I had a nice few days relaxing at Nozawa, catching up with some old friends. We had a pizza night, I played Catan and I walked to the tp of the mountain with Cande who told me the story of how she met Juan. I also sat at Tanuki many times. To be honest I didn't want to leave, but I couldn't stay there forever. I was mainly hesitant to be on the road again. But, it was all mostly downhill. After leaving Nozawa around 11am I just enjoyed the slow descent the whole day. It didn't take that long before I was in the long suburbia leading to Niigata. I realised that I could push through a town further than I initially planned and that was I could sit at gusto for dinner. So I did just that, then in the evening I cycled in the dark to find a campsite. There was this nature park thing, but a car passed me as I went in. I ended up passing those guys deep in the bush, who were standing and drinking and smoking in the dark. It was creepy but I also felt like I had caught them being naughty or something lol, I don't know why they felt the need to go that out of the way to hang out. But I kept going and actually went back to the road, where there was a patch of grass next to a bench, perfect to sleep at.