DAS ENDE der Radreise durch Asien [#37]

DAS ENDE der Radreise durch Asien [#37]

Tokyo, the largest city in the world, and we’re right in the middle of it. After a year and a half of cycling around the world from Germany to Japan, the final leg on this continent now begins. How we were able to camp in Fukushima, despite the 2011 nuclear disaster. Why we triggered a police operation and why we suddenly found ourselves homeless in Tokyo, you can see in this video. Good morning from Japan. We are traveling together again, and the fact that we’re sleeping here right now isn’t something to be taken for granted. A few kilometers further on, the city of Fukushima comes into view. I think that means something to each of us. In 2011, there was a tsunami catastrophe here, with I think 20,000 deaths. And yes, it was linked to the meltdown of the nuclear power plant. I think we’re in a slightly contaminated area here, I guess, but there’s no need to be afraid. I got all the information from the chemist who investigated this area. In any case, we’ll be heading towards Tokyo in the next few days. The last leg of our journey in Asia it is so strange. But, man, we’re cycling into the biggest city in the world. That’s two days of cycling through a city. Two days just to get there. It’s really crazy. It’s insane. But it can’t get worse than Delhi. I mean, if you’ve cycled to New Delhi… It’s definitely a lot more organized – a little. I don’t think it can get worse than New Delhi. But first we’re off to Fukushima today. This region is very rural, which is a good thing before we plunge into the chaos of the big city. So, across the river is the city of Fukushima, but it’s not just the city that’s called that, it’s the entire prefecture. It’s basically a state in Japan, and the accident didn’t happen in the city, but on the coast, about 20 or 30 km from here, I think. Yes, the tsunami destroyed this emergency generator because I think the power plant failed, but normally that’s not a problem because the emergency generators take over, but because it wasn’t located high enough, the tsunami basically destroyed it and that’s how the whole dilemma started. They were really lucky, 80% of the radioactive rays were blown out to sea because the wind was right and so they were only slightly affected here. A little. I think they were scared to death. Mhm. But yes, they were immediately re-evacuated, brought back, and the clean-up work on the coast will continue until 2050, which is 40 years. Yes. They’re removing all the topsoil and that takes forever with so many square kilometers. So, they’re certainly struggling with it, but you don’t really notice it here. Nope. It’s a terrible thought that life would have almost been impossible here. If there had been an easterly wind back then, this would be a ghost town, and Korea and China would have been hit too. If there had been a northerly wind, for example, Tokyo would have been affected. Some say it was fate that things turned out this way, but even if the radiation was deflected as best as possible, we must not forget that the tsunami claimed 20,000 lives. We are leaving Fukushima and want to reach the mountains today. We are taking a few detours to Tokyo so that we have to go through as few other big cities as possible. Here in these really small villages, there are houses that are cobbled together from clay and straw. Crazy. Where does that come from, are they really old buildings or are they still being manufactured or is it just the stable? I don’t know. Oh, look, there are so many wooden sticks underneath. Not just clay and straw, but it really does look like it, really just – or are those cow patties? That looks crazy. There are lots of buildings like that here. There’s something like that here too. That looks crazy. Dude, it’s a shame I don’t have it on camera. I was just being chased off the farm. Someone came up and started giving me a really rude rant. They told me to piss off, in their language. I don’t know what they said, but it was always like, “Come on, piss off already.” That was my first unfriendly encounter in Japan. Maybe it’s a good thing to briefly return to reality, that not everyone is nice to us. There are just that kind of people and others. but negative encounters are really rare. What we see every day these days are small villages surrounded by huge rice fields. Shortly before harvest, when the rice grains are ripe, the lush green of the plants turns into these yellow-gold hues. Every time, it’s an incredible sight. Aah, these rice fields, it’s so amazing! We’ve been driving here for days between the most beautiful yellow fields. Now the mountains are right