Matigo dot See, eh?

When Ayumi and I go on adventures, there is always at least one memorable event during the journey that will outshine many aspects of the destination. This is one of the many things that I look forward to while on the road with the puppy dog. Today, however, was a first in terms of dread.

The day's journey started out well enough. We went for a walk in the park we had camped at around 7:30 in the morning and explored the green spaces with the help of sunlight. An hour later we were on the road to a coffee shop where I hoped to "borrow" a power outlet to recharge the Anker portable batteries, which had been depleted the day before. The coffee was plentiful, but the outlets were all in use by people who looked like they were avoiding their office. From there we enjoyed a meandering trek through the mountains and valleys of southern Kōchi Prefecture. Everywhere we looked there was green, green, and more green. Why does anyone move away from here?

After a short stop to stretch our legs, we continued towards Sukumo, a tiny fishing village with an Eneos gas station¹. As we travelled on a coastal road overlooking the ocean, I looked in the rearview mirror and spotted a police motorcycle passing the vehicles behind me with his lights on then matching my speed once behind me.

Uh oh.

The road was clearly marked as 50km/h and I was doing about sixty-five on account of not paying attention to the speedometer. There was no shoulder to pull over to, so I kept going to the first intersection, where I expected to be told some instructions about where to stop so the traffic behind could continue. Instead I heard this:

この道路は時速50キロゾーンです。 減速してください！²

The traffic cop had said this over his speaker so that every car behind me could hear it, too.

I apologised for driving too quickly and he turned his bike around to repeat the expectation to every car in earshot.

減速してください！

He drove off and a few seconds later we all started driving again … not exceeding 50 kilometres per hour.

This is the first time that I've been stopped by the police anywhere and it had me cursing my lack of attention given that I usually play a game called "Cops and Copens" while driving, where I keep my eyes open for any cops and any Copens³ and count them. Sure, I've been paying more attention to the natural beauty of Japan's southern prefectures these past few days, but it does not excuse the lack of attention. Not just with the lapse in playing the silly game, but in breaking my own rule of not exceeding the posted speed limit by 10kph. As this is the first year I've had a license in the country, I need to be extra careful to not get any speeding tickets, parking tickets, or worse. If my driving record does not appear spotless to the police for the first year, license renewals become much more complicated and tedious.

Attention is key.

After the traffic stop, Ayumi and I continued towards the gas station. We passed two more speed traps along the way without any complications and upset more than a handful of drivers behind us who did not know there were police on the roads ahead.

Hopefully there won't be any repeats of this in the near future. I don't speed excessively very often, but it's always the time when you're not paying attention that a cop – or one of those automated photo radar stations – will levy a fine to remind us that limits exist.

1. I only use Eneos if it's at all possible. Gasoline from the other places does not seem to be as effective as the regular stuff from Eneos.

2. This road is a 50km/h zone. Please slow down.

3. The model of Daihatsu car that I drive.

Cherry blossoms are blooming across much of Japan and people are getting outdoors to take pictures, enjoy picnics, and otherwise enjoy the warmer temperatures that spring has to offer before the heat and humidity of summer forces us all indoors again. Over the past few weeks Ayumi and I have enjoyed visiting parks in Aichi, Shizuoka, Nagano, Chiba, Ibaraki, Fukushima, and even Miyagi. However, all of these trips have involved leaving in the morning and returning in the evening. Now that the weather is a bit warmer what I'd like us to do is explore some places that are a bit farther out, ideally spending the night away from home.

Day trips are certainly a good bit of fun, but often limit the amount of time that Ayumi and I can spend in a given location. When we travelled to Sendai in Miyagi, we were there for just two hours before turning around and driving back. Sure, we had spent some time exploring some of the parks and beaches in Fukushima along the way, but the time constraint certainly limited how much we could see in that interesting city. Given that one of my silly goals for the coming years is to visit every lighthouse in the country, Ayumi and I will need to get accustomed to sleeping away from home.

