Solo Biking the Shimanami Kaido | PART 1 | Cycling in Japan | しまなみ海道、尾道、今治

Welcome to today's video! Today we have a super fun adventure planned because I am going to be biking the Shimanami Kaido. A route that goes between six different islands, six different bridges, and uses a ferry. So I'm going to be doing a weekend trip here solo biking from Hiroshima to Shikoku Prefecture. I came to the place where I am now which is Onomichi by Shinkansen last night. Had a little bit of ramen for dinner and then stayed overnight in my hotel. Now it is bright and early and I am going to be renting my bike at the nearby station and then taking a ferry over to start the adventure. But I am super excited! I've been looking forward to this Shimanami Kaido trip for a long time so I hope you enjoy coming with me and seeing what it's like to bike the Shimanami Kaido in Japan! And something new for this trip too is that I am wearing some biking shorts underneath these so it feels very strange but I heard that it can be very painful on the buttocks if you don't have them or if you don't bring your own seat. So I was able to order a pair of biking shorts and I'm hoping that they will help with the long time that I will be on the bike. So I just checked out of my hotel which was the Urashima Inn. It was a great place for an overnight stay but now I am going to be going to a nearby cafe that opens early, grabbing a bite to eat, and then heading to the rental cycle station near the port. So it's a beautiful morning here in Onomichi and I am going to be enjoying every moment of it. Looks like the bakery is headed in this little arcade. It's very quiet in the morning, not many people are up. A little nostalgic atmosphere. And this is the little bakery on our left that we have Pan Yasan. Open from 7am until 6pm but they can run out of stuff so come early if you would like to make sure you get stuff in time. The cafe was quite cute. Very small where you just pick up your stuff and then leave but they had a fresh assortment of baked goods including bagels, lots of different breads, they even had focaccia so it was a little hard to choose but I picked up two things that I will be enjoying here. I'm going to be eating on this little seaside wall and having a quick bite and then we'll be off. But one of the things I got I'll show you really quick. So I picked up one thing which is a green soybean or edamame and bacon crescent roll and then another which is kind of like a pizza with wild boar and mushrooms. Ooh la la. I'm not a coffee person in the morning but I do love a good breakfast. Full of soybeans and bacon. Just finished a very nice meal by the water. Now I am walking back to the station to where the rental cycles are. By the way that bread was really good. I probably ate too much too fast but couldn't stop myself. It was delicious and had a nice crisp so now I am full and ready to use that energy to get on these islands. You can see across the water that there is a small building that says Mukai-shima dock and Mukai-shima is the island that we will be heading to first and we're actually going to be taking a ferry to Mukai-shima which is just a few minutes ferry but that is because the cycling road between Onomichi and Mukai-shima is actually pretty dangerous and very narrow so they really really much prefer and want bicyclists to take this first ferry over to Mukai-shima before starting the route. So this will be the first and only ferry that we will hopefully take but we are going to go into Mukai-shima. So right by the parking lot a little bit past the wharf is our rental cycle entrance but there have been many signs to show you how to get there and now there are lots of rental bikes to see. Okay I just picked up my bike from the rental place. I was able to try it out, gave the gears and brakes a little bit of a test and I put on my little bike bag so I can take a little bit of load off my shoulders and now we're ready to head to the ferry to actually start this trip. So I'm super excited, a little bit nervous but it's time to get to that ferry and see what happens. So let's go! So here is the ferry. We are going to be boarding it along with all these school students it looks like and the ferry is 100 yen for adults and an extra 10 for bikes. So we will be paying the fare on the ferry and it's gonna be a squishy one. Really? Lame. So the ferry's back, they let me board the last ferry so now I'm the first one for this ferry. These ferries can get quite packed but we are at the front this time and it'll be just a quick six-seven minute ride. Looks like we have made it. This is Mukai-shima. So we got off of the ferry very easily, just walked off and now you can see these blue arrows on the road. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the shimanami kaido marker for the recommended route to follow. But we are officially now starting our trip on the shimanami kaido route. So our first goal will be the Inoshima bridge and this will be the bridge that will take us to Inoshima island and we will be following this blue route for the beginning and it's not particularly beautiful right now. It's pretty streets and cities but hopefully in a while we will be by the water and able to see a nicer view. We got off of the ferry just around 8 30 maybe a little bit beforehand and now we are on the route towards the sea. The first part of my journey is actually supposed to be quite flat and easy so I'm really going to enjoy that while it lasts but especially tomorrow near the end there are supposed to be some really aggressive climbs so hopefully today is kind of the warm-up day and then tomorrow will be where we put the pedal to the metal. I guess that doesn't really work for biking but tomorrow and maybe once we get to the bridges today I'll be able to see how much of a thigh killer it is. But right now the bike that I rented feels quite good. It's snappy on its brakes and I'm able to zoom along these flat nicely paved streets pretty well so that's a good sign. It's just a beautiful morning here. We have a slight breeze and beautiful skies. Usually I'm blessed with more of a gray cloudy kind of climate but today the sun is shining down and that's going to make it super nice once we get to the water's edge. But the cool thing about the Shimanami Kaido route is that while there is a recommended course that takes you across six major islands there are lots of other smaller islands around that you can kind of put into your itinerary and customize as you wish. So if you have a longer time in this area you can put in some more of those smaller islands and if you're more of a experienced biker and can ride a lot faster then in the same amount of time you can hit a lot more places. So it's just a lot of islands in the Seto Inland Sea that one can visit by bicycle made super easy by the whole ecosystem that has been built around this area. Up ahead it's saying that the Inoshima bridge will be in 3.4 kilometers. Wow and up ahead you can see the Inoshima bridge in front of us. Let's go pull over to this little pagoda so I can show you a little bit better our first bridge. It'll be fun to climb that. And here is the bridge a little bit closer. Inoshima bridge connecting right now Mukai-shima to Inoshima so we'll be heading to that island next. So that was a nice little break just very short took a sip of water but got to see the Inoshima bridge while standing still and so now we're heading towards it and continuing to follow this blue line that is going to be the guide guideline for the whole trip. Well not the whole trip but it's going to be most of the guideline. But look at this. Just saw a sign on the road that says we have 69 kilometers to Imabari which is a lot a lot a lot of kilometers to go but we'll we'll break through them slowly but surely. 1.1 kilometers until the Inoshima bridge. I just passed under it but we'll have to go around and up in order to actually ride across it. But there are a lot of other bikers on the road now. You can see these guys in front of me they have some nice assist bikes I think so maybe a little bit jealous once my legs start to get more tired but they just zoomed past me on a little bit of elevation that we had. But it's okay gonna make the meals worth it and burn off those breads I ate this morning. Looks like we're going to have a turn off to our left. What's really nice is that this path looks super well marked. Not only are there signs but there are also markers and countdowns on the road as well so whether you're looking up or down hopefully you cannot get too lost while you're on this route. So we will have a three percent grade for about 1.1 kilometers as we make our way up to... it's kind of nice it feels like this is all bike bike only so don't have to worry about any cars right now. Makes this safe and calm. Actually right now if this is what climbing the bridges is like it's actually not too bad. I expected a lot more steep but maybe this is one of the easier bridges so I shouldn't talk too soon but it's actually quite nice and yeah you could definitely hear my breathing but that's trying to talk and bike at the same time. Well yeah not too bad right now doing our first of the six bridges and hoping that I can keep up this energy for the rest of the ride. While the slope here is pretty gradual it does continue for quite a while so I've been biking a little bit feeling a little sweaty but I think we are almost there. I can see the bridge. Oh here we are. Let's look at this really quick. Inoshima bridge 1,270 meters across and it will take us to our next island Inoshima. So another great little map here we started at the Onomichi ferry took that across we've been biking along this path here did this little curve to get up to the bridge and now we are going to go across the span of this bridge is 77 meters and then we will go back down enjoy that potential energy and arrive on Inoshima island. Nice. And then it will be from here 13 kilometers until this next Ikuchi bridge. And then here we have the little elevation map right now you can kind of see we are here at the Inoshima bridge went up will be flat for a little bit and then we'll have a couple more flat parts until we get to the next bridges and then yeah this is going to be tomorrow where we