It's Simply Ribbeting!

Ahhhh Hokuriku... just as I remember: rain all week with very high humidity and temperatures between 24C-27C in the day making you feel deliciously cold, clammy and very sweaty. The place where laundry takes four or five days todry! The weather is completely different from Tokyo and that side of the country.

Max and I went out for a 30km ride in the mountains. And the rain. It was good, though the pavement sections are much more discontering than the offroad portions of the ride. In this kind of humidity and rain pavement is very dangerous. It is so easy to have your tires zip out from beneath you on a downhill section. I much prefer riding gravel in this weather.

So we rode and talked and saw many animals. We happened to catch glimpses of a wild monkey and even two wild boar on separate occasions. The majority of beasts were these big bullfrogs in the trail. This fellow didn't even move when I took this photo by putting my keitai just two or three centimeters from his nose. It was a ribbeting experience.

The ride lasted 2.5hours and we got soaked the entire time along with our faces and chests getting cloaked in superstretchy spiderwebs (and sometimes spiders crawling on the webs stuck to our faces as we continued to ride.)

We stopped at the 1300 year old trees in Yamanaka that both Paula and Stefnee loved, and those which Jen wanted to see with her own eyes rather than in photos. Apparently it is getting marketed as a "power spot" so it has more tourists coming to see it and "get power" now (silly rabbits, trix are for kids!).

Whew! Im tired. Sleepy is more like it, especially after the hot shower. I think I'll finish my triple espresso and have a nap. That's what holidays are all about, right?

I love you!
Cam