Day 34 — Yamagata Day Off - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

October 6, 2025

Day 34 — Yamagata Day Off

We realized yesterday evening that we hadn’t had a day off the bikes since Hakodate, over two weeks ago. The “day off” at Lake Towada resulted in a 50+ km ride with an accidental big honking climb. We were due, in other words. Given that cheap accommodation was easily lined up, we were getting behind on posts and laundry, and Yamagata seemed a nice enough place, why not.

Marilee googled around during breakfast and came up with a cool sounding destination as a day trip — a temple complex up in the hills out of town called Yamadera, with trains going there every hour.

After some finagling for an extra day with the hotel (the desk was sold out, Agoda was not), and renewing our bike parking, we set off.

It turns out Yamadera is a significant site, and our train was full of sightseers like ourselves. It was initially established in the 8th century, and housed hundreds of monks in the temple site and surrounding villages for hundreds of years. The temple complex winds up a mountain gorge, and involves a climb of “1000 steps” up the mountainside. Just our kind of thing!

I seem to be getting the posts where we see something awesome, and I’m running out of descriptive language, so below is a bit of a photo dump of the hike up the mountain. It was truly spectacular, all the more remarkable for our not having heard of it until that morning lol. Who knows what else we’ve sailed by!

Yamadera town, with temples poking out of the hills behind

River through Yamadera town on the way to the trail

Looks like it’s good luck to rub his belly

The trail had many such votive sculptures along the way

An iron lantern of 19th century vintage— must have been heavy to haul up the mountain!

Lunch at a cafe overlooking the river. Cold soba with local vegetables

We returned to Yamagata in the early afternoon, with enough time to visit the Mont-Bell to see if it had anything we needed (it didn’t), do some laundry and catch up on posts.

Dinner was at a couple of different Izakayas, one of which was notable for having soft shelled turtle and horse sashimi on the menu, and turtle shells hanging as decorations (we had grilled fish and deep fried oysters).

Also notable was that on the walk between dinner venues, we encountered a religious procession (we’re guessing after a bit of googling it was Shinto) with devotees carrying a portable shrine, and chanting and dancing. Kind of a raucous affair and an interesting way to end a well-spent day off.

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