might get a little bit winded at the end. Here we go bicycles and motorbikes and actually pedestrians can come here too. So going along oh it feels so nice this air look at this bridge it's super cool welcome to Inoshima island going across that bridge was so fun and like very relaxing looking out to the left and right there was super nice blue waters on both sides and it was quite long but very flat and peaceful so now we are on Inoshima island and I am on the hunt for some citrus daifuku. Let's go see if I can find some. Of course it's a lot of work to get up to these bridges but the the nice part is afterwards you get to sail down them enjoying the little rest on the legs. So we have come to our next island this is actually our second island of the day we were first at Mukai Shima now we are at Inoshima and still have quite a long ways to go but it's been a very enjoyable time and I'm actually quite surprised to see so many pedestrians there were some pedestrians crossing the bridge and there's a guy climbing this route up to cross the bridge also so even if you don't have a bike you can also walk so right now we are going on a little detour we are off oh gosh it got one sec while I adjust my gears okay that was a bit of a shock it became steep all of a sudden and I was on my downhill high gear but we are going on a little detour to Hasayaka I think is the name I will put the right name in the video caption but I'm gonna go get some treats so we just came over this bridge and down it and now I'm at this little restaurant called Hasakuya and the reason why it's called Hasakuya is because they sell this very special daifuku called Hasaku daifuku and it is supposedly filled with a little citrus so I'm a huge fan of daifuku so I'm going to enjoy this and then we also have some Hiroshima mikan so some Hiroshima orange juice just to get a little bit more liquid in the system and a bit of sugar so it's really nice they have some merchandise here lots of different citrus goods and then a view out onto the bridge that we just came over so a super lovely place first off let's pop this bad boy open totally forgot to shake it if that's necessary but there's little pieces of orange in here so I can kind of like drink it and eat it at the same time it's nice that it's chilled my face is getting red already and it's pretty sweet lovely lovely now almost too cute to eat is this daifuku here's the daifuku here we go there is a citrus slice in here yum it's super sweet and juicy usually when you have these kind of daifuku it's called the bread bean paste so it's sweet but not juicy and I love the juice in this hasaku daifuku definitely try this when you're in Inoshima just had a wonderful stop at the hasakuya where I had the daifuku snack and got to look at the bridge now I'm going to be heading to the Ikuchi bridge which is the next one on the end of Inoshima island and continuing from there so pretty much going to be a straight shot going to go right through Inoshima island to get to this next bridge so now we are back on the blue line gonna stick to this for a little bit had a nice little detour but just passed a sign on the road saying we are 64 kilometers from Imabari so still have a really really long way to go but we are making slow and steady progress we're getting some mountains and looks like some farmlands on this little part that we have right here kind of reminds me of Itoshima I've mentioned before on this channel one of my favorite places and where I've actually gone cycling probably the most and recently I did a Fukuoka city to Itoshima city bike trip in order to actually prepare for this shimenami kaido a great place to bike that I recommend you go visit if you are in Kyushu and in Fukuoka for sure now behind me we have an exciting next bridge this is the Ikuchi bridge and the one that I've been heading towards and it looks quite awesome the wires that are coming down look really cool and again look at this water that we have around us so this will be our next goal the Ikuchi bridge that will take us across to the next island all right we have 1.1 kilometers until we reach the Ikuchi bridge it was nice knowing you Inoshima I almost forgot the name of this island because I haven't been stopping much hey look at that we have the Ikuchi bridge coming into full view in front of us and also just passed the marker saying 56 kilometers to Imabari wow look at this bridge here we have it bridge number two time to go across and on to the next island also in case you need anything along the route there have been plenty of convenience stores so you can stock up on water car sweat peanuts I mean those are my favorite things but anything you need at a convenience store they also have bathrooms usually too so we are here and we have the lovely incline one more time so there's another average of three percent for 1.2 kilometers okay crack crack those are my gears shifting did I make this easier for myself okay 1.2 kilometers actually looks very close but we will be almost going across this nice Ikuchi bridge look at this view before we go across the bridge let's take a gander at what it looks like