November is apparently bamboo lantern festival season in Oita with Usuki the first weekend, Hita the second weekend, and Taketa the third weekend. During my planning for this Kyushu tour, my original route was too long, and one of the places I skipped to make the route shorter was Usuki. However, I added it back in when I realized it was the only convenient place for us to catch one of these bamboo lantern festivals. It was an excellent decision as our time spent in Usuki was certainly one of our Kyushu highlights.
With a bit of extra time we followed the coast around the peninsula NE of Usuki and just like coming into Nakatsu we stumbled upon a bicycle path, the Saganoseki Cycling Road. It’s interesting that South Korea really touts their cycling infrastructure, but you don’t hear much about Japan. Off the designated routes in Korea, the cycling conditions were pretty grim. In Japan, however, we found great riding almost everywhere we went. Japanese drivers are perhaps the best in the world.
