I woke up early with Deepa and planned to leave the same time she was, around 8:15. I felt like I could talk so much more with Deepa, but we had to part ways...another bittersweet good bye. I hope we can meet again soon. I wanted to go a little further than Miyazaki to shorten the next leg to Nobeoka. I decided to target Takanabe as the place to lodge. I saw a few hotels on Google maps so I figured that it's a good town to be at. I was told the route to Miyazaki was pretty flat so I decided to push for the extra mileages.
The way they make the sidewalks here in Japan confuse me...there will be this super wide, brand new sidewalk which suddenly ends and starts back up on the other side, without any crosswalk at all at a blind curve. So I had to zigzag my way from one side to the next all the way towards Miyazaki City. On the way, I stopped at Udo shrine. It is a shrine built into a cliff like cave right next to the rocky coastline. I failed at making the clay ball in the little target water hole that's supposed to bring you good luck. Afterwards, I ate a beef stuffed manju...it was amazing! The lady also served me ume flavored tea.
After some more beautiful riding in the on and off drizzling rain, I stopped at a roadside rest area to fuel up. The area had strange rock formations called the Devils Washboard, almost like steps of slab stone along the beach. I ate a sweet potato stuffed French roll and a girl outside suckered me into buying a seawood dashi thing. It will be a gift for my next host in Nobeoka. I told her to keep an eye out for a big Omaha man heading this way in a few days.
Once I got into Miyazaki, it started raining good so I took shelter under a bike storage area. I waited out the rain, it didn't rain too long. It was hot the rest of the day. I ate a late lunch at Coco Ichiban while my mom and dad helped me find a hotel...it's nice to have support during times like these. There was an air base nearby so there were tons of jets flying around. It was pretty awesome. The rest of the route headed inland and there wasn't much to see.
I checked in to my business hotel for the night and took a shower. I messed with the A/C unit and accidentally stuffed up my room with heat. I had to go downstairs twice to tell the lady please help! They did something automatically and now it's blasting cold air...maybe out of spite. I finally caught up my website to today.