Took a few days to spend some time in Noto hanto, a big peninsula in Ishikawa-ken, north of Gifu. 

Day 1 started quite early, I wanted to get the ETC discount, so got up at 2a.m. to pack wednesday morning. Left the house, feeling pretty good about packing everything. Downloaded some of the noto hanto routes from other people, and took off, 3:30 ish from home. Doesn’t take too long to get to the Chuo highway….oh wait, this says it is the Shuto. hmm. well, only 3:50, should be fine. After paying for that leg of the shuto, I got a bit worried…. I vaguely remembered the Chou toll being way out there…. uh oh. Ended up crossing the toll booth at Hachioji with my bike clock reading 4:06a.m. Not sure if they count “being on” back on the shuto for the discount….! well, exiting Matsumoto, it was 2450JPY….not sure if that includes a discount or if it is the normal price. whatever.

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I went to my dealer’s touring day, part of a now monthly series. Lots of really nice bikes, lots of fumes!

There’s my ride, in amongst tons of very nice bikes…. I barely fit in!

MV Agusta Brutale & friends at Ebina SA

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I have to admit, these cherry blossoms are quite addictive. Going nuts trying to get some nice pics.

I went out last week trying to find some in Izu/Hakone, was way too early, very cold and no flowers. Made another run this week, which was much better!

This route is basically a ’standard’ run, taking the Tomei highway out of Tokyo and exiting at Atsugi for the Odawara-Atsugi Road. Pick up the Hakone Turnpike at the bottom, take that to the Izu Skyline (down and back up), return via Hakone Shindo and same route back.

MV Agusta Brutale - Hakone Turnpike

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This time, I took out the F4… Mixing it up a bit

MV Agusta F4 in front of Roppongi Hills

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Woke up early on Saturday to get some sakura pictures before the crowds got there. Flowers were just about 100%. Great day, partly cloudy. Meguro-kawa has a lot of buildings around it, so lots of shadows, did what I could….

Brutale at Meguro River

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Getting started here with new blogging gizmos here.

Been spending some time trying to get this all put together, still some niggles to get through, hoping to have this available to others shortly.

In the meantime, you’ll have to deal with my drivel.