If there’s a theme to today, it’s I have no sense but especially regarding the weather. Man was it hot. I think I took a screenshot before where it said, “It’s 85°F and it feels like 96°F,” and it was the same today. And this isn’t the sort of heat I’m used to; it’s incredibly humid in Japan. I was soaked and I bought a new quick-drying towel to take with me that I forgot (so my not-fast-drying towel is slowly drying right now) and I wore long pants all day.

The pants almost made sense at the start of the day. I started out in Sendai where the edge of the typhoon was hitting and it was raining pretty hard so I decided to put on my long pants.

I took my sweet time since my train wasn’t until 9:40 and I got panicky when I saw how late it was getting. It wasn’t getting late, it just SEEMED late. I went back to the same tapas restaurant for breakfast and the weekday vs weekend routine was a little different. Coffee was all-you-can drink and was as unspectacular as you’d expect. Also, I tried something new.

The rain here is actually warm, and it was even hotter when I got to Ichinoseki. Even the raindrops felt warm. I remembered fairly quickly that the energy in the typhoon as to do with a the temperature differential and after the typhoon it’s pretty darn hot.

There isn’t a whole lot going on in Ichinoseki, but there were a couple of things I wanted to see as well as a brewery that I definitely wanted to visit. There are goals and stretch goals – I went directly to the brewery. It was warm and humid on the way to the brewery and it was raining a little. Fortunately the typhoon didn’t really hit the northern part of Japan and it was just a short rain. The typhoon, however, decimated parts of Chiba Prefecture next to Tokyo.

That’s Iwatekura beer at Sekinoichi Sake. There was a time that it was almost impossible for Japanese breweries to start up without some sort of “in” like being part of a Sake brewery and that’s the case with Iwatekura beer. I met the president when he came to the Oregon Brewers Festival.

I’d been messaging Satou-san, the owner of the brewery, but had no response. I went anyway and when I showed up they told me no tours without prior notice. I asked if I could say hello to Satou-san and he came out with a big smile and took me on a tour of the facilities.

There was a time when sake was going out of favor and he had to add a sake museum and restaurants to keep the business afloat. Satou-san told me that he’s running out of room for beer production and wanted to convert the banquet facility into more holding tanks, but he also said there weren’t enough large banquet facilities available in the area. The banquet facility is used for weddings as well as other events and is quite popular.

He took me to the restaurant and bought me a very unique lunch. The area of Ichinoseki is known for having hundreds of different kinds of mochi and here’s the selection I had for lunch. It was all excellent.

He mochi comes with a “game” where a stick is place in the bowls. If you find it in your first bowl, you’re going to be lucky today. If it’s in later bowls, that’s the day you’ll have good luck. I got it in my first bowl!

My stretch goal was to see the temples at Hiraizumi, and Satou-san drove me up there to his secondary restaurant/taproom which is a small shop among the souvenir stalls.

Satou-san made it to the Oregon Brewers Festival on the strength of his Sanshou Ale. Sanshou is a pepper used in Japanese cooking. Due to shipping delays, most of his Sanshou Ale didn’t arrive in time for the festival and I didn’t get to try it. It was on tap at the Brewers of Hiraizumi and I got to try it as well as a second lager mixed with matcha powder.

It was great seeing Satou-san and the rest of the visit was gravy. Well, some sort of hot primordial soup since it was so damn humid.

I’d suggest googling pictures of the golden Chusonji Temple in Hiraizumi because I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. It was pretty spectacular (and a slog up a long hill in the heat).

I got back to the station around 3PM and decided to ask the information booth if there was anything else I could see today. They sent me to Genbikei gorge where I was once again wondering why the hell I was wandering around in the heat, but it was worth seeing.

My Eagle Scout experience seems to have faded. I read the map thinking I was taking the 30-minute walking route but I took the 70-minute route around the area. Half of that was in the middle of nowhere, trying to get back to the river.

While on the whole there really isn’t much more than the small river gorge, this is also the place where they have the flying dango (a rope across the river delivers green tea and dango on a food zip-line), a shaky rope bridge, and a weird glass store/amusement park that looks abandoned or haunted. It’s open, and just a little dated.

I got back to the hotel and there’s really not much going on in this town of 30,000 people. Even though there’s a shinkansen station, there didn’t seem to be many restaurants. I decided hit up the Lawson conbini and eat in my room.

Yes those are the sandwiches that Anthony Bourdain raved about, and I’ve always liked them.

So that’s it for the day. I’m going to watch some more Rick and Morty and hit the hay.