Sayama Lake, Tama Lake & Totoro's Forest – My First Century Ride In Japan

It was almost two weeks after I arrived in Tokyo and I was able to finally settle. Everything from housing to work related stuff have been dealt with. Of course, I also registered my bicycle. It was a pretty easy process. I just went to a local Koban, along with my bicycle receipt that I printed from the email I received when I bought it years ago.

With that, I planned a 100-kilometer bicycle route from my apartment to a forest that inspired the aesthetics of Hayao Miyazaki's Tonari no Totoro. While looking at Google Maps, I saw two lakes near my destination and did a little research. I found out that these two lakes were the main water source of Tokyo residents. I immediately included it in my route and went there the next day.

It was my first ride outside my neighborhood and coming from the Philippines, the road quality here is far greater. The cars move faster but the drivers are more respectful towards bicycles and pedestrians. Of course, before I started riding here I didlots of research about the road rules. One major rule is whenever you want to take a turn in an intersection, you need to follow the two-step rule. You can never go into the middle of the road while in a bicycle in Japan. Unless you are overtaking something that blocks your way, you have to stay at the leftmost part of the road. So in order to—let's say, turn right in an intersection, you need to cross the intersection first. In the other side, since the stop light will be red to get to the right side, you have no choice but to wait. That is the legal way to cross an intersection. You can get fined if you get caught crossing incorrectly. I won't go over every rule but to me, the two-step rule in intersections is the most important thing that everyone should learn before they hit the road here.

Going back to the ride, I reached the Saitama area after travelling through Arakawa river. Most of the route to the lakes is on a bicycle road beside the actual road so it was a really easy ride. After a while I reached a flood wall. It felt a bit higher than the ones in Tokyo and you can see the view of the nearby town above it.

Continuing, I was able to reach the first lake, Tama lake. There weren't many people around and it was a pretty chill place. There's a long wide bridge where people exercise, fish, and sightsee.

I started a bit late around the afternoon so I did not stay around for a while. I continued the ride to the next lake, Sayama lake. I was surprised that they almost look identical. I double checked my map if I accidentally returned to the first lake but I was on the right path.

Continuing the ride, I was able to reach the forest after a few kilometers. But the area looks empty and I can't find a place to park my bicycle. After a while, I decided to just bring my bicycle in the trail by pushing it. Since its just a forest trail, it doesn't have too many steep parts and the path is wide. At the trailhead, you get greeted with a cute sign:

The trail is easy, but there are still lots of resting areas which feels really nice since the forest is cool even if I visited during the summer.

To be honest, I didn't see or feel anything special about the forest, it just looks like normal. It's really nice to see successful people falling in love with just normal things and not being too exaggerated and poetic about their inspiration for their work.

With my job, I don't really find any inspiration. I just do it for the satisfaction I feel after coding something that actually works and does what it supposed to do. But for the overall product, I don't really want to give too much care for it because at the end of the day, it's not actually mine. Once I get separated with the company, I will never own anything that I worked for. I have been working for the past 10 years and over time, the trust I have for these companies have deteriorated. Of course I still do my best since I am getting paid to do it and I want to prove my knowledge and skills, but I just don't give anything too much beyond my tasks and prevent working outside hours that I am paid for. I rather spend those time doing my own projects like my self hosted and home server stuff, travelling, playing video games, generally just doing stuff I actually like.

Anyway, back to the hike, it was really short and there's a shrine at the end of the route where I took a rest. I spent about 20 mins. and didn't see a single person around this area.

After the quick rest, I started my ride back home.

It was a nice first long ride and I was able to experience the road in Japan. The city part is bit hard to get used to because of the stoplights and intersections but once you get to a residential or rural area, it gets very chill. As I said, I came from a country where road conditions are really bad and safety is almost not a concern, so I was culture shocked in a good way. I really enjoyed it. There were also some interesting colored manhole covers around the lakes in Saitama and I heard that they're everywhere in Japan so here's some that caught my eye:

There were actually more of them that I didn't stop and take a picture though. I found out after that this is actually a thing here and there's even some collaborations with Pokemon and other franchises.

I only took a few pictures during this ride because I was recording the ride with a GoPro. Here's the video if you're interested: