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May 2

Bike Shop in Saga / Camped North of Omuta

Woke up around 8:30am, said goodbye to Noguchi, and after packing headed to the Keirin tracks. I talked a good deal to the girls there - the most of which to one named Ai - and got 3 Takeo Keirin keychains, and the phone strap. I also filled in a mail-in contest form for those prizes from the other day - I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Mailed some letters at the post office, then headed toward the shoe repair shop. Since it was still a bit early (before noon), I stopped at an abandonned driver training school, and took a nap in the shade on one of their tracks. Later got up and streched, and then went to Ishibashi's shoe shop. The shoe was in beautiful condition, all for the price of 1200 yen (less than $10!)

Since I still hadn't been able to find any store with a helmet, my next goal was to get to a town large enough to carry an adult-sized bike helmet. This is much harder than it sounds. I couldn't find one in Nagasaki or Takeo. The next large town was Saga, and if that didn't have a good bike shop, I might have to head north to Fukuoka (the biggest city in Kyushuu), even though I was planning on going south.

I stopped by another Champon restaurant on the way to Saga. It still tastes kindof like dirt-water, so unfortunately this is one Japanese food I'm not that impressed with.

At Saga I visited 3 bike shops, all which only had kid-sized, old-school, crappy helmets. At the last bike shop, however, the guy called another bike shop in the area, and the girl from that shop came on her bike to pick me up and lead me there. We started talking, and it turns out that she had done a century just a few days ago. A century is a 100 mile race. In Japan, a century is the same distance, only it's 160km, instead of miles. They still call it a century, of course.

So, it turns out her shop, Tsukasa Cycle Shop, is run by her, her husband, and son. They have all the newest gear as far as bikes, helmets and everything, and while I was there, tons of hard-core cyclists came in and out. This was the best bike shop I've ever seen in Japan. And they were really friendly to boot. I showed of my Keirin gear and SF Bike Coalition shirt, and we talked of bike laws in Japan and America. One fellow came in and had a couple of scars from riding (or crashing, depending on how you want to look at it) his bike after drinking the night before.

So, after spending the 15,600 yen for the helmet (about $120 - kids, do not make this mistake: make sure to bring your helmet and other essential gear from home!), I said my good-byes, and left their shop after 5 p.m. I was trying to get as far as I could that night, and they told me about a city called Yamaga with hot springs that wasn't too far. I missed the signs, though, and around the time it was getting dark I got to the north part of Omuta, about 40 km away. There I found a large parking lot to pitch my tent, with a retaurant nearby. I had a katsu donburi (pork cutlet with egg on top of a bowl of rice) that was probably the best katsu donburi I've ever had.

Afterwards, I pitched my tent (after the last employees left the store with the parking lot) and slept. Around the middle of the night it started raining, so I had to move the tent and gear under a bit of shielding from the store, but didn't suffer much for it.