Over the past few years there have been a number of hotels that offer "pet-friendly" rooms. These are advertised to people who want to travel with their canine or feline companions and generally come with access to a dog park, a special meal, and a warm space to sleep in the hotel room. However, as these are clearly a "luxury item", the prices are a bit excessive. I like my dog a lot, but spending upwards of $150 per night to sleep somewhere is out of the question. What we need is a better alternative; and sleeping in the car is not an option¹.

A common scene that Ayumi and I find when visiting faraway parks is an open area with a number of tents. These are not "picnic tents" used by families enjoying an afternoon out, but temporary shelters put out generally by people who want to fish early in the morning or travellers touring the country on their motorbike. Not every park has a camping section, but this has been common enough for me to do a bit of research. Apparently, there are hundreds of parks across the country that allow overnight camping for free. There are many more that do not permit tents past 7:00pm, but the ones that do allow overnight stays can be found all over the country. When travelling to places that are well off the beaten track, it's also easy to find privately owned camp sites that charge as little as $20 for a single person with a dog to stay.

This may be the way to go.

To the best of my knowledge, Ayumi has never slept outside. I haven't gone camping in 35 years. We're both going to be bad at this at first but it makes sense to give this a try. If it's something we both enjoy, then we can plan trips from Hateruma in the south to Cape Sōya in the north and everywhere in between.

So where should we go first?

Last week, while taking a look at some maps and looking for interesting places to explore, an island caught my attention: 柏島 – Kashiwa Island.

There is nothing particularly remarkable about this piece of land jutting out of the ocean other than it shares the name – and kanji – of the city where Ayumi and I currently live just north of Tokyo. With the help of Google Street View, I took a virtual tour around the island, seeing the older houses of the small town and the elementary school that has long since been shut down for lack of students. The green that abounds is very welcoming, as are the pristine beaches and clear waters of the Pacific Ocean. Ayumi loves all of these things, and so do I.

Kashiwa Island is located on the south-westernmost tip of Shikoku, a relatively large island just off the main island of Japan. It's almost 1,000km from downtown Tokyo by car and requires a visitor to go through some gorgeous mountain roads that look as though they were paved to actively entice people away from the endless noise and distractions of the city.

I have never been to this part of Japan, though it's long been on my bucket list. Pictures and videos from the area are often filled with green fields, blue skies, and compelling mountains. People seem friendlier. Food appears fresher. What's not to like?

So, thanks to a last-minute time off request being granted at work, Ayumi and I will be making a trip down to this unexplored – by us – land this coming Wednesday. We're currently staying in Aichi, so the drive will not be a full day's length. Instead, we'll leave around six o'clock in the morning and arrive at our first camp shortly before sunset.

The drive will have us go through the cities of Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe before we reach our first planned stops in Awaji, the island that sits between Kobe and the island of Shikoku. From there we'll continue to Naruto, where we'll stop for a few more pictures and videos, and then on to Kōchi City where we'll set up camp for the first night less than 50 metres from the ocean.

The next day we'll head down to Takasago and Oshima. If we're lucky, Oshimasakura Park will still have a lot of cherry blossoms in full bloom. From there we'll follow highway 357 along the coast down to a paid campsite in Otsuki, which has a lovely view of Kashiwa Island. Because this is a paid campsite, we will need to check in no later than four o'clock. This will allow us to explore the nearby beach and, hopefully, enjoy a picturesque sunset.

On Friday we won't be travelling too far as we'll make our way over to Kashiwa Island to explore for a few hours before following highway 321, also known as "Sunny Road" to the final campsite in Matsuo, which is the southern-most tip of Shikoku. Given the number of places I've identified to stop and explore between the two campsites, I will be surprised if we get through half of them before sunset. The total distance is less than 30km. Hopefully there will be at least one camping spot available in Matsuo when we arrive, as the public sites do not have a reservation system. First-come first-served can be a bit of a challenge at this time of year when everyone wants to get out and enjoy as much of their weekend as possible.

