October 18, 2026

Sunday - Warm and Sunny

I woke up around 9 or so this morning. I went downstairs and then had a little bit extra sleep. I did drag myself out of bed before 10 am today. Not bad for a Sunday. 

I got dressed and then went downstairs. F hadn’t really prepared the living room for the Social Worker’s visit so we hurried to do that. He hadn’t even told his mother that she was coming. K was bopping around in her pyjamas. F went and told her to get dressed!

The Social Worker arrived a little late today. There was a lot of traffic on the main road so she had trouble making the turn. F told her all about K’s latest exploits. The worker didn’t say much, but at least we got to tell her. 

After the Social Worker left. I asked F if he was going to feed K. He ended up giving her the leftover pasta from Friday night. Normally that would be my lunch on Monday, but I won’t be there so it is okay. 

F helped me by carrying my suitcase downstairs for me and I brought down my backpack. We got in the car and were going to go to the new Pizza place to see if we could have lunch there. F suggested a different place on the way, and I was fine with that. We ended up at Niku Shokudo. We didn’t have to wait long to get seated, and we had already ordered and paid at the door, so that was good. I had a kara-age set meal and F had a chicken cutlet with stuffed cutlets. His looked good, mine was very nice. 

We finished about an hour early for my bus, so I suggested going to the mall and going to Doutor. F was okay with that. We finally found parking and walked into the mall. F got us a seat and then I ordered. I had a cold rooibos tea, F had a coffee. 

Around 2pm I we left the coffee shop and walked the few steps to the bus station. We waited near the gate and I got myself a bottle of water and then visited the washroom again. The bus was about on time and there were a lot of people lining up. 

I got on the bus and had to go quite far down the bus to get a seat to myself. Unfortunately, I ended up sitting behind a man who had reclined his seat. That didn’t give me much room to put my backpack on my lap. I left it on the seat next to me, but I noticed a lot of people did that too.

We left the station. I waved to F as the bus went by him. We had a nice ride to Yamagata. It took a little over two hours and quite a few people got on the bus along the way. I was lucky enough not to have to share my seat, but a lot of people did.

When I got off the bus, I gave my ticket to the driver and asked him to get my suitcase for me. He said he would, but another lady got off the bus after me and she opened the cargo section. Her suitcase was right at the front, but mine was on the other side of the bus! She was nice enough to go into the cargo area and get it for me. The driver never did get out of the bus that I saw! I thanked her profusely and “Sumimasened” her a lot!

I crossed the street and checked into my hotel. They did ask for my passport, but when I said I was a resident it was fine. Yay for that. 

I’m in the hotel and I have a room at the end of the hall. It’s fairly quiet, although earlier today I heard someone getting very sick. It sounded like it was in the hallway, but later when I went downstairs I didn’t smell anything (thankfully!)

After I checked in and dropped my bags, I spent a couple of minutes getting comfortable and then headed out to the station. I did a little shopping there. I got some onion powder at the international food shop, some things for the room at the drugstore and then went upstairs to check out the new Tully’s Coffee. Last year when I came, I saw the signs that there would be one, it is open now. 

Yamagata Station at night

I went and noticed that they had a Rooibos Royal Milk Tea, so I had that. It was lovely. A little sweet, as many of the Royal Milk Teas are, but overall a really nice drink. I rested, texted a few people and read a little. 

When I finished my drink, I went upstairs to Caprichosa to have dinner. They had a special on for one person. You could have a half salad, (decent size, since the full size is for two people), pasta and a drink for ¥2000.  I had a caesar salad with bacon, carbonara and an oolong tea. I was a happy camper. I paid when I left and the waitress let me know how to get out of the building. It was a good thing, as the building had closed and the way I knew was blocked!  I took an elevator down to the ground floor and then panicked when I couldn’t find my handbag. I was going to go back up, then realized it was on my back! Idiot!

I went back to the hotel but made a stop at the convenience store next to the hotel for some snacks and a big bottle of rooibos tea. I went back to the hotel and up to my room.

I set up my room the way I wanted it and put out my clothes for tomorrow. I did go downstairs to the lobby and had a “welcome drink” (lemon infused water) and to get a foot pillow. They have a great triangular pillow here that is nice for raising your feet when you sleep. I usually get one every time I come here. I probably should ask them how I can get one as I really like it!