instead of the other bridge where we're below this is actually a bridge where you are on the side of the cars but that way you can see the water much clearer on the route oh look at that view of the bridge Imabari 53 kilometers away and we're almost back down see some cars again nice little break is over oh there's a 7-eleven down here like I said in case you need peanuts or picari or pit stop triple p and we will be turning left welcome to Ikuchi-ma well that was another lovely bridge we are now officially in Ikuchi-ma we're officially now in Ikuchi-ma and I'm feeling a little bit hot are you because our next stop is going to be a gelato place yes we are getting gelato here in Japan let's go cool off and bike a little bit around to get some gelato so it is now 11 18 we have crossed the bridge and are heading to our snack our next snack so update we have gone through two bridges this is the third island and overall still feeling really good of course when the hills come out of nowhere I'm a little surprised by it and have to quickly shift the gears but overall there's been a lot of flat land and I know right now I'm kind of taking the easier half I would say I'll see how how I feel about this tomorrow but I've seen people of all ages on this cycling route and because of all the different bikes available those with assistance and then those for going super speedy fast feels like it's really a an activity that many people can do and if you have a nice weather day like this it's really nice so I feel like I'm about halfway through today it's been three hours like I said I bike fast and then take many stops so I think that equals pretty slow still but it's not a it's not a race I just want to get to my hotel tonight in time to kind of relax a little bit and I have some things planned in the evening time too so I want to give a little bit of time for that the next bridge that we have coming up is going to be the tatara bridge and that is in 10.1 kilometers so unlike the other bridges that we've been crossing where it was the ikuchi bridge to go to ikujima and inoshima bridge to go to inoshima this one has a little bit of different naming why I don't know just a fact all right we have made it to deloche this is a place that sells dessert juice cafe ice cream and it is right by the water and right along the blue route which you can see here so you you cannot miss it unless your eyes are closed but look for the ice cream cones and the orange and the big sign overall got lots of different flavors here chocolate chips sorbet citrus green tea lemon sea salt milk here's the ice cream this is the haruka which is a sweet citrus I said it's an orange but it tastes lemony but perfect for this hot day full of exercise so we are back on the road had a little stop for some gelato by the sea doesn't that sound magical it was quite good and now I am heading a little bit further going to hopefully get some lunch at our next stop and see a temple we are now heading towards our next stop and I think for today I'm about two-thirds of the way done I feel my legs a little bit but it's just been like a nice nice constant exercise so there are definitely lots of other cyclists that I've seen along the way but everyone seems to be enjoying this great weather and following the blue line I've been off of this blue road for a while because I was on the the sidewalk but just saw a little marker that says we have 47 kilometers to Imabari that's like making moves I was gonna say halfway but we're not halfway there yet but it's definitely we went from 70 down to 47 not bad definitely not bad so we are at another little detour this is called Kousanji and it is a temple so just like one street over from the main street gonna hop on over here looks like they have some nice bike racks for us whoa holy moly this is a cool temple this place is fantastic there are so many cool little elements here just the buildings pagodas even these pillars are carved and decorated with different paints it's really cool there is supposedly a cave of a thousand buddhas in here at first I didn't realize it but they're on the sides here it's really nice and cool in this cave actually this little ogre getting tortured classic they're just images of hell I think and uh lots of dismemberment I'm not sure where this leads to oh but I feel like we are getting salvation and we're starting to head up so maybe that was a hell that we went to at the bottom and we are coming back up to and at the very exit we have a huge towering dude another part of this temple is the hill of hope which is a marble garden made of over three thousand three thousand tons of marble so you can actually see it when you're biking from the road some of this white structure but it's quite magnificent this is at the top of the garden and then you can see the water out to the side and just barely the street that we were biking on before coming here while this was kosanji temple it is quite impressive and very big you could definitely spend a lot more time here than I did so if you really want a break from the biking you can spend some time there are benches in very nice spots