A much appreciated rest day spent eating and leisurely wandering around central Niigata between drizzly showers.
Large hotel breakfast buffet to start – fairly bland in a photo, but thankfully better than the colours suggest.
The station was, of course, huge with all manner of shops and restaurants around. Tasty ramen for lunch and I spent far too long being dazzled and overwhelmed by the multiple floors of electronics and appliances of the Bic Camera store.
Still time to spot new covers.
We met Thomas, Rachel’s brother, and his bike off the shinkansen from Tokyo late in the afternoon; unsurprisingly found an Irish bar for a pint. Couldn’t stay for long there as it was booked to capacity for a championship game – the crowds coming out in colours to support their teams.
A small upstairs restaurant provided a feast of Nepalese curry and the chance for the siblings to catch up, and for us all to discuss the weekend’s riding plan – which would help work off the excessive amount of food. The starters and sides were probably enough, considering we’d not been on our bikes that day:
Thomas also sporting an excellent streamlined hairstyle. (Rachel’s photo.)
Spot the Berry.
Was more that full after all that!
Like we were never there.
Another old mine shaft tower.
Pity we missed this local history museum’s opening hours.
More pint-sized underground machinery.
The buildings around this little bit giving off a completely different vibe to the rest of town.
At least this map made more sense than some others we’d seen. We had been at the top right overnight.
Always enjoy spotting an old Alfa, in memory of a good friend.
Kei truck conga line?
More abandoned old worker accommodation.
Immediately after a lot of these new houses – they go up in less than a month apparently. Sounds like buying from a catalogue. (Rachel’s photo.)
Started to see our first rice harvesting.
(Rachel’s photo.)
Still a few more onions around.
Crossing the Ishikari, it was a lot browner than we’d seen four weeks before. (Rachel’s photo.)
Back up on stop banks now (Rachel’s photo.)
We may have been distracted by animals again; unsure I can even blame that on the vet.
Ger ceiling, not as elaborate as some – but still much nicer than the inside of my tent.
Derelict industrial buildings always intriguing to me.
Strolling down to the old walled complex once home to scores of monasteries – since the Soviet occupation, not so much.
Most of the second ring of new shop buildings still sitting empty. But we did find a good cafe.
Apparently the coffee was good, but the wild rhubarb (of which we’d seen a bit in the hills) pie was of greater interest to me.
Just a small section of the wall of old Kharkhorin.
And a small part inside the walls – was staggeringly vast all up.
Not all the temples were lost, we could go inside some – but no photos.
For big prayers.
Didn’t work out what the occasion was, but good fun watching these guys enjoying themselves.
Finally found some postcards, and a lot of stamps! Back of the cards may have been mostly stamps…
Still loving the meat pockets…
Supermarket shopping a bit challenging – unless one wanted to buy a lot of candy.
First a stop at the big monument to the Mongol empire and Mongolia that we’d seen on the top of a ridge from the other side of the river on our ride into town.
Small empire.
Kharkhorin.
Vast empire.
Heading down there to stay on the true right of the Orkhon.
Yes, another ger. At least the hard beds were less of an issue after having gotten somewhat used to sleeping on the ground when my camping mattress failed.
A bit of wrangling so that we could go for a ride. Turned out to be more of a walk, but one of the adult sons of the family had spent time in New Zealand – so could chat with him a bit easier than most locals.
More homemade dairy goodness.
Ian and I managing to not fall off horses – the first time either of us had ridden one for many years. But as it was so slow, it was very easy going.
Nice evening for wandering the river flats though.
Plenty of the expected big open spaces apparent on approach, we’d find later that the fences were an exception to the norm.
UBN – bigger than I was expecting.
First bicycle sighted?
Our ride to the city.
Three bike boxes fitted in here, thankfully, with a little thought.
Ian keeping an eye on things as we venture into the traffic, note the plush ceiling covering. Unfortunately the suspension was not so.
Big empty highway most of the way into the city.
Few big coal power plants in the city contributing to the notorious air pollution in the winter. At least they also pump hot water around the city.
Should have brought a bigger wallet. About two thousand togrogs to a New Zealand dollar. 
The timing of an official visit from Japan seemed serendipitous.
Wedding party.
Walking back streets through tower blocks looking for a map store.
Annoyingly, the map store was no longer where it was marked on Maps.
Found it eventually – very near to our hostel. Through the language barrier, some paper maps of where we were intending to ride were purchased.