4 day weekend!

Thanks to a scheduling error by my company, bless their inefficiency, I had a 4 day weekend last weekend. I used the time to visit Niigata and Sadogashima.
Niigata is a sort of Japanese Newcastle. It is a big industrial northern port city. It used to be famous for the Industrial Pollution that caused Minamoto disease but now takes great effort to be environmentally friendly. It has a nice atmosphere, lots of interesting Museums and shops and clean sea air. I don't know how far the Newcastle comparison goes. I'll have to come back in the middle of winter to see if the menfolk walk around town in just a T-shirt ala Newcastle.
Sadogashima is a Island off the coast of Niigata. I enjoyed some splendid Isolation there. I think I was the only foreigner on the Island. At least I didn't see any other foreigner's and precious few people in general. I was the only guest at a very nice little Youth Hostel. I had a whole beach to myself. Sadogashima is very picturesque. It was surrounded by mist when the boat arrived, looked very mysterious.
I thank my good fortune that this scheduling error gave me the time to visit these places. One downside; On Wednesday when I returned to work I was suffering from what the Japanese call "Yasumi boke" or sleepy brain.