as well as toilets and lots of things to kind of roam about roam around and then these uh pagodas and structures are just really beautiful so it is a little bit expensive right now when I went it was 1400 yen but it is quite a different view than you will see even at other temples here in Japan so I recommend giving it a try and stopping by if you are in the area so I just finished lunch at Chidori which is this taco restaurant over here taco meaning octopus so I had octopus tempura with soba as well as octopus rice which is one of their specialties it was so much food I am very full but I am going to be biking off now I'm going to get back on the road and continue on this journey so let's go continue on shimanami kaido well I was planning to bike back to Omishima but I got distracted with a cafe that I saw along the way this was the cafe via shimanami and what's cool about this cafe is that they have a lot of really unique bike wear so they have jerseys and t-shirts and all that stuff and one of their designs is from this Japanese designer and it's all about the shimanami kaido so you can actually see this character on this car here on her hair there are the bridges and she just represents all of the shimanami kaido onomichi this seito area so I did get a shirt from this shop a polyester shirt to keep me cool on these hot days but it took me a long time I was browsing for a while but this shop is really cool if you're looking for some souvenirs along the way that are bike related they have gloves and t-shirts so you can stop by cafe via shimanami on the way and now I am going to be going it's gotten quite hot I don't know if my cheeks or my glasses are hotter or pinker but just a little bit more until we reach the next island where we will be staying the night and I think I see the next bridge ahead still in the distance quite a bit but the uh tara tara bridge or the not the tartar bridge but the t the t double t bridge is coming up so you can clearly see now the bridge we are going to challenge next and there has been a headwind recently kind of light but annoying but this is our next bridge looks really cool with all of its suspension cables and quite long actually I'll have to check the length of this bridge but it looks pretty long so we're gonna take a little left tatara bridge that is the name tatara bridge we are going left to go up another one of these inclines shift the gear shift the gear okay another 0.3 percent 1.2 kilometers starting to feel my legs a little bit not gonna lie getting a little tired but really after this bridge we are golden for today because the place I'm staying is really close to the bridge all right friends we have been putting in the work and we have made it to the tara tara bridge right now we are right over here about to cross this bridge but we came all the way from ikujima and now we will be heading into omishima which is shikoku so we came all the way from hiroshima today and we'll be entering shikoku soon this is the roaring dragon where we are at this apex or center part of the bridge so if you clap you can hear the roaring let's give it a go one sec one sec touching that girl this is the roaring dragon in the middle of the bridge we are heading towards the cyclist sanctuary get do with the sanctuary right now cyclists sanctuary oh yeah there's a food court there's another rental station over here but we have just come to the other side of this path these guys are even bike holders if i'm correct look at that well everyone welcome to shikoku we are officially in ehime prefecture when we crossed the bridge we crossed from hiroshima into ehime and so now we are in a different prefecture but you can see behind me we have the bridge that we crossed from booped to boop to here and it is quite a feat that i am proud of we have come to our lodging for today it is a hotel called waka right here this is waka both a cafe hotel and i think that's it cafe and hotel but i will be checking in and then seeing what the place is like and surprise i am not staying in a room like per se but i'll show you what it's like after i check in so i just checked into the hotel and i can already tell it's super cool but let's give a run down this is where we can put the bikes so you can see bikes galore bikes bikes bikes and then down this little hall there is the water because we are going to be right by the water we are going to be sleeping in one of these domes dome life right by the water and with a cafe where breakfast will be served tomorrow morning so there are also these rooms that are more like rooms they look out onto the water as well and then this will be my little home for the evening welcome to the waka hotel time to enjoy a little bit of relaxation now voila welcome to the dome with a view of the sea so i am done with biking for today i'm going to give myself a little bit of downtime and then i am going to be taking a shuttle to the nearby shrine and then uh the reason why i'm taking the shuttle well one i want to rest and i'm not that hardcore but also because in the area there's also a brewery that i want to go to so no drinking and biking going to go