We woke up in the storeroom of a temple after a good sleep, washed our faces with water coming from the mouth of a dragon statue and jumped into our car, where we ate the contents of a bag which we obtained from the mother of the chief monk of the temple. We went to the city hall, where a boy from the local Naganohara High School's athletic club (his name was Kobayashi) with his mother were waiting. It was raining but the boy was running fast for more than 6 km up to the next point where an older boy (Irisawa) from the same club was waiting and received the torch. He ran about 9 km and passed the Torch at a hot spring spa to a third boy (Sugawara) who ran another fast 9 km.

It was still raining as we started climbing into the mountains. We got help from three runners who work at the town office of Naganohara town.

We were invited to have a coffee at Michinoeki because the information office's staff there read an article about us in today's newspaper.

After that the runners had the task of running up Mount Shirane. Mt. Shirane is an active volcano more than 2000 m high. Poisonous gas is leaking here and there and it is dangerous to stay in one place for a longer time. Fortunately, a French man, Patrick Deblaise, helped us by joining and running quite a long way.

The mountain was immersed in a thick mist and when we arrived to the top we could see only some greenish color in the place where the main crater should be found.

However, we met there a large group of school children who greeted the torch enthusiastically.

Then we started towards Nakano city in the heavy rain. The last three sections were run by Karel, Jarmila and Patrick, respectively.

We spent the evening looking for a coin laundry and consequently for Karel's wallet which was successfully found on the parking lot of Senpukuji temple where we slept. We got two large rooms with tatami, everything for free, thanks to the generosity of our hosts!

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