Published in The Financial Times | By Stephanie Drax
An hour’s flight from Tokyo, Memoirs of a Geisha author Arthur Golden starts a celebratory bicycle trip to Kyoto.
Blood is throbbing at my temples, the air is rasping at my throat, and my brain is blaring Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” on repeat. The steep road before me will not relent. Three hours ago I was in the concrete matrix of Tokyo; now I’m climbing through a vibrant green forest of cedar and pine, having pedalled past glistening rice paddies, the occasional Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple.