BEE Japan

Rain is pitter-pattering on the tarp stretched over the balcony, and I am sitting outside at a wooden picnic table, looking down through the trees on the swollen river, and sipping an organic brown ale. I can`t say that I`m sad to be off the bike today.

I love my bike, and I love riding it. I love being outside, making my way through the countryside, observing farmers plowing up weeds in their onion fields (and smelling the scent of the onions in the air), peeking in house windows that butt right up to the street, watching waves crash on rocks a few feet away from me, waving at cars stuck in traffic while I pedal past on the cycling path.

But I like stopping too. I have a little pang of sadness every time I pass a quaint cafe, cozy multi-paned windows calling out to me to come in and sit by them. I think about enjoying a cup of dark coffee, reading a few pages in my book (currently A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson), scribbling a note or postcard to a friend, and then staring off into the distance and letting my mind wander at will. I love those moments. And, unlike my previous extended cycling trip, this trip has had significantly fewer of them.

Don`t get me wrong, I`m not complaining. It`s been great to ride in a group instead of alone, to take turns leading the pack on those furious headwind days, to clean our bikes and get covered in grease together, to have friends to share dinner and funny stories at the end of the day with, to make a collection of memories that don`t belong to me alone. After this trip, I`ll have people who I can call up and say, `Remember when…?` and we`ll break into fits of laughter or a simultaneous moan.

At the same time, I`m not always free to do whatever I like, take a break wherever I want, spend the night in a town that simply calls out to me, or pop into a shop whose teapots in the show window are tempting me to come in, wander around, and gaze.

The point is, today is special. Rest days are rare on this trip, since we have a schedule, places to be, people to see, and things to do.

Today we`re at Alishan Cafe, an organic and vegetarian cafe set in a New-England-style farmhouse on the side of the road in Saitama prefecture, just a little ways outside of Tokyo. Alishan and Tengu foods, the mail-order distributor of organic and natural food that is the other half of Alishan, have supported BEE for all eleven years that the trip has taken place, and the delicious packages of food that they send us along the way are eagerly anticipated. Natural peanut butter, quinoa, real granola (the kind that sticks to your bones and isn`t over-sweetened), Lara bars, hummus and tabouli salad mix, and all kinds of things that make our tongues and our tummies happy are generously provided to keep us moving merrily on our way.

Speaking of things that are rare, I have to say that I didn`t run into too many places like this during my year in Hokkaido. Before coming to Japan, I spent six months in the States (after a two-and-a-half-year-plus stint in West Africa), reveling in the deliciousness of everything that organic farms, local microbreweries and coffee shops, and natural foods stores had to offer. Being able to choose exactly what I wanted to eat from a seemingly endless selection of unimaginably tasty items put me in a state of perpetual bliss.

Oh, welcome to Japan. Where it sometimes seems that every menu in every restaurant lists essentially the same dishes. Where flavors of food come from four basic ingredients: sake, mirin, shoyu, and dashi (rice liquor, rice wine, soy sauce, and fish or vegetable stock). And where vegetarian is, in many places, an incomprehensible idea. There`s a standing joke of sorts where the new English teaching assistant is introduced to his or her colleagues, attempts to explain that he or she is vegetarian, and is subsequently asked, “But you do eat pork, right?” And upon receiving no for an answer, the next question: “Surely chicken is ok?” And finally, “At least fish?”

Excuse me, I was supposed to be writing about Alishan, but, since the diversion to the topic of food was an easy one to make, I`ve inevitably made it. Let me correct myself.

In addition to being an excellent provider of wonderful food, Alishan promotes other environmentally-friendly activities and events. Every year, when the BEE team passes through, they organize a river clean-up to beautify a local park just downriver from the cafe, where people come to barbeque and enjoy peaceful and quiet moments surrounded by nature.

On Saturday morning, fifteen volunteers joined us for two hours of picking up everything from old shoes to mesh grilling sheets, filling countless trash bags with cans and bottles, remains of fireworks, plastic and newspaper, and rusty remnants of who-knows-what. Following the clean-up, we gave a short presentation on our trip, including an entertaining slide show that summarized our experiences thus far (which will hopefully be posted to the website some time soon), and then — what else — we piled our plates with grilled veggies, salad, soup, pitas, fruit…and, in the company of fantastic new friends, we ate until our stomachs ached. Good thing our bodies know how to store that energy and save it for the next long day of riding.