November 21, 2025
Day 80 — Shimonoseki to Nakatsu
Marilee here.
Urk, what a night. We did not arrive back in Japan with the same level of perky adventurousness with which we greeted Busan. Possibly because we were going into another long weekend in Japan (Labour Thanksgiving Day on Sunday, thus a day off for everyone on Monday) the return ferry was almost fully booked, so Tom and I were sharing a second class cabin with three other couples. It was a Japanese style room with futons on the floor.
Now, put any eight middle aged people together overnight and what do you suppose the odds are of there being a snorer among them? 95%? 98%? Well in this case there were 3 of them!
The main culprit was a lovely Korean man, and we had a great chat with him and his wife when we first boarded the ship. Then later in the evening he gave us a big roll of delicious Kimbap (like Korean sushi, but without the raw fish). So I feel a little bad about the murderous thoughts I had about him all night long as I lay there listening to his incessant snores. He had a great sleep, but the rest of us suffered for it.
We disembarked back in Shimonoseki feeling a bit nervous: the whole purpose of this side trip was to get a fresh 90-day Japanese visa to allow us the time to complete our north to south odyssey. What if it didn’t work for some reason? What if Japan didn’t let us back in? Well, our worries were needless, everything went smoothly and we can stay in Japan until mid-February (although we plan to leave in mid-December).
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We hadn’t had a chance to get the on board breakfast, so by the time we cleared customs we were feeling a bit hollow. As we biked through town we had our eyes peeled for someplace to eat, but breakfast restaurants don't seem terribly common here. We were resigning ourselves to grabbing food at a combini when improbably, a big Starbucks appeared at the side of the road. North American sized coffees seemed called for after our sleepless night, so we pulled over.
Next order of business: leave Honshu (for the third and final time). We needed to cross over to the island of Kyushu to continue the next leg of our journey south. The two islands are so close that there is not only a bridge between them, there’s also a pedestrian/bike tunnel running under the harbour.
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The tunnel was apparently the longest underwater pedestrian tunnel in the world when it was built. Of course, that was in 1958. Today, to be honest, the tunnel is showing its age, and we both quickened our pace in the very middle when we encountered puddles and a loud sound of rushing water in the grates underfoot.
Across the harbour from Shimonoseki on Kyushu is the city of Kitakyushu, which we wheeled into after emerging from the tunnel. It had a heritage port area with old brick buildings similar to those we toured in Hakodate, back in Hokkaido, but today we didn’t stop to poke around. Now I really wish we had, since those few blocks were the last charming thing we saw all day.
After the heritage streets we turned onto a highway that we followed all day long, which led us first through an industrial area of factories and warehouses, and then into the familiar inter-urban no-man’s-land of towns merging endlessly into one another. There are no pictures for the rest of the day because the traffic was relentless and the shoulder-to-sidewalk and back again game demanded our full attention.
We stopped for lunch and had excellent ramen in a corner noodle bar to keep us going through the afternoon. Our main observation from this day of cycling: “why are there so many car dealerships?”. There are way more car dealerships on these highways than you would believe. An endless parade of Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Daihatsu. Plus the odd independent dealer, like “Euro Mode Egoist” or “Old Boys Motorcycles”, both of which we passed today.
Well, the afternoon passed and we got through the mileage that needed to get done. We had booked a room for the night at a hotel chain that we’ve seen a few times on our travels. Called The Yard, it is essentially a collection of shipping containers outfitted as hotel units, and usually located in big parking lots on the fringes of cities. That description probably makes it sound a bit dire, but they don’t look bad, they’re attractively priced, and when I found out that they come with a free frozen dinner, I was sold. So we tried it out tonight, and it was quite fine: a shower, a bed, and better cycling to look forward to the next day. All good!
Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 4,061 km (2,522 miles)
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