Biking Around Biwa
Last weekend we participated in a bicycle ride around Japan’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Biwa. The bike around Lake Biwa is approximately 220km (136 miles), but we cut off the last chunk by crossing a bridge instead of riding around the entire way. This meant that the trip was only about 160km (100km). The ride was organized by a fellow JET who will be participating in a trip to Cambodia with the NGO, PEPY. She, and a few others, were riding to raise money for their trip to Cambodia, a very worthy cause!
Before we went, I told my old (not referring to age, referring to the past) supervisor about our plans for the weekend. I told her that we were taking the train to Hikone and biking around Lake Biwa.
She was interested, of course, she always enjoys hearing about my crazy and interesting weekend and holiday adventures.
On Monday I came back to work. I was very tired and a bit sore after a full weekend of biking on an ill-fitting mama-chari.
“How was your weekend,” my old supervisor asked.
“Pretty good,” I said, “I am pretty sore though.”
“Really?! Why are you so sore?” she asked.
“Well, I biked around Lake Biwa. It is a pretty long ride and my bike was terrible,” I replied.
“How far did you bicycle?”
“In total, about 160km.”
“How far?! You did what?!” she exclaimed.
“I already told you, I bicycled around Lake Biwa.”
As it turns out, when I originally told her that I was bicycling around Lake Biwa she thought that meant that I was bicycling in the vicinity of Lake Biwa not actually bicycling around it, as in circumnavigating.
Needless to say, once we cleared this up she was duly impressed. Another glorious English misunderstanding. English can be so difficult!
The blog may be a little quiet over the next few days. For now we are a little busy doing some last minute cleaning before my mom and Mike come on Friday. Squeeee! Once they are here, we will be busy spending some quality time with them and showing them around Japan. I love visitors!!!