<h2>Fun Friday for May 15th 2009</h2>
<p>[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/japanese/ff20090515.mp3[/podcast]<p/>
<p><a href=”http://media.libsyn.com/media/japanese/ff20090515.mp3″>Directly download the Fun Friday MP3</a></p>
<p>On this week’s Fun Friday Podcast, I interviewed Stone River and Goldhorn, two friends of mine who have just completed a 1200km bicycle tour of Japan. Their trip started in Tokyo and took them up the east Coast of Japan to Sendai via route 6. From there they cycled north west over the mountains, through some amazing hot springs and eventually Akita. From there they took a ferry to Sapporo their final destination. </p>
<p>Judging by the silly smiles on their faces they had a great time when I met up with them in Tokyo after they had completed the trip. According to them it went very smoothly and people were very supportive and helpful along the way. Although they broke a few spokes they didn’t get a single flat tire during the entire trip. When Stone handed back my bike which I had given him for the trip I managed to get a flat within five minutes of riding home. Thanks Murphy</p>
<p>We will be adding more detailed information about their trip soon including diary entries, equipment, things to take or not and general advice for the dos and don’ts of doing cycling tours of Japan. In the mean time, here is a partial map of their progress on the tour. </p>
<h2>The Grand Tour</h2>
<p> </p>
<iframe width=”640″ height=”480″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” marginheight=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ src=”http://www.google.com/maps/ms?source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&ie=UTF8&near=&split=1&msa=0&msid=100340913416573645891.000468d12bf8ca37698dc&ll=39.571822,140.339355&spn=8.127639,14.0625&z=6&output=embed”></iframe><br /><small>View <a href=”http://www.google.com/maps/ms?source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&ie=UTF8&near=&split=1&msa=0&msid=100340913416573645891.000468d12bf8ca37698dc&ll=39.571822,140.339355&spn=8.127639,14.0625&z=6″ style=”color:#0000FF;text-align:left”>Stone’s Tokyo to Hokkaido bike tour</a> in a larger map</small>