behind me and yes, then it’s not far to the largest city in the world. I’m a little excited, I have to say. It doesn’t happen that often, but Tokyo is such a huge destination that we’ll reach. It’s time to find a place to sleep for tonight. Not easy when everything flat is used for rice or houses. You just have to hold up your hand and a dragonfly will land on it. On your head. On my head? Yes. Hey. But what you found here is crazy. Right? You have no idea how far into the forest we are. With a stream for washing. Yes. And the cool thing is, I only learned this in Japan: if there are dragonflies, there are no mosquitoes. Yes, or almost none. And here there are always so many dragonflies, whenever there are any. Yes, so you’re my friends, because they eat the mosquitoes and it’s so noticeable. We’ll go and wash up. There’s even a shower. Yes, it was too cold for me, I didn’t do that. Too cold. As if the water in the river is warmer. I find it more pleasant to use the water from the river than the splashing ‘waterfall’ all the time. Yes, so again for you, if you’re somewhere in nature: if it’s splashing, it’s really cold. Don’t do that. Now look how pleasant the shower is. Maybe your theory is right. Cold. Shit. Oh my God! I can’t imagine the stream being just as cold. I was obviously joking that the water was supposed to be colder, but no kidding, it really is colder. What comes down there, the little stream, and what comes down there, is considerably colder than in the river itself. And I think it has something to do with all these hot springs. Well, it must be, because there are so many hot springs in Japan. We’ve driven past so many of them. They’re like bathhouses, but you’re not allowed to film there. And there’s probably a warmer spring up there somehow. It must be like that, when I’m standing here, it’s just so much warmer. It’s annoying me right now. But I’m not allowed to admit it. When I stand in here, my feet really burn. And I’m going in here now. Oh, this is so much milder. I really hate to admit it, but you were right. The water really is warmer. Like, really. It feels warmer. No, no, it really is warmer. When I’m standing in this tributary and then in this main river. It’s a world of difference. There’s sure to be a hot spring somewhere up there. It can’t be any other way. It could be. I’ve also seen two or three signs saying there’s a hot spring 15 kilometers away. Yes, look, there are signs for hot springs here too. That’s really crazy! As if you’re right! Wow, don’t scare me like that. Well, I’m scared, man. My hand is in the fire, not yours. Franzy, look away for a moment. I’m sorry. What’s your conclusion about South Korea and Japan? Because I thought Japan, for example, was the ultimate in modernity. South Korea was more modern to me. For me too. I actually had the feeling that on the route we drove, the houses were nicer, and some of the gardens were tidier – exciting to see. And I would have thought it would be the other way around, and I find the Japanese more open and more approachable than the South Koreans, which I also thought was different. Yes, that’s true. Somehow the sauce tastes a bit sweeter and more fermented than the one we had last time. So we might get diarrhea today. But is it bad if it’s a bit… I mean, you drink wine or beer and stuff. Yeah, a good ripe tomato sauce. Well, I don’t know. It just smells really weird. It really smells weird. Oh, man… I’m so hungry. How delicious… Rinsing out spoiled tomato sauce with cold water… Ah, that’s so unnecessary! Good morning. Morning. We moved yesterday because we threw away the sauce and we wanted to stay away from it in case there are bears here. There definitely are, I mean, there are supposed to be bears all over Japan. Not just in Hokkaido. Hokkaido has by far the most, but here too. Mhm. We’re not exactly afraid of bears, but we don’t want to provoke an encounter. Today, monsoon-like rain is forecast again. The weather here is so hard to predict; one minute it looks like this and the next it looks like this. So, it’s still drizzleing a little. It’s crazy what’s coming down here. We really need to find a place to camp now. When the place is practically wet before you even put up the tent, that’s always disgusting. But we remain hopeful that it will stop at some point. Somehow, some pity music has just started playing. Where do we want to sleep tonight? I think this is the last village here and then it’s only uphill from here, mountains to our left and right and getting a hotel is definitely not an option at €150. I have no idea what it costs in the small towns here. It’s so crazy. In Japan it’s really like this: if you book