Oku Nikko Loop

It's now the tail-end of fall, and I had hoped that this year I might do something special for the season of the changing leaves. I've been to Nikko before, but never during that period; from what I'd seen in pictures it seemed quite spectacular there.

I'd been to Nikko a couple of times, as I've written in my other blog. I spent a lot of time hiking there, but this time I wanted to bike around to get a better view of the whole area. I was able to find a great route on a mapping site, and set out.

Nikko-Lake Kawamata Loop

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

I managed to get a great deal of sleep the night before--often, because of the early hour I need to rise in order to have time to do everything I want to do, I only get a few hours sleep. This time I was well, rested, and it showed--when I got to the top of irohazaka, a daunting hill of switchbacks, I thought "that's it? It used to be a lot harder!" It was a great feeling, and I laughed and sang through a tunnel to Lake Chuzenji.

When I reached the little town that lines the northern edge of the lake, I overheard a woman say "looks like the changing of the leaves is over." Indeed, Mt. Nantai was bare. I was a little disappointed, but I had expected this, and was really more interested in the ride around the park.


I continued riding on to Senjogahara, a meadowland I mentioned in my previous post on Nikko. All that was to be seen this time were the beautiful white birches and, of course, the sense of wide open space not easily found in Tokyo. I ate lunch--a Koyadofu mabodofu, great with rice for bike trips.


Next, I headed to realms new to me: to that point I'd stuck near Chuzenji, but the path I'd found led off the beaten track into the mountains north of Mt. Nantai.


This new track, though, led to a series of switchbacks nearly as steep as irohazaka. I went up as fast as I could, though I was beginning to tire, but they were soon over. My effort was worth it: I found some really fantastic areas that I hope to explore further on foot some other time. There was a tiny valley that, from my vantage point up above, looked like a place made by magic (I didn't take a picture because I didn't want to ruin my memory of it), and a group of mountains still boasting a few trees with colored leaves, one of the mountains touched by an early-winter's frost (I did take a picture of this one). It was one of those places that but for the freezing weather you might want to stay forever, just taking it in.


I rode from there down into the valley around a lake called Lake Kawamata. This was less impressive, and the road seemed to go on forever--even looking back I cannot understand why it took so long to go around the lake. Next I met my third irohazaka-level series of switchbacks, and by this time I was ready to call it quits. It was getting dark and it was near or below freezing; my legs were out of the juice that had powered them on the way up the real irohazaka. But I made it to the top, or what I thought was the top; after that, it hit a ranch area that I thought would be flat before a descent into Nikko city, but in fact it steadily rose, at steep grades nearly as difficult as any of the other hills on the trip, and longer. Frozen and discouraged, I went up these hills at 9 kilometers an hour, not a whole lot faster than walking, telling myself how happy I would be, and proud of myself, once I got home. And then I looked up and realized that in compensation for my hard work, I had a good view of the stars, which I hadn't seen since since my trip to Nagano last year.

I finally made it to the top and began a chilly and surprisingly long descent to Nikko city. I made it just in time for the train home.

I want to do this ride again as it gets colder, watching the snow creep down the sides of the mountains. It is much clearer in colder weather, and I may even camp later in the year so that I can see the sunrise over white-clad mountains.

Bike commuting and Keirin

Well, I quit my eikaiwa job and got a part-time job as a proofreader. At the moment, I only have the part-time job, so money is a little tight, and I decided to start biking to work. It's something I should have started a long time ago, but going to a different school everyday meant finding a place to put the bike and take a shower, and I just never did. Besides, the old job paid for train fare; the new one does not.

So I've decided to commute by bike. I timed myself the first time and clocked an hour and a half; more recently, though, I managed to get there in an hour, only twenty minutes more than by train. Because it takes time to get to the station and wait for transfers, door to door it takes almost the same amount of time!


It was a pleasant ride the last couple of days, but it is Golden Week; a work day might be quite different.

