Ryan and Mommy ROADTRIP....to Noto Peninsula!

As has become typical, an upcoming adventure is often my motivation for writing about our most recent adventure.  Since we leave in approximately 8 hours for our holiday trip to Thailand, I am now... somehow ... motivated to write the blog about our Noto Hantou (peninsula) trip that happened in late November.  Interesting timing, but alas...

Our same "Mr. Kevin" of the rice harvesting adventure again posted an offer for people to join him on a driving, camping, exploring trip of the Noto Peninsula.  He had to scout a few roads for work (he runs bike trips through rural Japan) but mostly just wanted to make a fun weekend out of it.  I read a little about Noto, and it seemed to be a relatively unspoiled area of coastal Japan.  And from the questions I got from most of my friends in Tokyo, it also seemed to be an area that many Japanese have not traveled to.  Perfect.

So again, we jumped at the chance.  We were the only ones who responded, and I am really not sure why no one else seems to see the fabulousness of these opportunities, but what do I know?Anyway, the four of us were all set for a little family adventure - and we were excited about it.

And then we learned that Ethan's soccer team had a big tournament on the same weekend (and for the record, this was NOT a case of us NOT understanding something until the last minute; for reasons I do not understand, the games and tournaments seem to be announced at the last minute ALL of the time).  When the team learned that we were going to be out of town for the weekend, several families offered for Ethan to stay with them while we were away.  It was a moral dilemma for Ethan, and he struggled with the decision for several days and finally decided that he should be there for his team.  That was all fine and good and a very responsible decision by Ethan.... but Ryan and I still wanted to go ... and we had already committed to go.  So, Kevin and I used the "divide and conquer" strategy - I took Ryan on the Noto trip and Kevin and Ethan stayed in Tokyo for a bachelor weekend and the soccer tournament.  It was unfortunate that we couldn't make it a family adventure, but we made the best of the situation.

Since our party of 2 now became a party of 4, we decided to invite our friends, Mayuko and her daughter, Ema, from youchien.  There were forecasts for snow and we planned on camping, so we tried to pack for verrrrrry cold weather.  Fun times!

Ryan and I left early on a Friday morning (11/22), met Mayuko and Ema on the train platform and headed to Nagano by shinkansen.

Waiting for the bus to start our adventure...

Ryan and Ema...

Ryan and the bullet trains...

Mr. Kevin picked us up at the Naoetsu station, his van loaded with bikes and tents and gear for us all.  Roooooaaaaaadtriiiiiipppp time!

Noto is famous for all kinds of seafood, especially crab - it is a peninsula, after all.  We headed up the coast and stopped at a few roadside stands for some sustenance and exploration.  After a delicious lunch of kani chirashi (crab on rice), we continued on our journey.

Noto's famous crabs...

Ryan had such great memories of catching frogs on our last adventure that he was
intent on catching a crab on this trip.  Unfortunately, this was as close as he got to catching one.

Squid hanging to dry at the market...

And some tasty octopus, too.

It was cold and rainy and we had planned on camping that night, but we thought better of it because of the weather.  So, after several hours of driving, we ended up in Himi, where we stayed at a small guesthouse.  Nothing fancy (and it was freeeeeezing in our rooms) but we did have quite a splendid Japanese breakfast in the morning.  Delicious - fish, crab, rice, miso soup as well as salad, eggs, and sausage, and natto (fermented, slimy, soybeans - a very common breakfast in Japan, especially for kids, but we are not huge natto fans, so we had only a little).

Ignore the red lines - I borrowed the map from a Japanese cycling website... but you can
see Himi, where we stayed the first night, Noto Island (obscured on the map by Wakura Hot Spring) where we camped the second night, and Wajima, where we stayed the third night...

