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As soon as she entered the mountains, she noticed the difference in the air.
After passing through Gotemba on Route 138, Koguma immediately crossed the prefectural border after entering the mountainous region of Hakone, and felt firsthand the difference from the mountains of her hometown that she had grown accustomed to.
Even if they had the same temperature and humidity, the air in the southern alps was hard and cold, while in Hakone it was soft and warm.
She wondered if it was the proximity of the sea. It was strange to feel the air change even though it was only a few dozen kilometers from the southern alps.
She had been to other prefectures by train several times before, but this was the first time she noticed the difference in air quality. The safety and comfort of scooters changed greatly with the weather. She became sensitive to the weather and the air, whether she liked it or not.
She wondered what the air would be like in other mountains she hadn’t yet visited. Mainly because of her wallet, she still couldn’t feel an active willingness to travel all over Japan, but after this trip, that feeling might change just a little bit.
The road was well-paved and the incline wasn’t unreasonable for the Cub’s climbing ability. There were no trucks that would unnecessarily agitate her. The curvature of the turns could be handled by tilting the Cub a little bit, so the riding environment could be called comfortable. Koguma enjoyed the winding road at a reasonable speed.
Midway, a group of red motorcycles passed Koguma one after the other. They were wearing matching red jackets with the manufacturer’s name on them.
Reiko once told her that Hakone was like a sacred place for motorcyclists’ clubs, and many touring events and such were held there.
Koguma wondered if there was such a thing as a club for work tool bikes like Cubs. If there was such a thing, she wondered if she would join it, but then she imagined herself riding around in matching clothes with other Cubs and decided against it.
In the form of a change of name in the highway she had been riding on until now, Koguma entered Route 1.
It was said that the Hakone checkpoint used to be in this area. In ancient Japan, it was a deadly risk to cross the boundaries of feudal domains without permission, but she thought if people back then had bought a Super Cub, they surely could have left their domains1 easily. As soon as she thought that, her stomach rumbled, as it had been a long time since she ate breakfast, but she would have to wait until she reached the ryokan of her destination to satisfy her hunger.
The surrounding area was lined with hot spring inns. She would like to earn enough money to stay at one of these inns when she went out on her Cub and enjoy the fine food and hot springs. When she thought about it, she wondered what she would be riding when she was in a position where money wasn’t that big of an issue.
She would probably still be riding a Cub even if she became very rich in the future. It wasn’t so much love or attachment, but more a feeling of resignation that people’s nature didn’t change that much even if their financial status changed. The Cub’s speed suited Koguma the best. Even if you had the money to replace your car or house, you couldn’t cut off your own legs and replace them.
As she imagined this and that, she was now heading to the ryokan for the school trip, not knowing whether or not she could stay there. She rode her Cub as she looked at the gorgeous ryokans out of the corner of her eye.
Koguma caught up with the large black-painted car ahead of her.
Normally, the Cub would get agitated by other cars and get overtaken by them on a fast-flowing suburban national highway, but the black-painted car in front of her was driving down the hot spring district at a speed a little slower than Koguma’s riding speed.
There was no point in getting frustrated with a slow car, so she kept her distance and observed the car in front of her to kill time.
The black-painted car seemed to be looking for something, driving erratically, slowing down every time it passed by a hot spring inn. In the back seat was a man with white hair.
She wondered if he was a Tokyo businessman or politician who came here for a health retreat. She had heard that the places where such important people stayed were not listed on online maps or car navigation systems for privacy reasons.
The black-painted car, which seemed to have found what it was looking for, stopped a little abruptly, then put on its left blinker and turned onto a small road into the mountains.
Behind it, Koguma was also forced to slow down rapidly with the Cub’s brakes that weren’t so large. She unconsciously glared at the car as it drove off down the mountain road.
She knew it wasn’t a good idea to ride a Cub when she was hungry. The slightest thing would set her off.
A man in the prime of his life on his way to a luxurious inn in an expensive black-painted car. His wallet was probably hundreds of times thicker than Koguma’s.
