I found myself looking today through some pictures I took over the summer. It’s getting colder by the day here in Kyoto and I found these shots from a perfect late summer day a few months ago when a few of my friends and I gathered some scooters and rounded Biwako, the largest lake in Japan. While everyone else had a scooter of their own, I didn’t, so a friend kindly let me use his Zoomer for the day:

Along the way we stopped plenty of times to enjoy the scenery. While the southern most areas of the lake are not the best looking, once you get up more north the water quality goes way up and the lack of people make for some nice peace and quiet.

In a few places a few of us stopped and decided to jump in. A few miles on the scooter and you were dry, so we did it a few times:

Ramen for lunch. In the middle of nowhere it was actually hard to find a good place to grab a bite:

Of course the lowest scooter award went to Masa with his Honda Dio.

I tried giving it a ride, but even at my low 170lbs the tire would rub the entire time, but as you can see it’s rubbed clear through the fender and was rubbing frame when I was on it…….

In all, it took us 12 hours from start to finish to make the journey. Passing cars in the middle lane, running to the front of the line at a red light, lots of fun. I was considering getting a scooter for myself, but maybe I will wait now until it warms up a bit around here. That and I just picked up a 2nd car! More on that in another post.