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Day 9
Niigata, Niigata – ???, Yamagata

Distance: ~130 km
Average: n/a
Max: n/a
Total Distance: ~745 km

On the morning of Day 9 I was planning on leaving where I had spent the night, the internet cafe, at around five in the morning, which is when the overnight package deal I had purchased there expired. I was also planning on doing a huge push and riding the final 225 km home in one day. That didn’t happen.

What ended up happening is me waking up to a huge thunderstorm outside, one that I didn’t really want to go out in. While I had purchased a raincoat the previous day, due to my badly needing one throughout my trip, it was bad enough that I didn’t want to go into it if I could help it.

I ended up staying in the internet cafe until around 9 am, at which time the rain finally stopped and I was able to head out, though not before paying more than twice as much as I had planned for the internet cafe.

After about an hour or two the rain came back, and until mid-morning on Day 10 I didn’t take my raincoat off. That’s not to say that it was raining continuously, as I also happened to come across some non-rain cool cloud patterns.

Cool clouds on the Sea of Japan, right before I headed east and away from the coast

From the time I left Niigata city until the time I got to Yamagata city the next day, there were no real cities–it was all countryside. The state of the declining countryside of Japana was well-displayed as I came across what must have once been a large onsen resort that invariably had had tons of money poured into it, but now its lays dormant and rotting.

Abandoned resort in Niigata prefecture

Throughout the day, and as I passed into Yamagata prefecture, I passed various bicycle tourists going in the opposite direction, moreso than in the previous week combined. Maybe the road I took happens to be a common cycling route? I don’t really know why it would be, as southern Yamagata is just a bunch of mountainous nothing, but there was still a decent amount of traffic on the roads, leading me to believe that it may simply be a popular route between Niigata and Yamagata city/Sendai.

For lunch I ducked out of the rain under a rusty old decrepit bike shelter for an equally rusty old decrepit train station that handled only about six trains a day.

Lunch out of the rain

Eventually, as usual, it got dark and I realized that thanks to the morning delay I wouldn’t be able to push all the way home today. I found some side road off of the highway and found two suitable trees for my hammock, setting up, and drifting to sleep. The trip’s almost done.

It’s the last night in a hammock. Photo taken the next morning

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