Fixed in Japan, JeromeSadou.com

Osaka Cyclemode 2011 - Triathlon bikes

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:38:27 GMT

Last Saturday I took the train at 6AM for a day in Osaka, needless to say it is very unusual I wake up before the sun in Japan but that was worth it.

My plan was to visit the Cyclemode show in Osaka. Previous years you could see on my blog that I visited the Tokyo edition. Now I live closer to Osaka, plus that was a good opportunity to visit a little bit the city again. My first steps in Japan were in Osaka in 2005 but I haven't been back since then!

Anyway I took of course lots of pics at the Cyclemode, this time I focused mainly on triathlon bikes but there will be other stuff also in my next post.

To be frank I did not see any huge evolution compared to last year but still some very good stuff presented by Trek and the couple Fuji/Kestrel [Kestrel and Fuji being part of the same group now, they are represented by Akibo Corporation in Japan]. I think there was a special area for triathlon in Tokyo this year, I did not see it in Osaka though... :-(

First booth I visited

A Japanese maker that I did not know. (http://www.boma.jp/)

Kuota Kalibur

Ceepo still looking good.

Agressive Lapierre.

A classic now, Cervélo P3 with some Easton wheels.

Trek with a color custom service for customers.

This is the model used during latest Hawaii Ironman by some elites and also by Fabian "Spartacus" Cancellara this season on Time Trial races.

I got a short course on mechanical fluid from the booth staff, explaining why the square corners were important. It reminded me of studies I did 15 years ago at university on polymers properties… Anyway…

Time trial bike by Colnago, the Flight.

Koga are part of the Accell group as well as Lapierre : http://www.accell-group.com/

Kabuto aerodynamic helmets, I never tried such an helmet, it might be interesting though. I wonder how much my long hair slows me, probably few seconds in hour, ha! I'd better to train harder then…

Triathlon shoes by Shimano

BH time trial bike with Profile Design components

Pinarello also with Profile Design components

Lots of bottles!

Quintana Roo, I remember them to be popular a while ago, how about now ?

Kestrel are presenting some cool sets I think. I have to say the Oval wheels look good on it.

I don't have a specific triathlon bike, in France I had a road race Cannondale that was adjusted to a triathlete position. I guess I can do the same with my Madone but I'd like to try one of these machines during a season to see how it feels and if any significant time gain. Aero-wheel have also surely a strong impact. But I wonder from what speed the gain is really significant.

Any of you having 2 bikes : one road race and one specific triathlon bike ?

How is the gain ? What speed difference could you mesure? Or any other positive points ? [comfort in position etc...]

This was Matty Reed 's bike in 2011, first time I could see it in real life. Quite impressive!

Fuji (and now Kestrel) has always a cool booth.

French Triathlon shoes, Carnac. [Need a pair...]

Last time trial /triathlon bikes I saw, Ridley's ones. Notice the position of the front brake.

Random Bicycles from 2011

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:12:48 GMT

I just found this folder of pics that I collected through the year. As I am living now in the countryside I have, needless to say (way) less opportunities to stumble upon cool bikes... So this kind of post might get seriously rare on this blog... unless someone is willing to share his bikes shots from any city of Japan! I would totally accept someone to post here if he wants... The blog is still very well ranked in google for searches about tokyo/japan and fixed gears/fixie etc etc... I am more blogging myself about what I am into now (triathlon) but that would be nice to keep in some way this topic on the blog...

E.T 's bike in Meijijingumae, Tokyo.

My Fuji Feather, Yokohama.

Makino ftw.

At UltraSuperNew's Office

Front brake nicely hidden.

In a skate shop in Ameyoko, Tokyo.

Probably Paris in January

Lyon in January.

Rental bikes system in Lyon, one of the first in France if I don't mistake.

A shop in Lyon

A shop in Tokyo (nice cycling clothes) near Kappabashi.

Shibuya

Bike from the Fuji-Cyclingtime team for 2011.

My Fuji ... yep it was cold.

and slippy

Expo in Omotesando

Note the steel tyre!

A bike/skate shop in Tokyo, can't remember the name of the place... :-/

Bumbrich was the name of the shop I think.

