500 million dollar weather satellite

and it can't even get the weather right, what a load of shit.

Good morning everyone, welcome back to the Abroad In Japan

journey across Japan... Lots of words with 'Japan' in it....

cycle across Japan. Good to see you, I'm sorry I haven't had a shower yet so my face is very

horrible and not good to look at, so sorry about that

Chris just went down into the hot spring, for his morning *chuckle* his morning

relaxation bath

turns out a special guest has arrived

I wonder who it could possibly be?

I don't believe it!

laugh *Yeah, morning!*

Good morning! What happened yesterday??

*I had a boiler, in salon...*

The boiler genuinely exploded *Yeah*

Oh no! How are your legs today?

You're wearing cycling! He's wearing cycling pants again

But today Natsuki is just here to wave us off but I'm glad

he came all the way here just to say goodbye, it's a nice gesture.

Every time I walk away from Natsuki and come back to him, he's wearing

...he's wearing something different, what's this?

*It's Yamagata idol....yeah*

Okay, so the food of Yamagata

basically is cherries so Natsuki has

*cherries!*

got some sort of cherry....helmet *ooohhhhhh*

It's too early in the morning for this. *It's safety!*

*cherry Chris!!*

What's...what....what are you???

*maniacal laughter* Ohhhh

Oh....

Oh... *nice helmet* Oh dear

*yes*

*laughs*

So apparently I've got to wear this all the way to Nigata

only thing is, I don't know if it fits over the helmet

so that might be a rather dangerous health hazard, I don't want to fall off the bike and then

not survive because I was wearing a stupid cherry hat.

Anyway look at this over here, it's time to introduce the thing

that's going to make this whole cycle all the more interesting

so this is Anpanman, he's a very famous Japanese cartoon character

and he is wearing the 'builders' cycle helmet from yesterday

it looks like a construction worker helmet. But this is a capsule toy machine

containing *twists dial on toy*

capsules

but there's no toys. Every single day of the trip what we're going to have in here

are challenges sent in by you guys

that I will undertake, maybe it's a food you want me to try,

a place you want me to go or a person you want me to meet -

whatever your challenge is you can write it down on the Tokyo Creative website, I've put a link

in the description box below, write it there

every single day of the trip, my team, who are travelling with me

will pick out five or six of the craziest, wackiest ones

put them in this machine, and then at the start of every single day

I'll pull out a challenge and undertake it, hopefully something good

and hopefully it's not something that involves a 'cherry hat'.

Whatever it is guys, send it in and hopefully it can be your toy

coming out of...er...coming out of Anpanman's

.......coming out of his crotch

What a visual, who thought that was a good idea??

How distasteful.

Is it actually fitting on? It's just coming off though.

He really, really wants me to wear this, this cherry

this cherry hat over my helmet, and to do that

he's started cutting it up

what? this is mental, f**cking hell *KILLING!*

Oh my god

*Natsuki struggles*

he's taking all the stress out from the exploded boiler

on the cherry hat, Natsuki by the end of this, there's going to be nothing left

this is mental

Natsuki have you got another challenge? I don't...I think this challenge is er...

has been shredded, quite literally *postcard!*

postcard? Now that's a challenge I can get behind

alright, and you can have that back *eh*

Thanks mate

*laughs*

Well Natsuki, it's been great to see you

and have you join us on this part of the journey

*take care* thanks Natsuki

*rings bell* Bye Natsuki!

*bye!* *Go Go Chris!......Go Chris*

Laughs

and away we go...again

50km to go

The stretch of the route we're going down today is very, very remote

I don't even think there's even any convenience stores

I feel a little bit emotional, saying goodbye to Natsuki

it feels like now the cycle, kind of

really begins.

*heavy rainfall*

It is absolutely tipping it down, thank God I found this little bus shelter

it's like fucking Noah's Ark out there, I would have been swept away in a flood

I do have a giant raincoat I could have pulled over myself, but this is the kind of

rain that hits the road and bounces straight back off, so

I thought I'd just wait it out, sit here and err...

just relax all by myself in the absolute

middle of nowhere.

If you're wondering where my team are? The three guys who are travelling with me

basically for the whole trip, they go 20-25km ahead of me

and we sort-of meet at 20km intervals

and they do that to check that

...that I'm not dead, so when I turn up and meet them

puffing, panting, exhausted

they can see that I'm still alive and they can kind of feel a sense of relief before they go ahead

to the next place. There are gonna be people

dropping in along the trip, along different parts of it

we do have a guy, who is coming two or three days later, in Niigata

he's a guy, he's a vlogger and er, he's quite well known

if you know your YouTubers you can probably guess who he is!

let's see if you can guess in the comments, but um, for now

I guess I'm going to have to wait this out a little longer and if it doesn't

stop then....I'm just going to have to put my coat on

and take my chances to be honest

something I'm not really looking forward to.

I must admit, as of now...

cycling in the rain might be one of my new least favourite things

it's going in my eyes and face

the water is just spraying off the tyres up my back

the weather forecast promised us sunshine, what an absolute lie that was

500 million dollar weather satellite and it can't

even get the weather right, what a load of shit

some of the worst rain I've encountered in years

cycling in the rain makes me wonder why I'm doing all this

when I could just be sitting at home, on my sofa, enjoying biscuits.....you know

So, we've done 31km now guys, we've got 22 left to go

If I was clever, the one sponsorship deal that I should have got

is this...this is energy jelly, you get it in

any convenience store across Japan

this is SUPER PROTEIN

it's not just protein it's 'super protein'.

Honestly though I may have been whinging earlier about the weather

I couldn't be happier right now, this is absolutely stunning

sitting here...

with the sea air blowing in my face, my

...banana yoghurt super protein jelly pack

This is it!...This is what cycling's all about, this is what I pictured

the whole thing being like really, so I'm really glad the dream has turned into reality

There were many reasons I wanted to go on this trip, like 'get fit'

'learn how to produce daily videos', which is something I've never done

and push myself in a way that I never have

you know, I never thought I'd be able to do 50km of cycling in a day

but above all it was just about, rediscovering travel

I...I started hating travelling places

I think it's because whenever I make a video I'm usually traveling there to make a video

Whereas in this case..

there is no plan and we're just going along to places

and filming things along the way, I mean, when we looked up this

region on a map, there is not a single thing on it

not a single attraction or thing there

and yet...we come across a place like this, you turn the corner

you go around the cliff and you come to somewhere like this

which is far more beautiful and profound

than most attractions that I've seen in Japan anyway, so

for me, this romantic cove with the sea air blowing in

and the super protein jelly in hand, this

personifies what the cycle is all about for me and why I decided to do it in the first place

I do feel like there's a bit of an 'us and them' mentality emerging

between my team and I

Look at them! In their cosy, comfortable 'automobile' with their

convenient seats and rainproof design!

b*stards

Although to be fair, despite the bad weather, I actually beat them here!

because they'd been sitting in the car all day on their macbook pros

plugged into the battery, they drained the car battery

and they needed somebody to come and stop and jumpstart their car so I actually beat them here, surprisingly

Yay, we made it Nigata...

...and the first thing we've got is roadworks, brilliant

*laughs*

I don't think they've got enough people working on that road

It's 5:15 and we're coming up

to Murakami station, I don't believe it

but I've actually done it

somehow!

I don't believe it

we did it, finally made it somewhere before sunset

because I didn't wear Natsuki's ridiculous cherry hat thing

I promised him that I would take him a photo, give him a postcard instead

so I've got to complete that challenge before I can truly relax

*exhales* Chris help me out here, I've got no idea

*what if you just...what about the station?*

Anpanman?

*oh yeah*

That'll do

*wow!*

*Arigato! Nice picture!*

My legs are, really a little bit achey, I'm going to give it a 6 out of 10

on the...'aching scale'

Though I do feel pretty pumped up, I dunno, even though it's about 1am at the moment

because I've been editing, I still feel kind of awake and alive

and energetic, and I think it must be something to do with endorphins

I dunno, I really need to look up what endorphins are

I always quote endorphins, everybody does

but I feel like...I haven't a clue what they are

so I should probably read about that

Tomorrow we reach Niigata city

and in Niigata I get a day off, we're gonna just explore the city and walk around

the day after tomorrow, so I can kind of relax a little bit

and hopefully my legs can recover.

That's all for now though guys, I'm about to roll over

and get some much needed sleep.

No matter where you might be out there in the big wide world, thanks for watching and hopefully...

...hopefully I'll see you tomorrow, have a good one.

I must admit, it's not every day a stranger pulls you over

at the side of the road to give you...

a PACKET OF CUSTARD CREAM BISCUITS!