This year I did a fair amount of longer road rides. Always feels good to get in shape and get out to the countryside. There is nothing quite like an urban ramble with my 5-year old son, however. We have a "trailgator" attachment that hooks his bike to the back of my shopping bike, and he definitely has the bug. Last weekend we rode to Shibuya to do some Christmas shopping. We stopped first at the park in Shoto
View Larger Map It has a pond with a small island and we saw a sleek rat gathering food and swimming out to the island. There were actually two rats busily scurrying about the island and in and out of a miniature shrine. One made a couple of swims to shore to collect food and was impressively fast. Guess you never know what you will come across.
Today we tried to visit the sword museum in Yoyogi. You can actually follow a small alley just down from our house, past the Shibuya sports center, and across Yamate-Dori to get to it. Unfortunately, they are repairing the tiled pavement out front until Jan. 5th, but all the workmen liked the bike. So we continued on past Yoyogi-station to Takashimaya. From there, you can take a small street that runs all around the edge of Shinjuku Gyoen to go down to the National Stadium area. There we had cheeseburgers at One's Diner (www.bento.com/rev/1621.html). From there it is a quick jaunt to the Shibuya Central Library, which is the one with English books. After checking some out, we even ran into a cycling friend randomly on the street in Harajuku. I think she was surprised to see our contraption emerging from a side street.
It is pretty impressive what is reachable by bike in Tokyo. I think we may have to upgrade to a real tandem soon.
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