The idea about the Saturday morning drive came out of a necessity. Having turned empty nesters, the kid tens of thousand kilometres away, the prospect of empty weekends felt disconcerting.
Tokyo has the advantage of being surrounded by mountains and the sea, once you step outside the bounds of this sprawling metropolis of 14 million people, there is plenty to see. The experience of driving is mostly a pleasure, the expressways are convenient, though sometimes crowded, rules are followed and the driving mostly disciplined.
So the idea of a long drive, somewhere far enough not to be Tokyo but not far enough to require an overnight stay. The idea was to keep the drive to under two hours. However there were destinations much further away that required longer drives and an overnight stay.
My Subaru Levorg was a faithful partner, easy to get around in, the auto-pilot features relaxing on highway and the 4WD powerful enough for mountain roads.
There was also the convenience in living close to expressway. The Metropolitan Expressway entry ramps are within a few kilometres and if you don’t mind paying the tolls, driving is convenient.
The title of the page has ‘Saturday’ but not all of the drives were on Saturdays. An occasional public holiday during the week or the odd Sunday drive on a long weekend are part of the blog.
The immediate aim is to cover the neighbouring prefectures, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma and Ibaraki and then move ahead to Fukushima, Yamanashi , Nagano etc.
Read the Blogs