I got to say: after being on the road for more than four weeks now, I’m starting to feel my muscles getting more and more tired each day. It’s not that I’m necessarily looking forward to being home and getting right back into the daily routines again, but my legs could definitely use a bit of a breather after the excessive amount of walks I’ve been on recently. Especially now that the temperatures are rising here in Japan, going on long hikes is getting significantly more challenging by the day and it truly is a strain to the body. Today’s journey took us from Ashinomakionsen’s so called Infinity Castle to Murayama, a seemingly deserted town near landmarks such as the Yama-dera temple and the more commonly known city of Sendai. While on holiday for so long, you tend to forget what day of the week it is but to think this town we’re staying in tonight would be so quiet on a Saturday was very surprising to all of us. Coming from Tokyo only recently, at times, this place felt borderline apocalyptic as we headed for our local izakaya. At times, I suppose you could even consider it eerily quiet down here. Luckily, some locals in the particular izakaya we visited did make up for it by gifting us a more than reasonable amount of sake after which this town easily got a stamp of approval in our books. Eerie or not. Ha! Kanpai!