to the shrine and then going to go to salt bath going to go to an izakaya and then coming back here for the night but before the shrine going to enjoy my little little home for tonight the cutest little dome so now i get to relax at the cafe it is what time is it it is about 4 30 so in the shade now feeling a little bit tired but getting a smoothie one thing that would also have been super awesome is that this hotel offers barbecue sets for people who are doing the like dome camping and you have to be two people or one person that pays for the amount of two people which i didn't really want to do but it looks super cool and to just chill here and do a barbecue sounds really amazing so i will definitely want to come back with friends and do that here but i think that is a great itinerary plan for anyone out there who is looking to bike have an awesome night awesome relaxation time and then bike again so that would be my recommendation although i can't do it myself solo travel problems here we are at the oyamazumi shrine this is a important shrine but i got dropped off by the shuttle bus and now going to do a very quick walk around because this evening there are still lots to do but it's very peaceful and up ahead we can see a big camphor tree this area is known for its camphor trees now for the first time today we are walking along the street instead of biking it's so much slower but this is the choice for tonight you can see a little blue line this one is actually not the main shimanami kaito route but actually a route for for seeing the island explorer it's called the island explorer route i think so it's just like a extra detour they have those too but i just stopped by for a quick look at the shrine and now we're walking about 20 minutes which is by the sea and a little bit a ways here but it is still sunny but in a little bit we will have sunset this is so pretty we are back by the water the sun starting to go down behind the mountains and yeah very pretty i think up ahead is the the hot spring we're heading to i have noticed that everyone here is so kind i will walk by groups of students groups of people and everyone will be like konnichiwa and i'll be like konnichiwa i just feel like people are a lot more happy and greeting forward on this little island but enough of that we have reached mare gracia here on our left open from 10 till 8 p.m with last entry until 7 30 must be nice to have wheels place the shoes in take the key here we go i just finished my bath at the onsen it was really cool they had a salt bath and then there was a sauna a cold bath lots of massage baths and one we could also look out into the water from like little panels and i just left and the sun is going down right over the mountain so going to try to get a good view right before it goes down but we have sunset here which is also magical now i am going to be walking back the way i came to go to the brewery hopefully i can catch it right before it closes so for the bath a few things to note there is no soap or towels provided so either bring your own or you can buy them at the counter the wako hotel that i stayed at my room came with a little pass that got me in for free so if you have one of those that is great you can use that and i think the walk took me a little less than 20 minutes from the shrine but i was actually walking quite briskly and oh for the salt bath that is a very big bath that they have but they tell you to only use it for about five minutes because then you can start to feel really fatigued so enjoy the different baths and some of them have special scents to them and there's a sauna too and you can look out into the water from one of them so good place but make sure to bring your own towel and toiletry items and up ahead we have come to the onishima brewery tastes banana-y very delicious wow i am so tired and instantly night has fallen but we have one last place to go and that is dinner we're going to an izakaya but that brewery was not at all that i expected it was probably the most chill brewery i've ever been to the drinking area for the seating area was japanese tatami mats and you could see the brewing and now time for dinner this is where we're eating kitsune no but let's go eat dinner well i am back in my little tent dome wearing the strangest room wear ever this was provided by the hotel and it was really quite a quite a fashion statement but anywho i was able to get dinner at a very fun izakaya and it was full of very unique small plates i got a torched tuna with cocoa nibs sauce as well as a fried fish cake tempura and rakkyo which is kind of like a pickled shallot so i ate a lot of different things and the owners of the restaurant were very nice and then i was able to catch the last shuttle back that my hotel runs so i have washed up as i said i'm in this strange room where but i am so tired and ready for a good night's sleep if i can't sleep well tonight i don't know i don't know what it's gonna take but i am ready to hit the sack and i still have half of a another bike ride left for tomorrow so i'm gonna rest up for that and be ready for bright and early tomorrow breakfast