“But I’m riding a much better machine than yours.”
While muttering something that sounded like a bluff or just sour grapes, Koguma’s Cub rode on the national highway along the Hakone Tozan Railway, through the mountainous area, and reached the sea.
Now all she had to do was ride east while looking at the ocean, and she would arrive in Kamakura.
After crossing the Hakone mountains to Odawara, Koguma parked her Cub in front of a roadside convenience store.
She was running out of bottled tea, which she had been sipping from time to time to prevent dehydration, so she decided to take a break and reconfirm her route while she was at it.
She felt like she consumed more tea than usual. She thought that the water must have gone out in the form of sweat and exhalation due to the fact that she had passed through high altitudes such as Mount Fuji’s 5th Station and Hakone.
She bought a cold carton of jasmine tea at the convenience store, took a sip, and filled her bottle. She put it in the hundred-yen bottle cover, so it should stay cold for a few more hours.
She opened the map of Japan as she sipped on the plastic bottle of jasmine tea. She was now in Odawara, on National Route 1. If she continued straight on the national highway, she would reach Kamakura.
The national map also included city maps of major cities, so she looked at the page for Kamakura and confirmed the approximate location of the ryokan, her destination.
She reached into her travel bag and took out the guidebook for the school trip, and then memorized the map and the appearance of the building from the attached pamphlet for the ryokan she was staying at.
After finishing her business, Koguma hung the bottle case on the hook she used for convenience store bags, put the map in the box, started the engine of her Cub and took off.
According to the road map, Route 1 was a road along the sea, but contrary to Koguma’s imagination, it was a main road surrounded by buildings.
Commercial and residential buildings lined both sides of the narrow national highway, and the ocean was only visible sometimes between the buildings.
Along with the sea, she could see the Seisho Bypass, which ran parallel to Route 1. That was a toll road which wasn’t accessible to Cubs.
The only people who could enjoy the spectacular view of the ocean in front of them on the bridge road built on that sandy beach were those who drove cars or large motorcycles and paid the toll. She felt a little hateful, but then she looked at her Cub and thought, Can I really not travel along that road on a Cub?
Koguma already had a license for a medium-sized motorcycle. With Reiko’s help, she increased the engine displacement of her Cub and changed its registration from moped to Class 2 motorcycle.
Perhaps, if she replaced the engine with a larger one and changed the registration, then it might not be impossible to ride her Cub on toll roads.
As she thought about asking Reiko if she could do it, she got excited. The scenery of Route 1, which was drearier than that of the Seisho Bypass, seemed to be something she could only experience now, as she would no longer be seeing it once she started travelling on the highway.
The roadside stores along the main road and the residential areas were a mixture of old and new. Among them, there was the occasional marine products store and processing plant. While staring at the seaside-like and not-seaside-like scenery that was characteristic of Route 1 Seisho, her Cub reached Hiratsuka.
At this point, the road branched into two. National Route 1, which ran inland in Shonan, and Route 134, which ran directly near the sea.
The distance from the coastal road to the ryokan over the mountains of Kamakura was shorter on Route 1, and from the map, the traffic seemed to be better as it avoided the city. If she wanted to reach her destination faster, she should take Route 1.
Without much hesitation, Koguma slid her Cub onto Route 134 along the coast.
Just a few minutes ago, she saw a coastal toll road that made her feel jealous. There was no way she was going to miss out on the chance to ride while looking at the ocean for free.
She wouldn’t have been chasing the school trip on a Cub from the start if she was just going to ride as efficiently as possible on the shortest and safest roads.
Reiko, who had no interest in the old temples of Kamakura, had said she wanted to see the Shonan coastal road on the school trip. She wondered how Reiko would react if she told her that Koguma had gone there before her.
Koguma rode along the road where she could see the sea, enveloped in the sea breeze.
In other words, I came here to do this.
1 The word used here is "dappan" (脱藩), which means "becoming a lordless samurai." Samurai left the domains of their masters to become ronin.↩
Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the translation!
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