This is a shop in Harajuku-Omotesando

Cheap colorful customizable bikes.

Yes lot's of choice.

Same blue Makino than more above.

Shane's Look.

Le vélo de la coiffeuse. [sounds more sexy in French, no?] . Harajuku.

Gift gloves from Pedal speed magazine.

Old Peugeot commercial in Japan from an art book.

Ah, the colorful bikes shop again.

Nice sneakers... not related but hey, that's my blog :-)

Instagram or no Instagram, that's the question.

mmm wtf ?

Rental bikes in Yokohama, Minato Mirai.

Nice blue.

Chic.

Classic.

Kaike - Daisen Exciting Tour !

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 11:13:10 GMT

Last week I was kindly invited by the Tourism and International Affair Division of the Western Tottori General Office Citizen's Bureau (yes, a long name:-).

The purpose of this invitation was to participate to the monitoring of a 3 days tour that could be offer in the future. This tour entitled "Kaike Daisen Exciting Tour" is for people having an interest in outdoor and sporty activities.

The main activity being a ride around Daisen, the highest mountain of Western Japan, about 1700m. A good chance for me as I am planning to ride the Tour de Daisen next year, which shares the same road.

But let's start with the first day of the tour.

I join a small group of people (6) coming from Korea at the Yonago airport, official start of this tour monitoring. The tour is targeting foreigners also so it made sense to invite foreigners from the closest country. For info, from Yonago (main city of western Tottori) by plane it takes the same amount of time to reach Korea than to go to Tokyo. A little more than one hour.

We first made a stop at a kaiten sushi, fish and sea food are almost everywhere in Japan and Tottori prefecture is blessed with some really good and fresh products.

After lunch we had a walk in the main street of Sakai Minato celebrating the manga GeGeGe no Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki who was from the area, it is a very well known manga in Japan for decades… not sure it's the same deal in Korea though…

Then it was time to check-in at the Hotel. We were very lucky to stay at the Kaike Tsuruya Ryokan. This is one of the most popular Hotel in Kaike and one of a very good standing. Good for us ;-)

In the afternoon we went for a lesson of sea kayak. The waves were a bit high though so we enjoyed kayaking in the near river for about 2 hours. I learnt then that there was a "sea to summit" race organized at the same place [also the place of the Kaike long distance triathlon]. The "sea to summit" is a race starting with some 6k of sea kayak, followed by 23.5k of road race uphill, and a 4.5 hike to the top of Daisen! Overall a climb of 1709m. It is a great idea, I will surely participate next year! I just need to perfect my kayak skill :-)

Then rain came so we went back to the Hotel to enjoy the salty onsen a speciality of the place. It is said to have curative properties. In the evening we were greeted by a dinner like we can enjoy in Japanese ryokan.

Next morning we took a bus to reach Daisen, our bikes following in a truck. Feeling like a pro cyclist :-)

The truck and the bus will follow us most of the day in case of any problem. That's what I call a luxury ride!

[Black & White Rapha jerseys]

Daisen is often compared to the Fuji San because from the west it really looks like it. It is not as high though.

Daisen offers some great views with great colors at this time of the year. I knew it well already especially the north and east parts. But this time I could discover the west and south parts and that was really incredible to ride it.

[Some serious equipment here!]

As we were riding around the mountain we were constantly going up and down. Even if we were going at a rather cool pace (it was not a training session) everyone could go at his own pace during the climbs and we waited for each other before to start a new section.

We were lucky to be guided by talented triathlete Daisuke Kawabata [7th at Kaike Triathlon (huge performance when you know this race) and also 7th at Yurihama triathlon!] and biathlete. I hope to train with him more in the future. Thank you again Kawabata San!

It was a great day to ride, weather was perfect. We rode a bit less than planned because we started a little bit too late I think. But 65km in the mountain is quite a good ride anyway.

The Madone excels in the mountain :-)

Then we put the bikes back in the truck and came back at the Kaike Tsuruya hotel with our minibus. At the hotel we enjoyed one more good onsen time to relax the muscles and then we were invited to eat the dinner with some Kobe beef prepared in front of us by a cook master, that was very impressive and… yes very good. Can I say it was awesome ? :-)

Final morning was dedicated to some tourism in the old city of Yonago.

