Made it!

Arrived in Wakayama two hours before sunset! The remainder of the route since the last blogpost turned out to be flat and wonderful, with tunnels in all the potentially difficult areas. I like tunnels. Tunnels are great.

This little shrine captivated me during sunrise.
More fog in the morning.
Thirty seconds before I took this photo an old bent man crossed the road.
Route 42, about 20km's short of Wakayama

Based on these photos you might think that today was a great day. Do not be deceived. Today was FUCKING WINTER.

I'm at a business hotel now, the same place I stayed at four years ago during my first trip. The place is called City Inn, but the pronunciation in Japanese is in fact 'Shitty Inn', as the katakana for the words leaves them no other choice but to pronounce it that way. I've scheduled another break day for tomorrow, as I have to do some budget calculations and decide my route for the next couple of days. I'm going to make a slightly more detailed route tomorrow, and I need to look up at which places I can spend the night without spending too much money. Tomorrow is planning day.

Mini-note: the decision scale that balances the 'stay-here-and-get-a-job' and 'go-back-to-holland' has been shifting recently. Two weeks ago it was about 70-30 in favor of staying. Recently I'm thinking that Japan looks quite similar no matter whether you're in Tokyo or Kyoto or in-between, and besides that, I get the feeling that I'm giving myself a huge overdose of Japan-ness before quitting. Current balance: 50-50.

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