It hasn't been a very eventful weekend for me, so, to some extent, I've filled it up myself. It's funny, I used to do nothing too special most weekends, I think... I guess my standards have been changed partly by getting used to doing things all the time, and partly changed because, being here, I really feel how limited time is, and don't want to waste any.
Today, not wanting to stay in and study all day, around noon I decided to go exploring. I've been here for almost two months now (...omg), and from the dorm the farthest I've biked/gone in each direction is:
North: Kichijouji/Inokashira Park
Northeast: Mitakadai station (though I also walked back from Fujimigaoka once)
East: Mitakadai station (also)
Southeast/South/Southwest: I had never gone south of the dorm whatsoever, except a block or so on the second night, when I was sort of lost.
West: Don Quixote (store)
Northwest: Summit (grocery store)
None of these exceed about 3km, and all but Mitakadai station are probably within 1.5.
So, first I decided to go southwest, since south was totally unexplored, and I'd been further east than west. So I set off west until I was sure I was out of Mitaka, which was a little ways, then I picked a promising-looking street and turned south. I made it as far as Higashifuchuu station, which, with the help of Googlemaps, I estimate to be around eight kilometers away. But, since it was actually quite a city around there, the streets were quite convoluted, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find my way back.
Thinking about this, I remembered the time when I had to walk from Fujimigaoka station to Mitakadai in the middle of the night. At that time, I had been having difficulty trying to follow a straight-ish line through the twisting and irregular surface streets when I came upon a river. As I've mentioned before, one good point about the concrete-banked rivers of Tokyo is that they usually have sidewalks along the sides. So, I just followed the river to where I knew it ran next Mitakadai station, and had no worries about getting lost.
I hadn't seen any rivers on the way to Higashi Fuchuu station, but there is a river, the Sen (Sengawa/仙川） that runs practically right beside the dorm. This might give me a way to keep riding as far as I want and still have a simple line to follow back. What's more, I was pretty sure it ran south into the Tama river (Tamagawa/多摩川）. The Tamagawa, one of the biggest rivers that runs into Tokyo bay, is quite famous, and I've seen photographs of it... AND there's a song by Spitz, my favorite band, named after it, which I really like. AND, about a year ago, I drew a photo of... Not actually the river, but path along its side. So, with these rather romantic considerations in mind, I figured I'd give it a try, and went back to and then past the dorm.
I vaguely remembered from looking at maps int he past that the Tamagawa was, in a direct line, not all that far south from Mitaka. But I did not know how direct or indirect the course of the Sengawa was, so I figured I'd just go until I either couldn't follow it anymore (there aren't always paths on the sides of the concrete rivers), or until I wanted to turn back.
Though there were a couple times I had to go off the river, I found it again easily, and went quite a ways. There may have been ("may" because I couldn't read all the kanji on the signs) a couple times when I rode on stretches of it where bicycles are prohibited... But there were other cyclists as well, so I didn't worry about it. Thanks to the helpful maps that are set up along the river once in a while, I learned that the Sengawa doesn't actually flow into the Tamagawa, but into the No River （Nogawa/野川), which shortly afterward flows into the Tamagawa. And I went all the way to where the Nogawa does meet the Tamagawa, which I think was about 13 km, though it was a much more difficult route than the one to Higashifuchuu, since the paths along the river are often very narrow, with other people to get around.
The Tamagawa, just there (I cycled down it only a very short way, since the sun was getting quite low), was actually beautiful, I thought, despite being pretty domesticated and all. I guess it's quite low right now, since the low, river-level, sandy space was far wider than the actual stream of water in the bottom. It's nice to simply be in such a wide, open space, though, I guess. Tokyo doesn't have so many of them. I could also see the mountains in the distance from some points around there, which was really nice.
Now, I think next time I have a boring Saturday with nice weather, I may try to bike to Tokyo bay. It's considerably farther, probably more like 25 km... But I think it would be very doable. I also now, for the first time, kind of want to do some imitating of art and bike long-distance across Japan over some part of the spring break or something... I probably won't, I guess, but I'm not ruling it out. Maybe through Misawa, to Cape Shiriyazaki or something...
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