a hotel room from Sunday to Thursday, it’s cheap, but from Thursday to Sunday it’s double the price, at least. It’s like that everywhere in every hotel. It never seems to stop raining and now we’ve just seen this little house and it looks like there are four houses here in a row, there doesn’t seem to be anyone here. Can we risk that? If they come, that would be really stupid because we’re really on their doorstep. It’s really like this here, it would be really great to have something dry tonight. I’ve come to terms with that a long time ago. If someone comes, it’s so embarrassing. It’s just some kind of vegetable and mushroom sale, I guess, they’re signs. We’ll have to leave really early tomorrow if we stay here. Someone just passed by. How did he find us? He basically came back to tell us to move on because there’s something there, but we didn’t quite understand what it was. So, we explained that we’d be sleeping in a tent, and he said there should be a roof in one and a half kilometers, right? Yes. He’ll definitely come to check. I don’t know, but I don’t trust him. As if there’s a covered place somewhere soon. the translator said Tento, he’ll have understood. We don’t want to annoy anyone here. So we’ll keep going. Look, there’s a roof symbol up there! It’s there! There must be something there! You can’t be serious. The symbol on the sign means there’s a house here where someone lives or someone sells things. Wow, that’s no good for us, hey! Wow, that’s making me really angry! Sure, I didn’t mean any harm, but I showed a roof and wrote roof and tent myself, and there’s nothing here. So, this is it. There’s a toilet, you can sit, you can stand, you can be happy, but you can’t put up a tent and sleep here. So, we’re going to change here and eat something here and then we’re going to rather brazenly put the tent up there by the entrance. I’ll show you. There’s only a small area here where you could sleep dry, and that’s under the roof. It’s very visible. There’s a lot of traffic here. A lot of people come in to pee So here’s a live stream from our living room. Every time someone comes in – khhhh . He really does that. We’ll talk tomorrow. Good night. It didn’t turn out to be a good night, because shortly before midnight the police suddenly showed up at our tent. Yes, of course. Do you have a passport? Tokyo. He says there are bears and deer here. The police are just driving away. Someone must have told us we were drunk and making noise. So, I think that someone didn’t want us here. Yeah, they didn’t want us here. So, we’ve been sleeping here for three hours. Mhm. Well, they were extremely nice, the police officers. It was actually pretty cool with them, except for the fact that they woke us up . We heard someone here and we thought, oh, crap, the owner is here. I stole his camera case. He gave it to me by mistake, along with the passports. I thought it was Franzy’s. Then they just came back. But the two of them were really nice. Totally correct. As I said, they had a disturbance because of noise and drunkenness, but it can’t be true. He translated for me that a Vietnamese man had recently committed a robbery here and that’s why people are a bit more sensitive to foreigners. It always has an effect on how foreigners behave abroad, and we try to set a pretty good example. Yeah, they didn’t say anything about us camping here. They just wanted to make sure we weren’t hooligans. So I don’t think camping is a problem in Japan. Well then, let’s hope there are no more reports of disturbances. That they don’t report another alcohol-related problem here. Good night. Wow, how beautiful is it here? It’s really amazing how green Japan is. But everywhere. It’s either city or green. And the police told us yesterday to watch out for bears. So, we weren’t entirely wrong with our assumption. It’s kind of understandable when you see it. It’s so full of forests, it’s a paradise for bears here. Now things are getting serious. We head out of the mountains and straight towards Tokyo. Suddenly everything is flat and we see the gigantic rice and granary of the largest city in the world. 