The village alarm went off at five o'clock this morning (it sounded like an air-raid siren) so we were up and on the road at six o'clock.

We knew we had a short journey today - a climb up to the border between Aomori and Akita Prefectures and then a nice downhill to Odate, our target for the night.  We are meeting up with a Japanese cyclist, Teisuke Sagawara, in Akita on Thursday so we have three days to cover not much more than a hundred and fifty kilometers.  The ride to Odate would be just over forty, so we could waste as much time as we liked this morning.

There is a big typhoon passing through with wind speeds initially predicted to be about ninety kilometers an hour (since then downgraded to about half that speed).  To be safe, we spent some time at the first Lawson's we found and booked a room at a hotel - There is no point in having our tent shredded overnight.  

After that we slowly made our way up the route 7.

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We reached Odate at ten thirty, despite two stops of an hour each at konbinis along the way.  This meant we had more than four hours to waste before we could check in at the hotel.  It had got pretty hot - tweny nine degrees by nine o'clock - but the humidity was much lower than yesterday.  In fact, it was a pretty dry heat.  We visited an Aeon where we bought some tea (Earl Grey for Leigh) and coffee (proper coffee for me) and enjoyed the air conditioned interior for a while.  Then we cycled to a Sukiya a few kilometers away where we could relax with lunch (pork curry with miso soup and salad - a different combination) from an English menu in a cool environment.

We got to the hotel at one and sat in their guest area and worked while we waited for our room to become available and then checked in and waited for the onsen to open.  Creatures of habit we are.