LAKE BIWA.
It is also possible to go from Tokyo to Kyoto by way of Atami, but it is not a very good trip. Those who try it generally get on the train at Kozu and get off again at Gotimba—a method much easier for a motorcycle than for a car, of course.
There are a thousand things to do and see in Kyoto, but if one is there in cherry blossom season one must not fail to see the glorious old cherry tree so widely renowned. Near it is the Mound of Ears. Osame told me that long ago, after a great battle in Korea, the returning victors brought with them their enemies' ears and noses, instead of the heads, to show how many Koreans they had killed. These trophies were buried in a mound to commemorate the battle.
A trip was made from Kyoto to Ama-no-Hashidate—another of the "three finest views"—by way of Suchi and Kawamori. For some miles the road out of Kyoto is bad; there is a long climb before Kameoka and a steep, long, but well-graded pass between Sonobe and Kinokiyama. The whole of this day's journey lay through beautiful, well-wooded country with glimpses of the Yuragawa as one rode along its left bank, then over a splendid hilly coast road into Miyazu—a distance of about ninety miles in all.
AMA-NO-HASHIDATE.
The return was made by way of Shin-Maizuru, where one turns to the right after getting into the broad main street and soon reaches the coast again near Takahama. From there on to Obama the scenery would be hard to surpass with its views of the coast and of the wooded hills inland covered with azaleas, wisteria and other brilliant flowers. The road from Imazu skirts the western shores of Lake Biwa and is very narrow and bumpy until within ten miles of Otsu. Indeed, the roads, after leaving the coast, are often so narrow that there would be no pleasure in taking a car over them.