August 12, 2017

Saturday - Cloudy and humid

An okay couple of days.

We had a fairly good time in Niigata.  Some things were great, some things weren’t, so while it wasn’t the greatest get-away, it wasn’t the worst either.  

We had a late start from Tsuruoka on Friday, I overslept and then F wanted to have lunch rather than the quick snack I suggested.  We couldn’t get the Bluetooth to connect my iPod to the car’s stereo for ages, but did finally get it to work.  

In Niigata, we had a lovely lunch at Cafe Cento Per Cento, then did a little shopping.  We found our hotel quite easily and checked in without problems.   We went over to the saké testing place in the station and each tried some different types.  I didn’t get as silly as I did last time, but it seemed to hit F quite hard.  I was a bit surprised.  We tasted each other’s so I had more than I did the first time.  I rarely drink, so I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t affected this time! 

We had a hard time finding a place with openings for dinner.  The places I wanted to go were full and of course we never make reservations.  We visited Jupiter in the station and got some cereal for me, that was it. F chose Royal Host for dinner finally. It surprised me because I know he doesn’t like it, but I had said no to his choices of izakaya…because we have them here in Tsuruoka.  No need to go to places we can go anytime.  Anyway, I had a clubhouse sandwich which was great, he had a steak donburi which he said was good.  Yay! 

We went back to the hotel and I got a movie card and watched Ex Machina, F took a bath and then went to bed.  I followed soon after as I was tired.

Today, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel. It was quite good, a nice mixture of Western and Japanese food, even had crispy bacon!

We checked out early and drove to the mall.  We went to see Spiderman: Homecoming and it was quite good.  Spiderman is one of my favourite Marvel characters, so I was predisposed to like this film.  

After the movie F and I did a little shopping.  We had lunch at a restaurant that F picked, which of course meant that I wasn’t too happy with it.  It was okay, I had pho with chicken and it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either.  We finished up the mall visit with a bit of Starbucks.  

We made the long drive back to Tsuruoka, stopping for a restroom break and some drinks at a new roadside stop.  I got some pictures of the sunset/rice fields that I thought were gorgeous!

We made it back to Tsururoka around 8 pm.  We came to the house, unloaded the car and talked to K.  F said that we’d go and have dinner and then get her something.  So we did.  

We went to Cocos for dinner. I had Thai curry, F had quesadilla so a very international dinner for us!  We had to go to two grocery stores to get something for K, but managed and then came back to the house.  

And that’s about it.  I had a quiet evening, F is snoozing but I’m still up…for now.  

Oh, it’s also about 2 years since F had to go to the hospital because he was bitten by a cat at work.  It’s still a little tough for me to read the old entries.

Not sure what we’ll do on Sunday.  Come on back later on and find out!  Until tomorrow….