Mako-san has safely completed his mission and returned to Japan. He has already been back at work since yesterday, so please do ask him all about his trip. It has been mostly sunny since I arrived, and perhaps because the first weekend I spent here coincided with the end of the rainy season and the arrival of true summer, I could feel firsthand how everyone was waiting for it, rushing outside all at once.
When you go out into the city, you see scenes of people maintaining their bicycles or dropping them off for repairs. The days are so long that it finally gets dim around 9:00 PM, and I wonder how many people I passed on my way home in the evening who were just finishing work and heading out for a ride? Everyone is definitely out and about, living actively. I feel bad for Mako-san, but I really managed to visit during the absolute best season.
I should add that on the day he left for Japan, the weather was rainy, as if Portland itself were shedding tears. (It really is strange, but it only rained that one day.)
Come to think of it, on my flight to America, I watched a movie called SING. Thanks to a film that not only gave me courage through the protagonist's indomitable spirit, but also delivered the current state of entertainment in a fun and direct way, I feel I can properly handle this new solo life that has just begun. And so, I immediately started commuting by bicycle. I spent an hour commuting the roughly 20km distance, getting lost along the way.
I was flummoxed by the bike lanes and the city layout, and I don't know how many times I got lost on that first day. And here, people really stomp on heavy gears, so if you try to spin them like I do, you get left in the dust in no time.
That said, thanks to the unique sense of speed you get from a bicycle, I've been able to discover interesting shops, get a grasp of the city's layout, and easily head wherever I want to go. (It seems the commute rush here is escalating day by day, though.)
Yes, I love bicycles because they can be enjoyed both as a means of transportation and as a way to have fun.
Being able to go where you want and meet who you want. That joy of cycling is also what ties into our own fun pursuit, RIDEALIVE. Following our Mie edition in April, we’re now looking at the Shizuoka edition in July. If there were ever any barriers, we decided to just tear them down—with Mr. Yamamoto from Green Cog leading the way, along with Keita, Kamo-chan, and Happy, who just struck out on his own this spring, all joining in to engage with what it means to live and play. We always want to be pop entertainers, so please, feel free to join us, everyone!