I had a 4:30am start, waking up to my food and 'scented' bag that I left far from my campsite being completely emptied. The weirdest part is it was like all of the items had been picked out by hand, there was no damage to the bag and the toiletry bag pockets were unzipped. It makes me think that a disgruntled local was the one that emptied it not an animal, but I'll never know! I had a few things to tick off this morning. First was breakfast at Coco's Restaurant, the newest chain to my list of regulars that has the best breakfast and coffee machine than the other chain options. While I did that I had my clothes washing in the nearest coin laundry. After that, I checked out an onsen but they were closed until midday (it was 8:30). I then took my bike to the only bike shop in town to get fixed. It took the repairman 1.5h in the scorching sun to fix but he did it! He only charged me ¥2000 ($20) because he said it was not a perfect job but it seems fine to me! I ended up taking off around 11, but I immediately stopped at a cafe for a breather before leaving the town. From there it was just National Route 45 all the way, going up and down the small mountains along the eastern coast. There was not much to report from the cycling side, most of the actual road was not along the water side so I didn't actually get to see a lot of coast. At around 4pm I made it to a tiny local onsen where I could shower for the first time in a few days (gross I know 😅). It was so cheap at ¥300 and, whilst I started alone, it quickly filled up with 3 more local men. Nobody was speaking in the bath itself, but once I started drying off and getting changed one of the guys asked me where I'm from. When he learnt I was cycling across Japan, all of the locals were now keen to talk to me! After my onsen I sat on the bench outside the door and exchanged a smiley convo with an older lady who was filling up 10 big water bottles with the outside tap. From there I had 350m mountain climb to pass to the next town where I would sleep for the night. I tried to take it slow as to now work up a sweat right after washing myself, but the sun was also starting to go down. I made it over fine though and got to the convenience store for dinner where I had my favourite Lawson massaman curry and rice. One of the annoying things about this curry is the packet is made of aluminium so is not microwaveable, but today I figured out if I buy some microwave sausages I can take them out and pour the curry into the sausage packet and microwave it in that. Worked like a charm! I got to a park to camp, it was not where I'd planned to go but I saw it on the way to my initial idea and it was so good I couldn't pass it up. There was a guy in his car just chilling there, presumably to sleep in his car overnight. He then approached me and we had a great convo! His name is Suzuki Aichi and he had travelled the world by bicycle for 6 years over 50 years ago. He had one photo of him on his bike from when he was in Afghanistan. He had cycled from India through the Middle East, from Venezuela to the bottom cape of Argentina, and across Africa. His English was so fluent so we eventually switched to English and just chatted that way. While we were chatting, I thought I spotted a curious cat nearby. But it was a fox! Suzuki said it looked like a baby fox, but to me it was already pretty big!