Bicycle: 62 km
Average speed: 14,9 km/h
Total ascent: 464 m
Weather: More and more rainy, 17 C
Not too much to report today. Maybe because it was the longest day in the saddle so far or, more likely, because as the day progressed it rained more and more. What initially was a very light rain that could be ignored became a persistent rain drenching everything (and me).
Before leaving the Tsunan Echigo area I visited two last art locations. These statues at the side of the road and river (the neon helmet is mine) …
… and then another area with a new abandoned school used as exhibition space and a new building sponsored by Hongkong.
The art was so so, but the school was kind of sad. There were still the pictures of the classes and their activities. I searched for my own graduation year and back then the school was still going strong and continued so for some more years. But now it is no longer used. This is a real problem in Japan, that the countryside is losing its population, specially the young. And this combined with a low birth rate just means that the country side is getting more and more abandoned. When I was cycling through this farm landscape I wondered when I saw a young farmer in Japan. Normally all farmers you are at least 60 but more likely 70 or 80. How will this continue? Shouldn’t Japan introduce some special visa category for rice farmers, give them an empty house and a few acres of fields and require that they stay at least x years in farming before they can change to some other visa category?
I followed the Shinano river for most of the day:
The valley only opens around Iiyama to then become the fertile plain around Nagano which seems to be the orchard of Japan.
Of the castle in Iiyama only a gate survived…
… but there is a large temple district with one temple besides the next (and some intersected shrines).
After lunch in Iiyama I continued for the last 20 km, now in steady rain, towards Obuse, where I am staying tonight. I arrived completely drenched. That’s kind of okay as long as it isn’t too cold but only as long as riding. Once you stop it just feels very wet.
My hotel for the night is right in the center. And looks quite nice from the outside, but the room itself is so lala, and there isn’t an onsen :-(
But at least my bike has a nice place:
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