This time we rode mini-velo to discover the Tera Machi : literally the Temple City : a long road with many Temples.

We did a stop at a temple where we were explained the basics of Zazen.

A 10 hours Ironman on a mini-velo :-)

Ganbare Kakui San!

Visit of a very old style sweet-toys shop.

A short lesson on manual computing.

Then we moved to a tea house where we were then introduced to the Tea Ceremony [Sadō = 茶道] [well that was not a first for me obviously but I always enjoy it].

Finally after one more ride in the old city to the Yonago port we took our lunch (a hearty bento) on a typical cruise boat and then that was the time to say good bye to each others!

I would like to thank everyone who organized and took care of the group during these 3 days. That was fun, and I was very happy to meet key people from Tottori prefecture. I have been living here for only 3 months but my life quite changed (for the better). Tottori Prefecture has a lot to offer especially for everything related to outdoor activities (one of the reason I'm living here also) and I will be more than happy to help to promote this anytime. I have myself few ideas I'd like to develop for people interested in endurance sports.

So thank you, Ichimura San, Kakui San and Bae San from Western Tottori Tourism and International Affair Division. As well as Ishimizu San from the Tottori Cycling Association [http://tottori-ca.jp] that first invited me to the tour. Also I was very pleased to meet Nojima San from the Tottori Triathlon Association [http://tottori-ta.com/]. And thank you Udagawa San, CEO of Tsuruya Kaike Ryokan for the stay and special thanks for the dinner at the "steak house" :-)

I would like also the Korean group I joined for the 3 days. Special thanks to Yunsuek and "Julian" who could speak English unless it would have been a bit awkward for me :-). Come back here anytime guys!

[Most of the pics are mine, some are from my new friends :-) ]

Hill Climb in Daisen - Bicycle Race

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 23:37:35 GMT

Results here : Hill Climb in Daisen - Results

On October 16, I took part in the Hill Climb in Daisen. An event organized by the Tottori Cycling Association. Not officially a race, as the road was not closed [there was one place where you might have to stop : there was one traffic light… I was lucky, in a good timing…], but anyway I can tell you there was a bunch of us who took it as a race :-)

Goal was pretty simple : start from Odake Castle [a big hotel] and ride up the hill during 14k. For those who wanted [80% of participants I heard, including me] it was possible to ride for 4k more up to the mountain. From 0 to 14k the elevation was of 760 meters and at the end of the 18k, close to 1000 meters.

198 riders registered so we were divided into 10 groups starting one minute apart from each other.

[I was selling few vintage jerseys also]

At registration we could chose a level : expert, middle or beginner. I chose middle as I hadn't raced for years and had trained for only 2 months and a half. I was in the third group to leave with number 51, maybe the best number to wear in a peloton :-) [This is because many Tour de France winners had this number... to make it short]

Receiving the last infos.

Groups are forming, getting ready to start in the right order.

The fastest riders waiting for the gun.

Yep sunny day that was!

So at 10:32am my group started. Ah, we were asked not to overtake each others too much in the first 3km a the road was very narrow then, so for safety reason, riders who wanted to go fast were asked to be on front of their group from the start.Ok.
After riding only 200 meters, to my surprise I was on the first position of the group. I kept holding what I felt was a cool pace but nobody tried to go faster then. Maybe I was too excited but checking on my speed, that was very reasonable considering the road was quite bad in these kilometers. So I kept leading the group for about 3-4k, these first kilometers were the fastest of the race then we reached the real climb. At that moment we also caught some riders of the previous group.
Also 2 or 3 guys from my group overtook me then (I was expecting that), so I jumped in their wheels. I could not follow the fastest ones and decided from then to focus on my own pace, the most difficult part of the climb being the last 4km, that's where tired riders will lose a lot of time.

So I rode pretty much alone most of the following 10k. I could catch few guys from the previous groups but also was caught myself by other riders.When you ride alone the tough thing is to keep a "race" pace, at 11k I felt I was losing it but just at that time a guy passed me and I decided to stick to his wheels, I am sure it helped me to save some minutes then.

