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-2-
Sept. 24, '08.
It was slightly overcast on the morning of the day of departure. He felt cool to the skin. He left home at 6 a.m. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of short pants with a backpack of about 10 kg. on his shoulders in a casual fashion. He wore gloves and a normal hat instead of a helmet. His bicycle for this trip was a Giant MTB (about \35,000, a bit of the granny's bike class) equipped with a speedmeter (about \3,000). He was happy because he could start this "happy-go-lucky bicycle trip" overcoming the unexpected accident of breakage of ribs. Resisting the temptation to run faster, he pedaled the bicycle at his own pace.
Don had come to Tsuchiura, Ibaraki prefecture once before. At that time, he had come to Kashiwa, Chiba prefecture through Route 16 and from there, he had entered Tsuchiura through Route 6. However, he decided to take a new route this time because the old route was a little bit of a detour. He left Route 16 at Noda about 10 km short of Kashiwa and passed over a bridge called "Mebuki Oohashi" over Tone River and then went into Tsuchiura across Tsukuba city that is a famous rural city.
It was a little after 4 p.m. when he arrived at Tsuchiura, a point about 100 km away from home. He should have arrived there much earlier, but he was a man having no sense of direction. A man having no sense of direction like him, tends to think that the direction his back faces, is always the direction to the starting point. He made a wrong turn at Tsukuba city and he lost much time because of it (Only a single wrong turn could result in loss of much time. It is something like the human life itself, isn't it?). He had, if his memory was correct, left Tsuchiura at 2 p.m. when he had come here last. He took a rest in a fast food restaurant. Then, he dropped in at a cell phone service shop of "au", where he made a plan change for his cell phone. Then, he got on the bicycle and ran toward Mito where he wanted to stay his first night. Two weeks had elapsed since he met the accident of breakage of ribs, and so he could almost forget that he had broken ribs. However, when a strong vibration applied to the ribs as in the case where he ran on a bumpy road, he remembered that he still had the broken ribs. He had to endure the pain because he started this trip at his own risk, ignoring his doctor's strong objection.
Night falls quickly in late September. About the road conditions of Route 6 in the area shortly after Tsuchiura, the driveway where cars pass was excellent but the sidewalk for bicycles was terribly bad. Wild weed grew here and there, and they suddenly appeared before him in the shape of a bush, pedestrian, animal or even ghost. He told himself that he could run slowly spending about 30 days (He was not yet aware of the fact that he had failed to bring his bankcard at that time).
About 8 p.m., Don decided to stay overnight at an old inn in a small town having the same name as the prefecture to which Mito belongs. His room was of a Japanese-style having four-and-a-half tatami mats. The bathroom was outside the room. He immediately came to worry about the money and other valuables. Since it was the first day of his travel, he still had about 160,000 yen in cash. In addition, he had a bankcard (he believed so...till that time). He worried that they might be stolen while he was out in the bathroom. And if stolen, he would become unable to continue his trip any further. Thinking about where they should be hidden, he checked the inside of his wallet and was surprised to find that he had failed to bring his bankcard. He was soon reminded that his PC had been invaded with spyware and so, he had expired the old bankcard and switched to a new one. The bankcard which he had brought with him was the old one which had been expired.
"Oh, my God !!"
Encouraging himself, however, he recalculated his trip expense and found that even if he should spend 7,000 yen a day, he could still make a 20-day trip and besides he would still have 20,000 yen left, which he might be able to spend for a round-trip ticket for the Seikan ferry boat between Aomori and Hakodate (He had preliminarily confirmed that the ticket price is about 16,000 yen).
"Well, no problem as long as I can complete this round trip in 20 days".
His positive thinking grew again.
"It was lucky that I had received 10,000 yen as a parting gift ("Senbetsu" in Japanese) from my wife".
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