it which I can't even read but at least I can see the path and know my location from the map application on my phone.

There was no big problem except I slipped when going down an uneven stair and bent my rear brake lever. I finished the southern part of the trail which located between Sakurai station and Isonogami-jinja at Tenri. Basically, the southern part of this trail has a lot of open spaces since it is surrounded by local farms which means good news for my phone signal. 

A road sign inside the jungle.

From Isonogami-jinja, there were no people walking to Nara. I didn't know why until I decided to take the challenge. First off, the path is not clearly marked. I can't even see the proper path from the map application I used. Because there were fewer people walked through the northern path, the grass has grown tall and covered most of the trail. Second, it is covered with dense forest and located further deep up the hill. You can't just use your ears and try to locate where is the nearest civilization. Third, no GPS signal! Seriously. This one is scary. I don't wanna describe how scared I was and how I regretted my decision back then.

Although along the trail there were a lot of ancient tombs of emperors and important people in their time, I could hardly recognize them. It was like a small key-hole-shaped hill covered with trees and sometimes surrounded by water. If it was not for the description board, hardly could I notice any.

I think it was 76% cycling, 24% hiking during the last half of the trail. The northern path is hilly and there are a lot of shrines along the way. I still respect the shrines, so if I had to pass them, I get off my bike instead of riding it. Shrines also mean stairs! Oh well...

Finally, I had to push my bike up the last part of the trail. I couldn't ride it since the path is made of cobblestones and therefore slippery. Moreover, a lot of stones has been out of their place due to the roots from the surrounding trees. My hardtail just could not give enough traction on the rear wheel given the slippery and bumpy condition.

Lastly, the downhill part! It was so fun, 3.3km of pure joy. the path is actually covered with gravels so it is a little slippery if you are running on a high speed, but there is the fun, right? Pushing the limit of your bike and tires! After all the fun, I still have to ride back to my 13km away dorm-sweet-dorm.

I arrived in my lab (I had no power left to take my bike to the 5th floor) around 16.52 and it was raining along the last 2km. Drenched in sweat and rainwater, I fell asleep in my lab for 2 good hours after having a cereal snack. Hahahahahaha

That night I had fried noodle for dinner made of instant noodle and custom made seasonings. At the end of the day, a hot shower was very relaxing. Ah, not to mention that this is my longest trip by bike so far.