Long time no see, Osashiburi.

Good to see you, my friend. How you doing?

I'm fine, but busy day.

It's good for business, right?

So it's 7:00 p.m

the day before the cycle,

and I figured if there's one thing I've got to do

in terms of preparation for the next 2 months of which I'm going to be cycling,

might as well be a haircut.

I don't want all this hair in the way.

Make me look good.

Tomorrow, Natsuki's actually joining part of the cycle.

Natsuki, tomorrow sankasuru?

Let's bicycle.

Let's bicycle.

I think that's what we should have named the cycle: "Let's Bicycle" instead of "Journey Across Japan"

"Let's bicycle"

I have a good idea!

Because I have a car.

Right.

You have a cycle.

I have a cycle.

You're cycling.

Yes.

I'm driving.

Cycling shinaino?

No.

Awww.

He's lazy.

Easy travel.

Easy travel. Yes.

Nice country road,

take me home...

That's Natsuki's rendition of John Denver.

Amazing. (John Denver)

Can I cycle until Kagoshima?

I can't do it. Thanks, Natsuki.

Finish in Nigata? That's in 3 days!

Good you give up.

Brilliant! Encouraging words from a good friend.

"I can't do it", "I'll fail" and "I'll give up in 3 days".

Thanks, Natsuki.

Take care!

Yay

Finish, how do I look?

Good. I feel like a new man. I love a good haircut.

Don't know where Natsuki is.

Smoking no doubt, smoking.

We're gonna go and get some dinner now, and have a kind of celebratory

pre-trip dinner to get in the spirit of things and yeah

Hmm I'm quite happy with that.

We found the man himself, there you are.

Do you like my new hair?

Dry hair. Dry hair, yeah!

Nice polish. Nice polish.

You need a towel. Do I?

because very sweaty

Bicycle stuff.

When I'm cycling, right?

Yeah, you need a sweat towel.

You're giving me a towel.

Yeah.

Wow sugoi purezento, a towel.

Natsuki's given me a towel.

That's nice.

Very airy, very light

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Natuski. Wow, what a great

What a great way to kick off the cycle.

My very own towel. Thanks, Natsuki.

You're a real friend. Good friends.

Thank you.

This is my hotel room. It's a Japanese business hotel,

so it does smell primarily of

smoke--cigarette smoke, and the 1980s.

I quite like it. It's quite a nice nostalgic smell to it.

So before we go for dinner,

I thought I'd have a quick chat because I don't--

I feel like I've just thrown you in the deep end here and you don't know what's going on.

Basically, yeah, tomorrow. The cycle is tomorrow, it starts tomorrow.

I'm really surprised.

I'm not prepared for it at all.

But yeah, it's happening.

And the reason I haven't really told anyone about it, or I haven't promoted it that much is because

until now, until like today, I didn't even feel like it was gonna happen.

You know sometimes when you go on a holiday

And you just- it doesn't feel like you're going on holiday until you're right on the plane,

sitting on the plane, going off the runway, taking off.

That's what is feels like now.

I'm kind of on the plane, I'm just about to take off. That's the stage I'm at.

I must admit, though I did laugh at it when he brought them out

because it's so damn random

It actually makes a lot of sense. It's probably the best possible gift

somebody could have given me before going on a 2,000 kilometers cycle:

a towel to wipe away the gallons of sweat that are going to be pouring out my face.

Anyway, it's ten past eight now, which means it's time for a much-needed dinner. Let's go.

Okay, Natsuki, I want 3 tips for success.

3 tips so I can finish the cycle and actually make it to Kagoshima.

Tip number one.

Don't give up. Don't give up.

Tip number two.

More energy.

More energy.

Many food.

Many foods! Ok, yeah.

Many drinking!

Should I drink sake? No sake.

No sake. Only when I finish.

And tip number three

Maybe sometimes accident

Sometimes I'll have an accident, right.

Weather

The weathers gonna be bad.

Crazy earthquake.

There's gonna be a crazy earthquake.

Contact, ask me.

Ahh, ok.

So if I have an emergency,

call Natsuki.

Like Ghostbusters--

Who you gonna call?

Natsuki! Aso

Yeah! Safety Natsuki!

There's two things that make the cycle quite difficult.

The first thing is cycling 2,000 kilometers

and the second thing is actually trying to film it, trying to film it every day

for like two months.

So to do that I've assembled a team of the finest minds

that I could get for the cheapest price, basically.

There's two of them over there

that's Ian and that's Wenbin

I'll introduce them properly tomorrow because they're busy right now

they're on their phone

doing something of great importance

Looking rather shady.

It also looks slightly romantic though

This izakaya that we're in now, Torasan,

which I think means "the tiger"

Natsuki! Torasan no...

Always always looking for attention.

(Movie)

Movie? Ahh,

(Japanese movie)

Okay, I thought was something to do with Tigers

I've been--

I've got the izakaya's name wrong the last five years I've been coming here, that's,

that's pretty embarrassing.

But this izakaya has been pivotal in the last few years of being in these videos.

We actually filmed "Natsuki: The Movie" in this room.

Whenever something big happens

We always come here the night before.

So, it seems fitting that the night before the 2,000 kilometer cycle we should

come here and

eat and drink lots of things.

It's also one of the few places I know locally that does fried cheese

so that's also another key factor

Okay, so Natsuki before I go on the cycle

I think we need to make some sort of rap song, to inspire me to kind of keep me motivated

So I'll beatbox and you can sing. Yeah. Yeah?

All right, about bicycles.

Bicycle.

All right, here we go

The fuck was that?

Sounded like a duck being run over.

So-

It is

11..11:35.

I don't know if it was a good idea to go out with Natsuki and eat and drink all that all the things we did

But it was a nice way, I think to kick things off.

We're gonna be starting the cycle at 10 a.m.

In about 11 hours, so I better hurry up and go to bed. I'm absolutely shattered.

But at least I got a haircut and at least I'm stuffed full of fried cheese.

I'm sure the energy that will come from the fried cheese will help me power on through tomorrow.

Honestly,

Not even I know if I'm prepared for this.

I have--I've been cycling a lot recently in preparation,

but probably not as much as I should have

and I think I could go one of two ways.

Either It's going to be really easy and it might be hard for the first few days, but then it'll be alright

and I'll be able to do it.

Or, after a few days

my legs are going to kill and I'm fucked.

And I don't know which way it can go. I'm quite nervous.

I'm quite apprehensive of filming this vlog altogether because if it goes wrong, five days in,

it's going to be quite humiliating especially given

You're all watching this, so...

Yeah, it's pretty scary, not gonna lie.

Thanks for joining me on this vlog guys and be sure to check out tomorrow when the cycle actually kicks off.

and don't you dare laugh at my orange helmet when it comes out

my bike helmet

I didn't choose it, Risotoro chose it, and it is bright orange, and it does look

comically

ridiculous.

I should have--I should have got another one. Don't know what I was thinking.

Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow guys, hopefully.

Let's prove Natsuki wrong, and let's cycle 2,000 kilometres across Japan.

See you then.