Today we had s short day (“only” 23km) and visited no temples. On our first break in the morning we met Natsuko again (a kind and smiley japanese lady who we’ve been meeting almost everyday since day 3!). We walked together for most of the day and in the end she invited us to join her on an onsen (the japanese public bath houses). I had a 1 hour massage and Maike with the rest of our party (Natsuko, Tani and Kyra) enjoyed two hours soaking on the onsen.

After that we were starving and went to a restaurant next door from our accommodation. The menu was in japanese, the waitress spoke only japanese and our solution was to ask the cook to bring us whatever he felt like cooking. The result? We had our best meal in Japan so far! We had Takenoko (bamboo shoots), konbu (sea weed), daikon (radish), karaage (deep fried chicken), chahan (fried rice), katsuo no tataki (broiled skipjack tuna sashimi) and lots of other things that we don’t even know the name. Everything was local, fresh and absolutely delicious!