The warmer weather has me excited about cycling again, so when I'm not on the bike, I'm looking at websites about bikes: travelogues that inspire me, fixed-gear cycling and the related urban bike polo, and keirin (track racing--A wikipedia article and the official keirin website.

Keirin is today's source of excitement--in particular, the keirin official website has archives of previous tournaments as well as on-demand streams. Something to do late at night rather than play old console games. I hope to get to the Matsudo race track at the end of the month. Another funny thing--Lawrence's sister city, Hiratsuka in Kanagawa, has a keirin velodrome. It'll be hosting the Youth Grand Prix and Grand Prix this Christmas.

One more thing about keirin--this Saturday, Nihon Terebi will be starting a reality TV show about keirin riders hoping to make it big. That same day, there will be a century ride on the Arakawa to watch during the day, so I'll have to record it somehow. The show starts at 10:30 am JST on May 10th.

A Vegan Thanksgiving

I've never been much of a fan of Thanksgiving, and with a huge dead bird and salt oozing in a gravy boat the symbols of the holiday, it doesn't exactly conform with my current diet. Still, there's a bit of nostalgia to reckon with, and, even more, I've been wanting to cook up a pumpkin pie ever since Halloween. So I searched the net and found a couple of recipes: one for lentil "meatloaf", and a couple for kabocha pie (using kabocha, Japanese pumpkin).

The lentil loaf was pretty tasty and chock full of healthy stuff, but it tasted nothing like meatloaf, as you might expect; rather, it tasted like filafel (not at all a bad thing!). It did have the consistency of meatloaf after it cooled, though, and it went well with a tofu gravy I had used as a white sauce for pasta earlier in the week. It lasted a couple of days (as all Thanksgiving meals should), and the best meal I made out of it was when I spread it on bread and poured on some hot salsa.

The interesting thing about the meatloaf recipe is that I used an automatic recipe maker that lets you put in the ingredients you have and get a fair recipe. The site is here.

What turned out for me (note I used tahini as my binder rather than any of the options in the loaf maker above, and I baked in a toaster oven at 1000W for ~45 min):

Lentil Loaf

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked lentils
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 cup pine nuts
2 Tbsp olive oil
One onion, diced
One large garlic clove, minced
One large carrot, peeled and grated
One cup mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
One jalapeno chile, seeded and minced
1/4 to 1/2 cup vegetable broth, as needed (I used kombu dashi)
1 heaping Tbsp tahini
1/2 tsp. dried sage
1 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 TB soy sauce

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350º. Spray a loaf pan or 8x8 square baking pan with nonstick spray and set aside (an 8x8 pan makes a crisper loaf).

Be sure to cook rice and lentils before beginning: the lentils should be cooked with kombu (use 5-10in of used kombu) for about 20-30 min.

1. Grind the pine nuts into a coarse meal using a food processor or spice/coffee grinder. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

2. Sauté vegetables in the olive oil until soft. Add to the large mixing bowl along with all the remaining ingredients. Mix and mash together well, adding only as much liquid as needed to create a soft, moist loaf that holds together and is not runny (you may not need to add any liquid if the grains and protein are very moist). Add more binder/carbohydrate as needed if the loaf seems too wet.

2a. Optional: mix together in a food processor for about 3-4 min.

3. Press mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until cooked through.

Let the loaf cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then turn out onto a plate or platter and slice. Serve with potatoes, vegetables, and vegetarian gravy, if desired.

The vegan white "gravy" recipe is available here.

In retrospect I wish I had added a glaze using the following:
10g sliced ginger
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp dashi
1 Tbsp arrowroot powder (kuzu 葛)

Mix them together and brush onto the top of the loaf, and tell me the results! I find this has a very nice "steak sauce" flavor, especially when the dashi is cooked off.

Finally, the kabocha pie was very good, but too sweet. I ended up using cinnamon graham crackers for my crust, which turned out to be the best part. I found the soy milk in the recipe for the crust was far too little: just add more until it is easily malleable. The recipe I used was here, but I (unfortunately) added 1/2 cup of sugar, which was too much. Use brown sugar or beet sugar, not white sugar!