Date

2022-10-30, Sunday

Distance

60.24 km (1112.19 km in total)

Being the easternmost point of Japan, Cape Nosappu is the place currently held by the Japanese government that is the closest to the sunrise. Many people therefore came to this humble place at dawn. The actual monument commemorating the easternmostness of this location is a very simple and unflattering wooden column, which, compared with the gigantic monument for the irredentist movement, can be easily left unnoticed if we didn't pay attention.

There was only one restaurant at Cape Nosappu open, ready to serve us breakfast on early Sunday morning. Its menu includes the prized Hanasaki crabs that are special to this area, the price of which is very affordable as per its dimension. Before we left Cape Nosappu, a man of 75-years-old travelling from Nagoya came to speak to us and gave us some snacks. He manifested great curiosity (which is unusual for Japanese people) in what we were doing. Despite the language barrier, I felt his good heart most ardently.

We headed back to Nemuro via the south shore with the aid of partial tail wind. Our assessment of Nemuro is negative. We are guessing that being so close to the ocean makes the weather rather changing: it rains a lot when the forecast announces sunny. Uncontrollable things aside, Nemuro presents no point of interest to us: no restaurant was open on Sunday where we had surveyed, no store that carries what we were looking for, etc. There is nothing except wandering cats meowing for food to see — if you like these creatures. Overall, we were just happy to finally get out of Nemuro.

For tonight, my friend originally planned to pitch our tent in a campground in Hamanaka, which was still 30 km from where we were at 4 pm when the sun started setting. As soon as I convinced my friend to call it the night in Attoko, not far from a convenience store, it started raining.