Search ResultsThis past weekend Typhoon #21 of the season ("Lan") blew past, and it was quite the different experience from most. (It was the 21st typhoon in the western Pacific this year, but only the second or third to have much effect on Kyoto.) It looked like it would make its closest approach to Kyoto late in the evening, so the day leading up to it was blustery and rainy. I find it fun to ride in weather like that, so just as I did a ride in the lead-up to a typhoon in August, I went out for a bicycle [...] View full post » Alexis, a cycling Frenchman living in England, contacted NORU for a private bike tour around the far-flung mountains of Kyoto. Joshua set him up with a bike and took him around, while I tagged along for photos. Right after this photo is the first real test of cycling ability, a short, steep climb that averages 10% over 760m (half a mile), but has some 17% sections. When you're contacted out of the blue by someone for a bike ride, you're not really sure of their level and what would be appropriate/fun/challenging/daunting for them, so this initial climb would be a [...] View full post » Earlier this summer I got the chance to visit -- and eat a fabulous dinner at -- AIC Akitsushima Kyoto (AIC秋津洲京都), and though I didn't get a chance to take any proper pictures, I did snap some as I went. It's a shame, because the entire small property was absolutely stunning, both in design and in execution. To be frank, I'm not entirely clear about what this place is, but I do know that part of it is a restaurant open to the public (restaurant web site). It's related to a college in Auckland, so in addition to the 8% [...] View full post » The other day I made an impromptu decision to ride to Amanohashidate (see at Wikipedia) the next morning. It's pretty far away, and in the end the big loop turned out to be 293km (182mi), putting it well past my 260km (160mi) "Cycling to Nagoya for Coffee" ride as my longest. The evening before I made a clockwise route, but that morning decided to do it the other direction, thinking to put the easier leg on the return trip, so I made a new counterclockwise route (or, I should say, I whipped up a program to reverse route waypoints and [...] View full post » Congratulations to Tetsuo Azuma for his restaurant acá1° having been awarded a Michelin star, the only Spanish restaurant in Kyoto to have earned the honor. For comparison, Osaka, which has double the population, has none. Tokyo, which has about 10 times the population, has three. After working and apprenticing in Japan, New York, and Spain, he opened his own restaurant in November 2013. I was his first customer. We've seen Tetsuo on my blog before, a year before opening his restaurant, in "Father/Son Photo Shoot: Tetsuo and Issei". The thin-sliced ham calls to mind the tasty Spanish ham and beer [...] View full post » |