Day 1

Coming straight from the suburban neighborhood somewhere southwest of the center of Metropolitan Tokyo, Japan, is Day 1 of what will hopefully be 30 consecutive days of active bike riding and photographying.

I was inspired to do this and wanted to sign up for it, but found out it was an April only event, so I decided to do my own thing for the month of May. My goal is to lose a few kilos while accruing some kilometerage while showing you where I live/ride. I'm actually very excited about doing this. Here's day number one.

One of my favorite destinations is this mega-cemetery. It sits atop a hill about a mile away from home. This is one of very few places I can ride my bike freely away from car traffic. It's also very quiet and clean. It gets busy on the weekends but there's hardly anyone there when I usually visit in the afternoons.

Visiting the cemetery is a very important function for Japanese people. They spend time cleaning and tidying their family plot and give it flowers, light some incense and sometimes leave gifts of food for their deceased ancestors. My Japanese family has a plot at a different cemetery. I shouldn't say that I enjoy visiting our family grave, but I feel a strong, special connection to my Japanese side when I spend time cleaning our tombstone.

Cats abound in the cemetery. 

View from cemetery. Surrounded by houses, houses and more houses.

These are our pet tadpoles caught at a river near our apartment. This picture is from 2 weeks ago.
Come back tomorrow for what they look like now....