Saturday's plan is pretty simple: drive back to Aichi prefecture. This is a nine-hour trek in and of itself, and we'll certainly be stopping at various places along the way. Sunday, despite being a day of rest, will see Ayumi and I return to our apartment in Kashiwa.

All in all, this will likely be a 2,500km trip from start to finish. It will require six full tanks of gas, about $80 in highway fees, $20 for one campsite, and who knows how many terabytes of storage … because I'll be using every camera and memory card I can get my hands on.

Hopefully, by this time next week, the first of many videos will hit YouTube. And, if this trip is successful, it will be the first of many camping adventures that Ayumi and I will embark upon this year.

1. While I like my car, it's not big enough to sleep in comfortably. I would have to put Ayumi on the floor so that I can sleep in the passenger seat, as we're not supposed to sleep in the driver's seat of a car; even a two-seater. Even doing this, I would likely wake up with sore muscles and a headache … which would spoil the fun of being out.

Over the past few months I've been out and about during the peak of the summertime heat. Thermometers are pushing beyond 36˚C by noon and there's no respite from the brilliance of the sun directly above our head. As a result, when I get home in the evening, it takes a good deal of willpower to bring Ayumi outside for her evening walk before I risk sitting on the sofa. More than once this summer I have passed out in the evening only to wake up after midnight and shuffle over to the bed for a proper night's rest.

A quarter century ago the heat was almost never an issue. Summertime temperatures in Southern Ontario in the 90s were not that different to the temperatures in this part of Japan today, though there was a lot less humidity to contend with. I would often play baseball all weekend without thinking much about the weather so long as the game wasn't rained out. Some days hit 38˚C without a cloud in the sky, and it was no problem at all.

This was before air conditioning was as prevalent as it is now, though. In the 90s, if my family wanted to enjoy some air conditioning we would have to visit a shopping mall. Even our cars did not have the luxury of an A/C unit. If rolling the windows down as insufficient, then all you could hope for was a long empty road with no cops so you could bury the needle to simulate a breeze … which was still too warm to feel refreshing.

For much of the following decade, air conditioning remained something that shopping malls had but I did not. In 2002 I left Ontario for British Colombia, where air conditioning might be needed for one or two weeks per year, making it an expense most people could not justify. This was fine for the most part, as I worked indoors and would commute during the cooler times of day. If the temperature in my apartment was too hot during the summer, there was always a coffee shop where I could sit for a few hours to read books and enjoy their climate controlled spaces.

Japan is different, though, where most people all over the country have at least one air conditioner in their home and another in their car. Despite what many newspapers might say, the highest temperatures reported in the well-populated parts of this country are not that different from what someone in the Niagara region of Ontario might experience¹. What is different is the humidity.

This morning I took Ayumi out for her walk just after 7:30am when the thermometer read 28˚C. Within five minutes of being outside, though, my shirts were soaked with sweat and sticking uncomfortably to my back. According to the phone's weather app, that 28-degree temperature "felt like" 37˚C. By noon, when the sun radiated heat from above while concrete radiated heat from below, the 36-degree reading "felt like" something closer to my age rather than a respectable summertime temperature.

Regardless of what the mercury might say, though, I wonder how much of the heat exhaustion that I succumb to is the result of being spoiled by air conditioning. People in Japan have long had issues in the summertime heat and there are reports of deaths from exposure going back over a thousand years. It's nothing new over here. The endless stretches of heat-reflecting concrete are new, though, as well as the luxury of air conditioning. I make great use of both and couldn't imagine life without either. All this said, I can't help but wonder if I might be making too much use of the A/C in a manner that makes it difficult for my body to naturally regulate its heat while I'm out and about.

1. Between 32˚C and 38˚C for the most part. When Western news organisations report temperatures in Japan exceeding 40˚C, they're not telling you that it's in the less-populated areas where one finds volcanic activity and plenty of hot springs.