We woke to the crashing sound of waves and rain. Well it was the lapping of waves and the pounding of rain.

Breakfast was a bready feast inside and unused tunnel. We cycled to Sakata, this ride now seems a long time ago for some reason, and I cannot remember that much of it or what happened.

We looked around a few sights of interest in Sakata, a famous families home and some old rice storage warehouses, that were shade and protected from wind and sun by some specially planted trees. We also visited a relocated light house and a small boat in a park.

We were couch surfing in Sakata and met our host at a supermarket near his house we dropped of the bikes and stuff at his flat that was roomy and had a lot of interesting things on the walls.

We headed to the Onsen which had a great view over the rice fields to the city. We cooked dinner at the apartment and listened to music and chatted and had a fairly late night for us, after 23:00!

TODAY

We got up with our host and had a bready breakfast and headed off the first stop was at a shrine that was quite a walk from the road, it was good.

Heading on and closer to the coast we stopped as recommended by our host at Sixteen Buddha carvings that were in the rocks, by the sea these were impressive and there was a good view back to Sakata, a long the coast.

The day ended in Yurihonjo were we were collected at the station by our host, it just so happened that there were two couch surfers in close location. We dropped our stuff off at our host flat before heading out to see a lot of Jizō on a hill, these are statues of children, we didn’t fully know what they repressed, but they are moments to children, we have seen a few a long the road but never in this number and the view from the hills was great.

After dinner we headed out for a spot of karaoke, before bed.

Oh I forgot to say we visited a empty children’s science museum that had a lot of cool hands on stuff like a musical slide and a bubble to stand in, and a few things outside like a bouncy castle and a big greenhouse thing to climb around in.