It started raining not long after dinner last night (and, it actually got cold enough that I needed to put a hoodie on).  We checked the weather report, and it wasn’t good news.  The forecast was for more rain.  So, when the alarm went off this morning and it was still raining, we went back to sleep.  I don’t really know why we’re so tired, because we’re generally getting at least 9 hours of sleep a night (though, we are generally travelling for about 8-10 hours a day).

We read the weather report again this morning, and it said that the rain would continue throughout the day, and would begin to clear in the evening and should be better tomorrow.  So, we decided to take another easy day, watching Futurama, eating snacks, laying in bed.  We didn’t leave the michi-no-eki until about 1PM.

From Kamiyama we headed to an onsen in Komatsushima City, it boldly claimed to be 100% natural onsen water.  I didn’t really care, I just wanted to wash.  The old men that usually have the onsen to themselves always look confused/surprised to see me using it too.  Fair enough, I guess it’s an odd place for a foreign person to be.  Anyway, I was in/out in about 45 minutes.  I took my time, enjoyed a few different baths.  I am just about always out before Risa, and that’s fine, gives me time to do Internet things.  Today, she came out 45 minutes after me.  I did tell her to “enjoy it”, and to “take your time”…  Not complaining, mostly surprised at how long she can spend in an onsen.

By the time we left it was 4PM.  We’d travelled maybe 20km so far.  We did some quick shopping for dinner (at an amazingly cheap supermarket, Deo) and tried to finally do some serious driving.  I wanted to go to a rugged cape, Cape Gamouda, but it was getting dark and I wasn’t even sure if there would be any place for us to camp.  So, we took the safe/easy option and headed to the next michi-no-eki in Minami Town.  The road was (mostly) modern, and traffic was flowing at about 70kph, which was almost like we were back driving in Hokkaido, except the terrain looked far more like Taiwan.

Risa cooked a simple rice-noodle dinner (of course it was tasty), we mixed a few drinks with the sudachi (lime) that we were given last night, and watched some Top Gear.  Here’s hoping that tomorrow’s weather is better, and it’s warm enough to swim in the amazing beaches in the area.