37 million people have to be fed somehow. Rice is by far the most important staple food in Japan and it’s harvested with these machines. There are said to be around 500 varieties of rice in Japan alone. yeah, we’re not wearing the cappys like this for sun protection. We’re just doing it because it’s a fresh look. I’m joking, we’re about to reach the Tokyo metropolitan area. That means from there on it’s basically just city, lots of villages and houses and such. To imagine, it’s over 100 km to the city center. It’s so brutal. We’re basically cycling to the city center in a day. Our very last night in a tent before our bike trip through Asia ends. We’re staying under this bridge. We can hear the traffic above us, but we won’t find anything better today anyway. Tomorrow evening a really cool surprise awaits us. And into the city we’re off! We hadn’t imagined roads like these here, but the less traffic the better. Today we spontaneously met up with a Japanese bike traveler who has already seen pretty much everything in the world. We’re not quite in the city center yet; we’ll go there tomorrow because we’re staying with Mizumoto tonight. We’ll have to ask how it’s pronounced exactly. He also lived in Italy with his wife and has also traveled the world by bike. Africa, Asia, Europe, America, basically everywhere. And someone in South Korea pointed out to us that he lives here. And someone we met there knew him and basically put us in touch. And the crazy thing is that after he had traveled the world, he trained to make frames himself. I didn’t know that. In Italy. Oh, in Italy. Yes, they are such special frames. They’re all handmade. That’s a thing in Japan. I met someone who bought a €25,000 steel bike, but yes, they really do build 10, 20 in a year, no more than that. They’re all unique. We just asked him how long he’s been traveling. He traveled the world for 7 years. He’s been to every continent. Incredible, we’re looking forward to chatting with him this evening. We’re on our way to his apartment, to his wife. She’s already waiting for us. We’re now in Mizumoto and Yasuko’s apartment, if I pronounce it correctly. And the dog Doki is a little scared of us. She just left us alone in the apartment. This is basically our guest room, and tonight we’re going to dinner with them. Pretty cool. We can eat something other than what we’d eat at the convenience store. She just asked me what we like to eat. Unfortunately, I had to tell her that we didn’t try that much. It’s a shame, but we still wanted to, we wanted to really tuck into in Tokyo. Yes, we’ll do that too. Here we are now in his friend’s restaurant, and yes, they’re ordering something for us. Let’s see. Something traditional. We don’t know, but it looks so delicious. And what this guy is conjuring up for us is simply amazing. This is a one-man operation. He cooks, cleans, and waits tables all at the same time. To this day, we all agree that this was the best restaurant experience we’ve ever had. No matter what dish we try, our faces always look like this afterwards. And that’s raw chicken. Now I’m curious. I didn’t know you could eat raw chicken. Chicken sashimi, so to speak. Really delicious. Now we have the sashimi. In this case, tuna. It’s like butter. It’s very soft. So tender. It’s really amazing. Melts in your mouth. Sashimi is raw fish, just amazing, isn’t it? I’ve never eaten anything so tender in my life. And somehow more and more dishes came and one topped the next. The two of them wanted to show us so many things because we didn’t know most of them. In the end, the whole thing degenerated into an 8-course menu and really raised the culinary bar. Guys, it doesn’t stop, it just doesn’t stop. It’s time for sushi. I think I’m boring you, but it’s just incredible. So delicious. Absolutely unbelievable. Wow. The next morning we really did go into downtown Tokyo. Let’s recap: we’re only 5 km away from the center. There’s really little traffic. It’s as easy to cycle as Innsbruck. So, where is the biggest city in the world here? Huh? But just a kilometer after that statement, the picture looked completely different. This is how we imagine Tokyo: a truly vibrant city with lots of people. Everywhere you see the anime and manga cult and women in their maid costumes trying to convince you to buy some coffee. Crossing a zebra crossing looks like this, by the way. But do you see how considerate everyone is? And despite being in a big city, there’s hardly any traffic on the streets. This is not least due to the fact that Japan has the best and most used rail network in the world. We always thought that when we finally arrived in Tokyo, our journey would end. Now we’re here, and we’re actually heading on to America. Holy cow, is Tokyo safe for cycling! Yes, it’s like a village. Everyone is so careful, and the traffic is so orderly. I feel like an elephant because I somehow—everyone is so attentive, I don’t know how they do it. And we have a problem today. We’re homeless. Yes, hotels start at €85 per night. At least, at least. That’s the cheapest we’ve seen, and it’s just too expensive for us. So, we decided over the weekend that we’re not getting a hotel. That means we have to find a place to sleep somewhere