Another day. From Tokyo to Nikko

I wake up at five in the morning, without an alarm. At 4:30 it started getting light, which means precious daylight time. Soon it'll climb to the very top and start blazing. Before that happens I need to cover at least ten kilometers, breathe in the morning air.

I'm deep in the interior of Honshu island. Somewhere around the town of Matsubishi. I spent the night by a bike path on high ground. Yesterday I left Tokyo, and maybe tomorrow evening I'll reach ancient Nikko. Somewhere there in a grove of huge Japanese cedars stands the Toshogu shrine — the resting place of the great 16th-century military commander. In this part of the island the humidity is low, so the tent isn't wet with condensation in the morning.

The morning air is cold when you're standing still. Need to warm up these stiff joints, and yeah, find something to eat. Yesterday I finished my last supplies. This is a lazy 10 km/h. The battery in my player died, my stomach is empty. Nothing to set the rhythm for these hours.

Below me is a town. Sunlight has just started penetrating the windows of houses. The morning I've been witnessing from the very beginning has only just arrived here. I ride, looking around, at my level tombo are flying — dragonflies in Japanese. Somewhere down there is a store. I found a big grocery store. It opens in an hour. An hour of waiting means losing twenty kilometers of distance, need to keep moving, look for something along the way.

At the gas station they sell cigarettes, chips, juices and various snacks. That's what I use to suppress my morning hunger. Meanwhile the sun moves upward, and the morning fog has lifted. The sky, grass, river a hundred meters from me have become saturated with color.