Cycling Kansai Japan: Day 1 Osaka to Uji
hey today we’re in Osaka Japan and we’re cycling to Uji a historical town near Kyoto all right I’m here at Road Bike Rental Japan road Bike Rental Japan and we’re picking up uh Canondale here road Bike i’m going to take it to Uji but it’s about 30 uh to about 40 40 km yeah not far but it’s uh it’s a late start here so we’ll get going get going all right yeah beautiful fall leaves yeah looking good here in Osaka but first we’re going to check out Osaka Castle so we’re along the river right now in Osaka beautiful city it’s December 4th it’s a beautiful day it’s sunny it’s cool but it’s going to get warmer the fortifications of Osaka Castle and the moat beautiful [Music] [Music] all right so we are out of the city center and we’re on a ride along the Yodo River right now which goes up towards Kyoto this big river valley [Music] [Music] so I missed breakfast today which is not a good idea and uh now I’m at 7-Eleven uh lots of these different rice with fish wrapped in seaweed tuna mayonnaise pickled plum pork fillet and wasabi salmon i got a grilled salmon and soy sauce [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] some nice old houses on this street i just pulled off the river to stop for some coffee i stopped at this little tiny cafe like tucked into a little um covered alley in a little town here this is like a vegan kind of like a scone um and then really really good coffee it’s this little bakery a vegan bakery tucked into this little space here with a bunch of other little uh shops along this old street here so I just came across this little historic district i don’t even know the name of this place but I was just going for a coffee and then [Music] Yeah so it’s a good lesson to allow yourself to kind of get lost and uh allow for spontaneous exploration uh you can have kind of the general day planned out where you want to end up but you know allowed yourself to get sidetracked explore different places seek out a place to eat lunch or coffee shop or something or some historic site [Music] [Music] so for a couple miles there I was along the road which wasn’t by design i just kind of took one of these ramps up and ended up on the road but as you saw there was uh a decent size cycle lane and uh traffic was going pretty slow so it wasn’t bad uh but now I’m going to get back on the path you can see now uh it’s not as urban up here we’re a little more than halfway up to Kyoto and then River Valley is is a more narrow here you can see the hills are a little bit closer it’s less industrial it’s a lot nicer up here the surface of the bike path is is better paved up here so going to get back on and pretty soon we’re going to check out this uh rest area [Music] now I’m at the Sakura Dai rest area and you can see it’s lined with Sakura i presume in the springtime it would be full with blossoms i’m going to try this tuna mayonnaise soy sauce so here’s what it looks like very similar to what I was eating in uh Korea and Taiwan check those videos out good so I just climbed up this tower here this is the area where three rivers come together one river comes from Kyoto it’s up in this direction and another river is coming from Uji where I’m headed today another river from Nada uh that way and then they’re all flowing out down towards Osaka in this direction and this area is called Sakura D so you can see that path outlined with the Sakura which is blooming in the springtime [Music] so we’ve turned up to River and it’s about 11 more kilometers I think to Uchi from here it’s rice patties here still growing in December they have a really long growing season like Okay so I made it to Uji you can see head to this little pedestrian zone main tourist area and then I’m going to uh go directly to my hostel Rioen and check in okay I arrived at AD hostel so it says hostel but there’s actually private rooms here and uh we’ll we’ll check out the inside all right here we are at hostel this is my room here pretty nice oh they have they have Japanese style rooms like tatami mat on the floor uh but they were all booked so shared bathrooms and showers and this place was like $42 US uh a night the second floor got a kitchen looks like coffee tea stove and uh maybe the best part about this Oh it’s free beer i’m not a huge beer drinker but I’m going to have a little little glass of beer here nice [Music] probably get showered and head out to town and look for a place to eat okay so the Japanese style room is fully booked today but uh she’s going to show us what it looks like here yeah so you just spread the mat down and uh sleep on the floor i stayed in a real kind like this uh generally a real kind are expensive but occasionally you can get them on the cheaper side when they’re like a hostel or uh they’re hard to find cheap real kind yeah here’s another one
Bike Touring Kansai Region, Japan – Cycling from Osaka to Uji
Day 1 :
38.4 miles (68.1 km); 569 ft elevation gain
Bike Rental: https://roadbikerentaljapan.com/
My Strava Route: https://www.strava.com/activities/13043171091
Cycling around Japan Playlist:
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