I finished the 14km in 44:02, I was very happy as 5 weeks before I did it in 51:30 and was exhausted. What a difference! My goal was to ride it in less than 48:00 so that was way beyond my expectations. It looks like the regular training is paying off and that's very good for motivation as I am still in the very early stages of my calendar for 2012 season.

Here is the full race data on Runkeeper

This road is the one where is the red point on the runkeeper map above.

View of Daisen from the same point.

I am not faking it :-)

Also after the 14k, I took 2 or 3 minutes to rest my heart and then finished the 4k bonus at a steady pace but not racing anymore. The whole 18k took me 1:02 I think.

Next time I am pretty sure I'll be able to climb it in less than 40:00 cause for now I am fit but I don't have much power yet. That will be one of my challenge for 2012 :-)

18k done.

At arrival, we got some umeboshi : salty plum, typical stuff you got in Japan after a race. I was not a fan before but strangely I tried agin, ate one then 2 and realized I loved it from now on …very weird…

We got a free ticket for the onsen [hot spring] at the hotel which was much appreciated. That was funny to see all the guys in the onsen with their specific cyclist sun tan they got during summer…

I want to thank the organization and volunteers, especially as a matter of a fact, some are from my family :-)

In May 2012 there will be an other race on Daisen : the Tour de Daisen, a loop of 80km around the mountain with constant ups and downs, no flat, this one should be fun also! If you are a rider interested in this event don't hesitate to contact me.

Results of the race here : Hill Climb in Daisen - Results

If you read Japanese here are other blog posts of the race that I found :

http://tomozin.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2011/10/in-_-8cab.html

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/funridechicken

http://minkara.carview.co.jp/userid/364582/blog/24188593/

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/kikohshi586/

Triathlon training, the first 2 months

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:54:17 GMT

Already more than 2 months have passed since I've started to train again.

First month I focused on short distances on running, with 7 sessions around 5-6 km just trying to keep a constant rhythm but never trying to push it. I also added 6 cycling trainings and just one swim training.

The goal was to reboot the body, sort of speaking, I just followed my feelings and never cared so much about the speed. I was just enjoying my return to the sport (I still do).

I train often around Togo lake with my bike.

My usual course when running. This is just before they harvest the rice fields.

This is from my bike training in the Mitokusan temple area. Pass is at almost 600m which is a good training for me coming from an area at sea level.

This from top of Hachibuse mountain, also at a bit less than 600m. Great view, we can see a piece of Togo lake.

Paying respect to my old club in Le Havre wearing the Havre Athletic Club Triathlon jersey.

Some data from Runkeeper : volume for August and September, I am progressively increasing the distances.

Same by weeks

In September I exercised more regularly and added more sessions : 5 swimming trainings, 7 cycling, 10 running. A typhoon came at a good time to avoid me to over train (a mistake you might make when you have to much motivation) as I could not go out for 3 days. It was only the second month so the body still needed to readapt to this new routine.

I have progressively lengthen the runnings, reaching an average 8km I think, I also added a bit of intensity starting to do few interval trainings again. I think my cycling is coming back quite well also, I have good feelings on the bike. Even in the semi-mountains around here, the cadence of pedaling is showing some good signs. Still I am clearly far from my objectives but it's still reassuring that I am seeing progress already.

Also apart from the few days of typhoon, September is a great month for the weather and the countryside here is gorgeous, I feel lucky to be able to enjoy this environment. I am discovering more and more the area and even go to places that locals barely know and some roads in the mountain that are not even on google maps :-).

I must add that my diet improved greatly since I am living in the countryside, eating almost always at home and fresh products. This is helping for sure.

One of my cycling training in Runkeeper. I am going to buy the Wahoo Run pack (plug for iphone) to have cardio data also in the graph and control more what am doing.

At the mountain pass limit between, Tottori town and Misasa town [famous for curative radioactive hot springs [?]].
On the Runkeeper/google map above you can see this place, located with 2 small polaroid style icons.

I discovered over-there that Misasa was a sister town of Lamalou les Bains in France, also a hot spring town.

On October the 16th, I will participate to the Daisen cycling climb, a 14 km with about 700m of climb. I already rode it during a training, some severe percentages at some points, it should be fun to ride with others.