One side note: we did have a rather unfortunate incident.  As we pulled to a stop at a red light, suddenly the bike rack came crashing on to the windshield and then bounced on to the hood of the van before landing in front of us on the street.  We were all shocked - and were trying not think about what might have happened had it come off while we were on the expressway.  But everyone was fine - the bikes and rack did not hold up so well, but we managed to pull them out of the road and convince a car dealership to hold them for us until we could return in the morning to pick them up and figure out what to do.

The next morning, while Mr. Kevin went back to retrieve the bikes and rack, Mayuko, Ema, Ryan, Mona (Kevin's 4 year old daughter), and I explored the town of Himi.

Ryan and Ema on the Himi coast

Searching for crabs and other critters ... with no luck.

By mid-morning, we loaded into the car and continued on-wards.  Our goal was to make it to Noto Island for a night of camping.  We stopped a few times along the way - including for lunch, where some very kind men sitting next to me and Ryan starting bequeathing us with all sorts of gifts - juice for the kids, sweet red bean desserts, Noto buttons, etc.  It was quite amusing, to say the least...

We made it to the campground, after several wrong turns and a few routes that were a little more "scenic" than we had intended, but all's well that ends well.  We set up camp, watched the sunset, and then went to the onsen, before coming back to grill our dinner over the fire - grilled onigiri, grilled crab, shrimp, and onion skewers, followed by smores of course (and a failed attempt at popcorn)!  And the weather was surprisingly warm and we had quite a pleasant night sleeping in the tent (especially with a little extra snuggling with Ryan to keep warm).

The view from our campsite...

Taking a break from biking...

The sunset...not as spectacular as we had hoped...

Swinging while waiting for the sunset...

Inside the tent

Breakfast the next morning - the whole gang!

The next morning (Sunday) we loaded up the van again and headed towards Wajima.  Mayuko had heard about the Wajima morning market and was keen to go there so we drove straight through to arrive there before the market closed at 12 noon.  And it was well worth the drive!  I love markets of all sorts, and this was the 3rd largest market in Japan.  It was great fun to wander the street and check out all the stalls (and the samples, too).  And somehow, I ended up with quite a large number of purchases - a salted, cured sashimi type thing that was wrapped in a tube made of straw, some delicious marinated squid (and I don't usually like squid, but the free samples were surprisingly yummy - I bought TWO whole squid), some dried eel for Kevin, and a few other random things.

Crabs and more crabs...

Very, very kind crab ladies - Ryan wanted a single crab claw to take home, and when I asked
if I could buy one, they gave us two whole crabs to take home and dry so he could have the whole shells...

Yep, that's eight legs alright...

The abalone guy...

$84 for 100g of abalone - a specialty of Noto - and they had samples, too. OOO-LA-LA.

This is the cured sashimi thing - you had to unwrap the rope and straw and the cured fish was hidden inside...

After thoroughly enjoying our Wajima market time, we headed a little bit further north to Senmaida ("One Thousand Rice Fields").  Because of the mountainous terrain, the terraced fields of rice are a sight to see.  I assume these rice fields are still harvested by hand, as the small field size would seem to make using a machine quite a pain in the derriere.  It was a spectacular view of the coast and we enjoyed a local lunch while soaking it all in...

Not the happiest moment for the little rascal...

We headed back to Wajima to spend the night and prepare for a very early departure on Monday morning.  Ethan didn't have school on Monday, so he was staying at a friend's house and I was trying to get home as soon as possible to pick him up.  Only problem was that we were a loooooong way from home.  We left around 6 AM, drove 7 hours to Nagano station, where we got on the very next Tokyo-bound train.  Still didn't make it to pick up Ethan until almost 5 pm.  Luckily, we have very, very nice friends.

Our Noto Hantou dinner back in Tokyo
- on the left is the cured fish and on the right is the marinated squid - deeelish!

And in case you're interested, Ethan's team won FIRST place in the tournament.  He had 1 goal, 1 assist, and 1 saved goal off the goal line due to amazing defense.  I got to see it all on video, which wasn't quite the same...but alas.

Stay tuned for more adventures (and a belated Holiday Card)!

In the meantime, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!