Japan is all we had hoped; amazing scenery, delicious food, gracious people and endless rideable roads. But first...how we got here. Our trip back from Geoje to Busan was much quicker and less eventful than the gambit we ran on the inward leg thanks to an air-conditioned bus and bike lanes from the station to the ferry terminal. Luckily we decided to check in early as we discovered when trying to purchase our ferry passes that they will not sell you a ticket unless you have a departing ticket from Japan already booked. We were not sure if this was a special consideration for us slightly smelly and grungy looking bikers but assuming it was across the board we scoured the internet via patchy wifi for the cheapest, and most refundable ticket we could find out of Japan in a months time and hit BUY! For all those wondering, 'Why take a 11 hour overnight ferrry instead of flying?' All you need to know is all Japanese ferries have on-board soaking baths and fairly elaborate bathing rooms worth the price of admission. Not to mention that the quiet, comfortable bunks on the ferry paired with the droning engine made for one of the best nights sleep we had in quite a few days. 
Our ferry ride was over way too soon and we disembarked in our first Japanese stop, the small port town of Shimonoseki. Sleepy, quaint, and a perfect starting point for our time in Japan we started north up the west coast and on some beautiful roads with beaches and sun and smiling Japanese locals. We made good time finding that the 7-11's in Japan, along with a myriad of other convenience stores, are ubiquitous and generally offer free wifi, a good selection of inexpensive rice based snack foods and the most pleasant workers that one could imagine. Oh, and I almost forgot about the coffee...freshly ground beans and brewed to order, these little morning treats of liquid black gold bear no resemblance to the shockingly bad 64oz mega-gulp cousin that they attempt to pass off in the states as coffee.
Our first night was spent on a beach...literally camped on the beach, just above high tide line.
We took an evening swim, made dinner and drank a cold beer on the seawall as the sunset on our first wonderful day. Things kept up there positive bend as we made our way to Hagi, a historic Samuri village on the coast. Hagi had an abundance of beautiful old narrow streets and homes as they have looked for hundreds of years. We took another swim, followed by a cold, very needed shower, and found a local Udon noodle cafe. As we searched Hagi for a place to pitch our tent, we watched an amazing, fireworks display the origin for we had no clue about, that seemed to fill the sky wiith beautiful colors and shapes and seemed to last for over an hour.
Awaking with the sun, and what seemed like half of the elder Hagi population walking their dogs, we made our way to, you guessed it, the local 7 for our morning cup of joe. We met a fellow tourer, a young Japanese guy who had been on the move for a month up and down the country. He was jovial and happy to share tales over a bowl of cereal as the heat of the day crept upon us.
Getting started slightly later than we had hoped we started a climb east into the hills. Brutally hot and humid, we climbed a good part of the day, at times feeling like we were melting as the sweat poured from our bodies copiously and without any sign of stopping. We inched our way toward our destination, a campground we had read about, but were detoured briefly when Chiara noticed a laudromat, of which we had seeen very few. Insinuating that stopping was not an option we held up for an hour, drank a beer and some snacks and waited for our clothes, that had started developing a funk that is hard to describe to those that have never spent any significant time sweating profusely outdoors in a subtropical climate. We finished our day climbing a steep slope to an amazing camppsite with a view that may not be topped (though the trip is still young). We also met some new friends, a family with a young boy from Nagoya that were out on a camping vacation. I helped them with their tarp (height matters in these cases), they fed us sashimi and gave us advice for upcoming sites and then we finished another fantastic, though quite challenging, day with Hanabe (Japanese smalll fireworks).
No telling where things will lead but if the first few days hold any truth then we are in for quite a time in Japan!
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