Like riding a bike
So I bought a bicycle. Only five days after I arrived in Japan, actually – over two and a half months ago now. I pictured myself cycling everywhere: school, the supermarket, Anytime Fitness, my climbing gym, on daytrips, etc. After all, the public transport in Okazaki is not very convenient: infrequent buses that are usually not on time. And lots of my fellow students commute via bike.
Well, I walked it home, parked it out the front of my apartment building, and there it sat untouched for a full 40 days. I hadn’t cycled in at least 15 years, perhaps longer, but in that time I’d certainly read a lot of news articles about cyclists being killed or maimed on the road. So I needed a bit of practice, but I also needed to overcome a full-on psychological barrier. Unfortunately, the streets around my place aren’t as quiet as I would have liked for that.
At some point, though, I sheepishly disclosed the fact of my bike’s existence to Luca, and he very kindly offered to accompany me on a ride to build my confidence back up. So on a hot Tuesday afternoon in late May he came over and I pedalled very shakily and with much effort after his graceful, assured lead. First we rode to a local pond with a wide asphalt path and did a few laps, where I found that I could change direction or pass a pedestrian, but not both at the same time. Nevertheless we decided to head to our planned destination: AEON Mall, which is ordinarily 25 minutes from mine by foot or 18 by bus (11 spent walking to the stop). By bike it is, according to Google Maps, 9. In actuality it was certainly no less than 15, though we did take a slightly less direct route with fewer cars for my sake. But it definitely made for good practice, and I savoured every second of downhill travel – I’d forgotten how fun that part of riding a bike is. After some shopping we made it back to mine in one piece. I’d been exerting myself more than Luca and was drenched in sweat. My tires looked a bit flat, he said. Maybe it had something to do with that?
Jump forward two weeks. There’s a firefly festival in Nishio, one town over. Google Maps says it’s 50 minutes by bike, which seems reasonable to Luca when I tell him about it. On a pleasant Wednesday evening just before sunset he rides over. We try to use the plastic pump outside the front of my apartment complex on my tires, but it doesn’t seem to properly latch onto the valve, and we end up just letting more air out. Nevertheless we set off. Before long he’s way ahead of me, even though I’m working a lot harder. I notice my bike is shuddering, as if I’m running over the same piece of gravel with every revolution of the wheels. I catch up to Luca and show him. If my tires were possibly flat before, they’re definitely flat now.
Unfortunately we’ve cycled past the last of the bike stores, and we’ve been going downhill for a while. Plan A, then, is to ride to a police box that’s not too far out of our way. I read an article which says that they’ll pump your tires for free. If that falls through, there’s one last second-hand bike store we can try, about 2/3rds of the way to our destination. It’ll be closed by the time we arrive, but maybe there will be pumps left outside. I’ve seen them at other stores – during opening hours, anyway.
The lights in the police box are on, but nobody’s inside, so we cycle with increasing trepidation to the shop. There the lights are off, but – thank god – there are no less than three different pumps lying outside, and the first one we try has an adaptor attached which successfully connects to my tires. It makes a comically huge difference: I’m putting much less effort in to go faster than I was before. Speed provides stability, so I don’t feel like I’m going to crash into every other pedestrian, bicycle or car that passes by. My white-knuckle grip on the handlebars loosens, and cycling now seems like the easiest, most natural thing in the world. I finally understand the origin of the simile ‘like riding a bike’.
We pedal on, under the tracks of a passing bullet train, over cracked pavement sprouting tall grass, past flooded paddies and (allegedly) a gargantuan centipede, and at last into the woods, stopping briefly at a convenience store for Luca to get something to eat. Well, we’re also walking the bikes during uphill sections because our legs aren’t coping anymore. But suddenly there are handmade signs pointing us in the right direction, and before long we’re parking outside a nondescript toilet block. It’s 9:50 pm: what was supposed to take us 50 minutes has taken 2.5 hours.
Our destination is a boardwalked grove of trees and bamboo. It’s very dark and whatever festivites were supposed to have occurred are over. And unfortunately there appear to be about as many fireflies there as people: which is to say, about 10. Things initially seem promising when an old man points us at one that’s as bright as a phone screen in a movie theatre, but we quickly realise it’s an exceptional specimen. Luca and I are both wearing glasses, and it’s hard to tell a bug from a moonlit leaf swaying in the breeze, or the moon itself glinting through the canopy, or the effect of blood pumping through the vessels in our eyes, or even just a trick of the mind. Are we gaslighting ourselves? Maybe, or maybe we’re fireflylighting ourselves. Exhausted, there’s nothing to do except hobble around squinting while our legs hopefully recover enough to take us home. At least it’s not hard to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
We leave in under an hour now that we know it’s not going to take us 50 minutes to get back, as Google Maps continues to insist. We take a different route home that’s supposed to be flatter: along a highway. The footpath is wide enough that we can ride beside each other and talk the whole time, which is really nice. When at one point I’m defeated by a gentle uphill slope, I get off the bike and my quads immediately cramp so badly that I almost keel over. We have to stop for 5 minutes while I chug water and stretch very gingerly. In the end, we pull up to my apartment building at 11:58 pm. As it happens, though, that’s still not as late as I’ve usually been going to bed. I’m certain I won’t be able to walk the next day, but in the morning I’m fine, just tired as usual.
It’s been another three weeks since then and I haven’t cycled again. I think my fear of getting injured ironically makes me more likely to get injured, because I start wobbling everywhere when I sense a car coming up behind me. But I’m still happy to have finally used my bike. If it turns out that I only end up riding it when I’m going on excursions with Luca, that’s fine with me.
Last week, we had our end-of-term exams: grammar, speaking, reading and writing. I’ve already got my mark back for the reading exam and I’m pleased with it. My sense is that the speaking test also went decently, which I wasn’t expecting. But I reckon I could’ve done better on the writing test. I took an approach to the topic we were assigned which made it hard for me to express myself with what I’ve learnt so far. As for the grammar test, for some reason the entire student body takes it, so even if you’re only been studying for three months you’re going to be confronted with constructions you won’t learn until the end of your two years here. Of course, you’re not expected to get those questions right, but it still makes it hard to gauge how well you’ve done.
Tomorrow is the last day of term, so hopefully we’ll receive the rest of our test results. Alice is returning to Germany, so we had a farewell lunch for her this past Sunday. Luca and I have decided to go to Tokyo during the break. We’ll leave on Thursday for a full week. I probably won’t take my laptop, so it will likely be another fortnight until my next post, unfortunately.