Triathlete Equipment Room - Not Mine Though :-(

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:55:23 GMT

Just a short post before to go to bed for the equipment geek among us :

I stumbled upon this video today. Helle Frederiksen, pro-triathlete from Denmark presents us her equipment room, quite impressive (if you are into endurance multi-sports that said...)

Now I wonder how she can keep it so clean! :-)

Nutrition advices and a Go Pro Triathlon movie (not by me)

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:20:35 GMT

I stumble upon these 2 videos recently. First is by Mara Yamauchi, a marathon runner. She's giving interesting food advices for people doing endurance sports in Japan. Not sure I could eat 6 mochi as she says she does/did before a race though!

Second video is a really cool use of a Go Pro Camera to promote Triathlon. For sure it's more difficult to do/communicate than all these crazy snowboards/surf/MTB downhill (etc...) videos. [I mean it's less graphic. Note that I am a big fan of those too]. So, well done and good choice of music!

That's all!

[Where I ran this morning, Togo Lake... yep it's not strait as I was... running]

Back to Training, seriously.

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:47:05 GMT

This is has been a many times failed project during the last 5 years. Many times I thought : "ok this year I will train well and will race triathlons", it never happened.
Before to live in Japan I was always living in places in France where it was easy to train, especially for the bike part. Basically I just had to get out of home and could ride with a minimum of trouble concerning traffic. I always lived not too far from either countryside or mountains, so I barely met traffic lights on my way for example. Difficult when you are used to such "quality life training" to adapt in a more urban environment.

In Yokohama I could never get into training for cycling. I tried but never really enjoyed it. Many people manage to do it but I could not. Taking my bike from home, I first had a minimum of 40mn inside traffic before to be able to start to train seriously, it meant 1h20 of ride that was boring and/or dangerous. Or I could ride in Minato Mirai area in early morning for short session, but I got bored quickly [and I have trouble to wake up at 5:30AM]. Other solution was to take a train carrying the bike in a bag early morning to reach enjoyable roads… : at least 2 hours on a train just to go and back from a training session! I really respect people who do that, it is showing their dedication to cycling, I just could not.

So I gave up on triathlon and just kept a fair condition by jogging and swimming from time to time, quite irregularly though. That said I managed to run two times Tokyo Marathon (without proper training but that's an other story). Also riding my Fuji feather (fixed gear bike) everyday helped my muscles not to forget completely the feeling of cycling. And for sure I had a lot of fun on it in the streets of Yokohama.

I even did something a bit crazy : last year as a personal challenge I pushed my limits on a fixed gear (a Fuji Track bike lensed by Fuji Japan- Akibo San) : I rode from Yokohama to to the fifth station of the Fuji San (where the road stops before the trekking path starts), that was a solitary effort on a very hot and long day (138km, from 0m to 2305m), I loved it and realized how I was missing cycling! You can read the report and watch mini videos [Fuji project].

(Sea of Japan, view from Tomari)

Things are changing now. After 2 years of talks and preparation with my wife we were decided to move to her birthplace (Tottori Prefecture) this year. Outdoor sports was a huge reason for me to agree to live over there [I came many times before], among food and being able to live between the sea and the mountains :-). Even at my old age, I feel tempted to try new sports like surfing, snowboarding or mountain bike downhill, yep all of this is possible in one of the smallest prefecture of Japan. That said in order to do all of these cool stuff, I would need to stop working and become a full time "guy who has fun doing sports"… Not sure that my wife and my bank would agree :D

Daisen, "the Big Mount" in Japanese (大山)

In Daisen.

Anyway let's go back to the subject,in fact this area is just perfect for training and no surprise that one of the most famous triathlon in Japan, Kaike Triathlon takes place here. It is a very tough long distance triathlon that brings triathletes to the Daisen mount roads, an awesome area.It takes place in July though, not a very good idea with the heat and humidity at this time of the year, I think but still it's really popular so...

Hawai Triathlon! (no mistake)

Also just 3km from were we live now is the Hawai triathlon, an olympic distance triathlon organized on June. Yep, the place is called Hawai (羽合 in Kanji), I guess with a name like this and the perfect location for a triathlon with the Togo lake, they had to organize a triathlon! It turns out that the city has a connection with Hawaii and their official cool-biz uniform is Hawaiian shirts, seriously :-)
There are also marathon races, swim events along the year,and also many events in the near prefectures.

Trek Madone 5.9 SL, I heard a guy named Lance Armstrong rode it, so it must be good for me also :p

It's now one month we have been living in Tottori and one of the first thing I started of course was to train again. Running and cycling regularly, more swimming will follow soon. I already enjoy my rides on my Trek Madone 5.9 SL that was waiting for me to get it out of the garage (yes I know what a shame it was).
How much I was missing this feeling to ride as fast as I can! And also what a weird feeling to ride a free wheel bike after 2 years of fixed gear only!

I am now on my way to get back in shape. The goal is to be "competitive" again in spring 2012. Well, I mean at my level, that's always the case in endurance sports anyway…

For the record, my personal bests are : 2h14 on an olympic distance triathlon, I always thought I could do less than 2h10 but never succeed to feel great at the 3 events on a race day. That's my goal for next year.On long distance, I did only one half-ironman format [with 2.5km of swim instead of 1.9km], it took me 5h08. I'd like to try this distance again.

As a runner my best on a 10km was just under 37mn, this one will be hard to reach again, I would be happy with a 38mn. My marathon best time is terrible (3h35), I should not have a problem to improve it.

For the swimming part, I started to really swim at 25 years old so I never was a natural, it's only after lots of work that I could feel almost like a "real" swimmer. My personal best is 5:28 on a 400m (in a 25m pool) so yes nothing crazy but when I started to swim my first test was 1:58 for 100m only (and no way I could swim 400m back then)… You can imagine the work it took to improve my level then. Now I am feeling that it's going to be a hard way again but I got motivation. My target is to be able to swim in less than 24mn for 1500m in 2012.

All my personal best are more than 6 years old but I am confident that even if I am 36 years old now, I can be faster than at 30. That's an interesting challenge anyway!

Runkeeper screenshot.

I am using Runkeeper to keep track of my trainings as you can see on the top page of the blog, if you use it also please join me in my "street team"! I might build a javascript widget so anyone can embed its training journal (one more project on the list).

Also I don't want to overload my usual twitter account jeromesadou with training and triathlons references so I am going to use the FixedinJapan account for this from now, if you are interested.

Tokyo Cycle Mode 2010...

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:49:33 GMT

I have these photos of Tokyo Cycle Mode since winter 2010... So obviously, no breaking news in this collection of pics but still I wanted to share them.
I actually took much more than the ones presented here... It's just a sample.

Gitane a used to be French bicycle maker has been bought and is reappearing with some single speed and/or fixed gear bikes.

Same almost for Peugeot, I am not sure but I don't think they are sold in France at the moment.

Mr. Colnago, himself.

Colnago single speed.

Italian makers still at the top.

Classic

Milani : A good balance between modernity and tradition.

An other maker playing the tradition card. interesting gear [?!]

Kask, I like their design.

Vintage style also for the shoes by Vittoria

The Fuji Tomato pursuit Model.

Time Trial beast with this Trek.

Lapierre from France, great design.

Masi with a nice collection again, sharing space with Brev.

Strange mounts at Tange booth.

Oldies but Goodies! Danish or German style... I forgot.

Ironman Triathlon "official" brand, awesome but you need to ride at least 38 kph not too be ridiculous on it I guess ;-)

I need a pair...

Urban helmets

Some beautiful Speedwagen bikes associated with the Rapha booth, only high quality here!

Rouleur : great texts with great photos.

Young keirin rider demoing his training, impressive!

Nitto products.

Do you recognize the frame ?

As a kid I had a Aeroburner BMX by Raleigh, I loved this bike. Red and Yellow of course!

Sugino

One of the best in Japan, well, in the world ! Cherubim.

Anchor : built for the track by Bridgestone

Great booth at Merckx.

Mavic shoes, thinking of it I need a new pair...

Form the entrance, this is only one small part, the venue was quite large. Next I will probably go the Osaka version as it is closer from where I live now.

If you want to see more pics I just uploaded more than 200 of them, see the gallery here : Tokyo Cycle Mode 2010

Volunteering in Ishinomaki

jerome@jeromesadou.com (Jérôme Sadou) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:24:02 GMT

Last week-end my wife and I joined Dan Castellano and some of his friends to do some volunteering in Ishinomaki with the NGO JEN. Ishinomaki is a port and one of the cities that have been the most devastated by the earthquake/tsunami of the 11th of March. It's a city about the size [160000 people] of my hometown Le Havre in France which is also a port. It is said that about 10000 persons lost their life in this area only.

I upload the following photos and videos to encourage those who can go over there and give some help.

Giving money is good of course if you can but now they also really need some man(woman)power to help them to clean-up and fix what can be. And the problem is that, time passing we kind of forget them up there. Three months after even if some good progress have been made (I've been told), the amount of work needed is still colossal.

There are different organizations welcoming volunteers, the two I know for now are JEN and Peace-boat. We joined JEN as Dan was already in contact with them and already volunteered during the golden-week.

Essentials to bring are : sunscreen, sleeping bag, working clothes, thick rubber gloves, reenforced boots, rain coat, goggles and most needed, masks [not the small ones we used for flu but the one used in construction for example. There are few types]. Anyway organizations are providing a list.

Of course you have to pay for your transportation. We got a night bus departing from Shinjuku and Shibuya at about midnight on friday night to be in Ishinomaki at about 6:30 in the morning [cost is only 5000 yens]... Then we reached by taxi the house welcoming the volunteers to change our clothes to get ready for our first day.

Our little group was composed of Japanese nationals and foreigners from their 30s to 60s, men and women. Anyone can find a task to do. Our job for the 2 days was to clean sludge from gutters.「側溝　そっこう　sokkou in Japanese. 」Yep, that's not sexy as Dan said but it has to be done. When seeing the massive destruction of the close area our task seemed a bit derisory but for the people living in this street it was certainly of a help.

Local people were already busy with building new green houses or taking care of their fields (for example) and they really appreciated we came to do help them. Some people even brought some ice-creams to us! Kids of the neighborhood came on their bikes to talk to us, as well as the elders. Simple communication is also a good way to cheer them up, of course they are curious to know where we come from etc... Just seeing us sweating for them gives them also some motivation I think.

That was the job : pull the blocks, remove the $#it, put the blocks back.

The work was intense and dirty but not too long in hours, basically from 9 to 15:30 with some breaks. JEN is not demanding too much to their volunteers [it's not the army...], they know that most of people coming are not construction workers usually and the muscles can be painful after the first day :-)

After the work, no shower where we were staying so better to bring some wet tissues for basic clean-up!! That something that could be improve with locals that still have their house untouched.

Here is the area where we worked :

After our first day of work I took the following pictures about 10 mn by walk from where we were working.

[this is the opening hours and menus of the day for lunch and dinner at the gymnasium welcoming people]

It is complete different situation in this area, most of the houses will be flattened with bulldozers I guess. Sometimes though people are still living on the second floor of their house, first floor almost not existing anymore.

Probably people that don't want to live anymore in the gymnasium welcoming the victims. Honestly I found that dangerous because there are still small quakes [we had one sudden shock just under our feet the first day, quite different than when in Tokyo].

Previous volunteers have certainly moved these tatamis out... watered they can weight more than 100kg each...

After the second day, the JEN staff picked us to show us other parts of the city that were destroyed like the port or a big paper fabric. I took the following video on our way back to the station.

It's only 5mn but it seems long (and yes there is no sound). And it's only small percentage of the dammages.

This one of the piles made of the collected materials... It is about 4-5m high and is more than 1km long... And there are other ones of course.

On the port that was certainly some fish factory or something...

To finish with here is our group picture. It's weird to say that but all in all despite the hard work, we had some good times and fun during this week-end, we met people, did our job and I must say drank some good sake on the saturday night [I also virtually lost everything I had at poker but that's an other story... :-)]

If you have any questions about volunteering don't hesitate to ask bellow.

If you want to make some donation towards the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear plant victims, here are some few links (If you have some good ones, you can add them in the comments) :

http://www.jen-npo.org/en/active/miyagi.html

http://peaceboat.jp/relief/

http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/index.html

http://audiomovement.jp/