I'd been having an internal conflict since last night about what I wanted to do. The truth is I'm tired and I want to stop, but there were some things I wanted to detour to see. I decided to flip a coin - do I do the detour or B-line it straight to Sapporo? I flipped the coin. Then flipped it again. Then again. Every time it told me to do the detour. But I knew by doing this experiment that I didn't actually want to, so I decided to follow my heart and go straight to Sapporo. That's when I got to the mountain road and it was completely gravel. It was cycle on this terrible road over a mountain, or take the detour north. My decision was made for me, I'd detour north. Now this was actually a different path than what I initially planned anyway, as I was still skipping the big Akan lake. But I was still going to see the Ainu village that had been on my list for a long time. It started with staying on the road I'd now ended up on to go north. It ended up taking me over some gravel and this little mountain, which was kinda fun. From there I descended to the main road and slowly climbed the elevation to the Ainu village. At the village I perused the wood carving statues and ate some venison.