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 [...]

A couple of weeks ago we had a nice social ride out to Miyama Japan. It was my third and most-relaxing visit, after the initial shock of a tough ride a year ago that was my longest ride at the time, and again via a mountains route not long after with Gorm.

This time we took a less-mountains route to get there, though for some it would be their longest ride by a factor of two.

It's while inspecting our route on the map for this ride that I came up with the silly idea of riding the entire length [...]

After a wonderful ride with friends beyond Kyoto's Mt. Atago the other day, I returned the next day for 110km (68mi) of solo exploration in the same general area.

Early on in the ride I passed through Arashiyama in western Kyoto, with its famous bridge. We've seen it before on my blog in rain and in sun and crowned by a rainbow. Today was fairly bland, but a big bird was doing a batman pose, so that was something.

There's a path along the river southwest of the bridge that leads up to a temple with a great view that [...]

先週なんとなく国道367号線と国道162号線のゼンセンを乗るのは面白いかもと思いました。 普通はサイクリングすろと国道を抜きたいですが、今回ワザトこの国道の全線を乗る。京都市内の五条烏丸で始まる国道367号線を乗って北へ。 そして、日本海の近くの福井県三方で始まる国道162号線で南へ。 結局225キロをゆったり走りました。京都市周辺以外には道は良かった。車は少なかった。

Last week I got it into my head to do a "theme" bicycle ride: ride the length of National Routes 367 and 162. The total of both is about 183km (114mi), but with the transition between and bits before and after, the ride (see at Strava) ended up being 225km (140mi).

Both routes have endpoints in Kyoto, and many fun rides include parts of them, but in most cases the national routes are used begrudgingly as a quick way to get to the fun part of the ride. The ride is fun despite the parts on [...]

I had quite the bicycle ride last week; this blog post is mostly a diary for my own memory.

What started out as a pleasant ride with friends ended up 12 hours later being a test of nighttime eyesight and creative headlight battery management.

The Relive.cc video of the ride gives a sense of this never-ending ride.

I planned a longish ride to the north of Kyoto, but would be joined at the beginning by Stephanie and Manseki. We'd intended to head over the mountains via the Hiei climb, but rush-hour traffic on the narrow road made us turn around [...]