today . We have to camp in Tokyo, dude. Camp in Tokyo. I don’t know, sleep on a park bench or something. I think to myself, okay, it might not be that noticeable, but really, setting up a tent like that is so “in your face.” I don’t know if we can do it here. Well, we’ll see. Maybe it’ll be under some bridge or something. It’s kind of cool. A challenge, definitely. It’s like this: when you don’t have enough money, you have to improvise, and when you have to improvise, that’s when things get interesting. I think traveling on a shoestring is the coolest thing. What’s the point of a five-star hotel? To rest, yes. But you just don’t experience much. We are currently on our way to a shrine, where we can hopefully sleep next to it. This building over there, this tower, the is the second tallest building in the world. Something like 600 m. Sky Tree is what it’s called, I think. We were told. I have no idea, didn’t know it was in Japan. Wow, what a thing! It really does scrape the clouds. Yes, it was just in the clouds. Maybe we can sleep up there. Before we started this trip, we would never have dared to sleep in a big city without booking an overnight stay. Only crazy people do that. But after 18 months of traveling the world, we thought, yeah, so why not? It’s worth doing. This lightness and lack of pretension is kind of fun, because it makes us much more flexible and relaxed when things don’t go according to plan. It’s such a cool place! I love it here so much, and that we just happen to be here in the evening, and I just quickly picked it out. Where can we go next? And it’s just so beautiful! For me, it’s the most beautiful place of all the shrines we were. That’s all well and good, but where are we going to sleep here? Yes, that’s going to be a bit difficult. I thought we’d sleep somewhere here. Oh, I see. Didn’t you say we’d sleep next to the shrine? No, but it’s a bit outside of Tokyo, that was my idea. Ah, so here we are at the park I chose, where I wanted to sleep. Yes, there are a few people here and I thought it would be greener, but it is beautiful, really beautiful. We’re feeling a bit melancholy. Melancholy. This is the turning point of our whole trip. This is where we wanted to go, to Tokyo. And now it’s just time to go home. Now it’s time to go home. Yes. Okay, we’ll carry on. We’re going to America now, but for a few more months, but yes, but now it’s time to go home. Mhm. We cycled to Tokyo. It’s crazy when you do the whole thing without a plane. Then you kind of get the feeling the world isn’t that big after all. Nope. And at the same time, it’s so big because you can never see everything. No, of course. But even if someone were to take exactly the same route as us, they would see a completely different world with a completely different perception of the world. Ah, that’s so crazy. Okay, correction again: that’s the second tallest TOWER in the world, not building. In terms of buildings, it would be number 3. So it’s still tall. Twice as tall as the Eiffel Tower. So taller than the tallest sandcastle I’ve ever built in my entire life. Yeah, a bit over the top. We’re exhausted, we stink like pigs. Oh, You have no idea how bad we stink. Well, we had plan A, by the bank, plan B, under a bridde, but there really are homeless people, I think they looked like this, underneath. It’s not funny, but we can’t sleep under them either. I wouldn’t feel comfortable staying there with them. We can’t do that. There are a few playgrounds here. There’s a baseball diamond up ahead. That’s my greatest hope. Did you just—? Yeah, look at that, what is that? Dude! You can really hit me in the face… So, we’ve found the bathroom, all we need is the bedroom. Dude, what a mess! Look at that! In the nose! I can’t seem to get it right. Franzy, what are you doing? When I laugh, it changes. Do it properly. Great. It doesn’t work, it simply doesn’t work. What is that thing, dude? I just want to wash myself there. We’ve really gone a bit crazy here on the bank. No chance, nothing’s coming up to camp. We’ve seen a small spot where it would work, and we’re just going to stay there. It’s currently 9 o’clock. We have another hour or two to sit there. I don’t know. And then, when it’s less busy, maybe we can put up the tent here. Luckily, it’s not supposed to rain tonight, which is something. Okay, this is the baseball field, and there’s a dead end here. That’s actually not so bad. They’re just riding around on their bikes over there. Can we put up the tent here? Where does the path actually end here? Do you see Franzy? If not, it’s a good thing for us. We’re not putting up the tent though. That would be too obvious. We’re just