Date

2022-10-14, Friday

Distance

78.49 km (155.17 km in total)

We woke up before 6 am to the coldness of autumn morning. I had a sound sleep but my friend didn't because of the noise from the construction site nearby. While cooking miso soup and other stuff to warm us up, two policemen came to talk to us (in a mixture of Japanese and English). They were curious about and amazed by our plan to cycle across Japan, told us to be careful and wished us a good journey.

This roadside station's washroom is very clean; there are 2 reasons I think that contribute to it. (1) It is regularly cleaned at least twice a day. (2) Japanese people have a shared sense of civility in that they are, as a collective, concerned about not leaving garbage in public space and cleaning after themselves after each usage.

I started collecting (rubber) stamps of roadside stations we dropped by. A lot of tourists in Taiwan and Japan like to collect these souvenirs. There is even a book that is dedicated specifically for collecting these stamps.

By the end of the day, we reached the Hinode Park Campground in Kamifurano that is located on a hill. The spot we picked is scenic and everything else is splendid except that they didn't allow charging electronic devices, which is rather surprising because at 800 yen per person, this campground is rather expensive by Japanese standards. It seems that charging will be the biggest issue we have to face in this journey.

The full take — 28 more photographs from this day