Driving to Ofunato

I have been scarce again of late but as per usual I have good enough reasons. I just got back from my second time volunteering in Ofunato, Iwate Japan. The next few posts will cover that in depth…

On the 20th, I got up at a leisurely time and prepared everything I needed at a stately pace. It was hot and I didn’t want to stress. Headed off at a decent pace on the Kan-etsu expresway music pumping to match the pace of the fast lane. Hit the Takasaki junction and climbed onto the Kita-Kanto expressway  an even quicker dash across the smooth, sweet new tar that cuts across the bottom of Gunma and Tochigi. Things were going good onto the Touhoku expressway through the gentle curves up toward Utsunomiya and that’s about where it ended.

That Traffic. Oh that traffic. I forgot it was the beginning of the Bon Festival. Everyone and many of their dogs were on the road heading to family, friends and tourist destinations across the north east half of the country. A fair number were heading up to the affected areas too to do their part. It was stop start for the next 300Km or so. SO I had a lot of time to take photos.

I mentioned before that touhoku was a beautiful place. With the greenery of summer it was even more so. It was pretty hot too… but everywhere is cooler than Gunma so it was alright.

I did manage to have a quick race with a Toyota Celica GTFour. He pulled away quickly thanks to his 4wd but having more power I caught him in the end. It was a quick but fun little race.  I posted the video to my Tumblog right after it happened. WATCH IT HERE!!!

In the end it took me 13 hours but I finally made it to my destination.

 

more coming soon…