leaving the sleeping pad with this groundsheet. Let’s see if the police come by the second time in the video. Dude, finally got some sleep, but someone just ran over us. Seriously, we both had blindfolds on. We don’t know exactly how he ran over us, but – And he said you were in the way. It’s bright enough. It really is bright enough, headlights everywhere. I have no idea how he managed to trip over us. He must have been on his phone with his eyes. And I woke up like: uhhh! I let out such a death scream. Yeah. And he did an extended somersault over my head and then he flew over the bike over there. Oh shit! I think I’ll put up warning triangles. That’s a good idea, Hans. There, warning bottle put out. Yes, a little recovered. Don’t do it. Just don’t do it. A collaboration with an anti-wrinkle cream would really be great right now. Well, there have been better nights. We’re off now to ship the bikes. We have to send them from Tokyo to Los Angeles because we’re not allowed to take them on the ship. It’ll cost a thousand dollars because, yes, we were told the wrong thing. The postal workers said, yes, these dimensions are fine, but now when we asked them further, they said, no, that’s not possible, it only works with air freight. We wanted to send it by sea because it’s much cheaper. I still have to show you that. Look here. The footprints are still on it. Do you see that? Dude, bam, bam, bam. And I was just lying here, you know? It crept into my foot here, slipped off my hip, then came along my body here, and then flew here. We spent just eight hours looking for suitable boxes and packed everything down to the centimeter, and then we could finally get going. Probably the stupidest thing we’ve ever did. You know what I mean? Maybe at home, when you want to transport something heavy from the garage to the front door with a hand truck? It was the same for us, except that we have to take it from Tokyo to Singapore because the only ship from Asia to America this year is from Singapore. We shipped the bikes to the USA and they’re already on their way. We can’t send all ten bike panniers; it’s too expensive. That means you normally buy suitcases. But not us! We bought two hand trucks, foldable hand trucks. Man, that looks so stupid and the box was free. I can’t get my head around that. That’s a total of €25, otherwise it would have been at least €200, from what we’ve seen. Yes. We have to cross all the way to Singapore with it. How many national borders are there, actually? There are ten countries to the USA. Ten countries. We weren’t planning on filming the journey to Singapore for YouTube, but it’s just too stupid not to show you. That’s why we’re sharing a few clips from our cell phone footage across Asia. The disaster began in Japan, because the wheels looked like this after just a few kilometers. Wow, this thing is falling apart here, the wheel is almost falling off. If you buy cheap, you buy twice. We traveled by bus, train, ship, and tuk-tuk. And some days this damn thing just broke me mentally. I was probably the first German to fight with a hand truck abroad. Dude, at the slightest *** this thing falls over, dude. Here even at this tactile guidance system it falls over What kind of construction is this today? Yesterday it was okay. Man…! This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done. Besides Franzy breaking her little toe on the way—just don’t ask—we also kept missing the buses. Damn, the bus won’t take our hand trucks. Now we don’t know how to get to the ferry port. We ca n’t miss our ferry to China. Oh God! Shit, what are we going to do now? Now I think we have to go all the way back, changing buses five times. 3 hours we drove in circles on the train. Now the bus isn’t taking us. Hey, everything’s going wrong today… We missed the ferry by 20 minutes. You can’t be serious. We’re missing this ferry because of 20 minutes If you drive through several nights without sleeping, believe me, you can sleep anywhere at the station. And we’ve never cared less whether people think we’re homeless. The way Hans is lying there, he looks like a bum with his box. Everyone was already looking at us anyway, wondering what we were doing. The baggage checkers were also visibly confused about what to do with us. But somehow, after 8,000 km, we finally arrived in Singapore. We’re in Singapore. A package arrived. Shit, is there even room for this here? He said, “Everything okay, sir?” I don’t know if he expects a tip or just says, “are you mentally alright sir?”. The Pacific crossing took a full 25 days and now we can begin a new adventure on a new continent.

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