From the other green island, thanks for sharing, Ron.

Is that a bicycle registration plate?

Japanese bicycles need to be registered, but foreign visitors are exempt.
It's just a sign I made up (the same one as last trip, with the year changed) that says "Japan 2024" on the left and the right side said "day number XX' that I would fill in with a whiteboard marker in the morning. At the bottom I added "Hello. I'm Ron"
Interestingly, after having this on the bike for two trips totalling 11 weeks in length, and having talked to hundreds of people, on the last week, someone i was talking with looked at the sign and said "You spelled your name wrong". And he was right! In all my interactions, no one had mentioned it. I think most Japanese are too polite to point out such a thing.

soooo green!!

I don't think that Japan has a large problem with wildfires because the hottest part of the year is also the wettest. And when it rains, it really rains. There were two mornings when the weather app was showing expected rainfall of 20mm per hour. Luckily all I had to do was hole up in a warm restaurant for a few hours and wait for it to pass.

The riders in the Isle of Man TT are practising this week

Saw the great Bill Ivy race at the first (and only ) Canadian GP in 1967. He had won the NI 200-miler earlier that year. At Mosport in Ontario, he had a 125 cc Yamaha, and broke the existing lap record on his first lap. (It had been set by a Toronto rider on a 500 Manx Norton.)  His 12-spd Yamaha made a colossal row at 16,000 RPM on the back straight.  He also raced a Yamaha V-4 against Hailwood's 250 Honda 6 in the 250cc race.  The two of them could've been covered with a blanket for 8 laps, when Ivy's engine seized. (It was a cold Saturday in late September, and the Yamaha's motor probably wasn't used to such things.)  The Honda at 20,000-plus and the Yamaha 4 at 16,000 made an unforgettable scream.

The 500 race featured Hailwood on Honda's 500 four, and Agostini on the MV triple. Hailwood won--Ago had only to finish in the top 3 to win the championship.  I watched the race from the outside of the hairpin. Hailwood used all of the track to get through--the 85 bhp Honda was barely controllable. Ago was much tidier--he was giving away 15 bhp.  The only rider to stay on the same lap, about 30 seconds behind, was the Canadian Mike Duff, a former factory rider for Yamaha but riding that day as a privateer on a Matchless G50.  (The Matchy was about 30 bhp down on the Honda.)  Duff was the smoothest of them all.

That race was Hailwood's last FIM race, and Duff's last as a professional rider. I met Duff in 1990: he had transitioned to Michelle Duff, and was speaking in Ottawa about that change, and his history with AJS 7Rs and G50s in the early 1960s, before he signed with Yamaha.  She signed a b-&-w photo of her former self on the Matchless, which I'd taken during that race.

I watched part of the pre-race goings-on from the roof of the pits. (Imagine doing that today!)  One of the 500 bikes was a single-cyclinder Vincent Grey Flash -- I never knew there was such a thing.

Grand times.

I've clocked up many miles with 50mm tyres on 17mm internal width tubeless-ready rims. I think that such rims, designed to hook onto the tyre beads, have enabled the tyre width / rim width limit to be increased. I also feel that a light bulb-shaped tyre gives a more comfortable ride than a U-shaped tyre.

There should be a frame size number stamped under the bottom bracket.