My original plan was to watch something on streaming, but I didn’t do that. I did my usual bit of watching some YouTube and then blogging and other nightly things. I’m a little under the weather. I think I might have picked up F’s cold after all and I’m not too pleased about that. 

My plan for tomorrow is to go off to the Tendo Mall. I hope that I can get myself there early. I don’t usually manage. If I get up for breakfast I might be able to, we’ll have to see. 

So, that’s it for me for tonight. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

October 17, 2026

Saturday - Warm and sunny, coolish at night

I  woke up around 9am this morning when I thought that F had left with K. However, about two minutes later, he came in the room to get his wallet and car keys. He hadn’t left yet. I went downstairs a couple of minutes after they left.  I came back to bed and watched a few minutes of videos before going back to sleep. 

I dragged myself out of bed a lot later and got dressed. I went downstairs to see F and we talked about lunch. I suggested going to have banh mi again, but he wanted a Japanese place in Tsuruoka. I agreed to his place. I don’t like it much, but it’s okay. 

We went to Ten-ka-ne and got in right away. F had the sashimi donburi, I had the chicken nanbam. It wasn’t great. They’d used a ton of pepper or something on it and I didn’t like it at all. The only thing I liked about my meal was dessert! It was good. 

I wanted to buy a new lock for my suitcase. For some reason, I couldn’t get the old one to work. The first place we tried didn’t have one that I wanted. Although I don’t plan to go back to the USA, I thought it would make sense to get one that is TSA approved. We then went over to Musashi and I got one there. It was a bit expensive, but we also bought some more tissues for K.

We decided to go and have a drink at Komeda coffee and on the way I asked F if we could make a quick stop at the Yamaya near that. He said yes. When we went in, I got a box of rooibos tea. I drink it every day and I really go through it. He got himself some saké and while he was looking at that, I saw some sherry on the shelf. I haven’t seen any sherry here for years. I didn’t buy it, but I’ll keep it in mind for another time. I rarely drink alcohol, but I did quite like a little sherry on special occasions, plus I can also cook with it!

We spent about an hour at Komeda Coffee. I had a decaf iced coffee and F had his usual blend coffee. Over the time we spent there I read a bit of a book written by another AFWJ member. It’s her second one I think and I’m really enjoying it. 

We had about an hour left when I reminded F that maybe we had to get going. I asked if he wanted to do shopping for his mother’s dinner. Anyway, we decided to get bentos for dinner, so we went in and got bentos for all of us. I also got myself a nice crusty baguette sandwich for later. We paid after self-checking our groceries and then we drove back to the house. We just made it I think.

I put away some things and then went upstairs. I was surprised when F came up 5 minutes later and his mother hadn’t returned yet. I sent him back downstairs when I heard a vehicle outside. 

Around 7pm I went downstairs and suggested we have dinner. F heated up the bentos and I put out some salad. I turned down the miso soup F was making and got out the tea for the table. 

We ate while we watched the news. After we finished eating I did the dishes and then went back upstairs. I came downstairs again slightly after 10pm so I could take a shower. 

Back in the room, I watched The Hunting Party at 11pm and liked that. It was a bit creepy though. 

That’s about it for today. Tomorrow I am off to Yamagata city for a few days. I may not post every day, so please don’t miss me too much! I’m planning to take my computer with me, but hope to be quite busy during the day. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until next time!

October 16, 2026

 Friday - Cloudy in the morning, sunnier later on

Today was an okay day. It was a bit odd at parts. 

I did my usual thing of getting up early, then coming back to bed and snoozing and watching videos for a while. I finally got up and dressed, then went downstairs and did a small load of laundry. 

The washing machine wasn’t filling very quickly, so I helped it out with some water from the sink. I did a small load, with only one rinse and I only used about half of my usual amount of detergent. I did have to stay by the machine and ended up running the spin cycle twice so it took a while. I even went and sat on the stairs for a while. 

I took my laundry and my very late breakfast upstairs and hung up my clothes. After that, I ate! So late. 

I had a quiet afternoon after that. I watched some YouTube and then I didn’t have much time before I had to have my lunch. I went downstairs to get my lunch and at the same time I noticed that K was doing a load of laundry. Yikes. I wrote her a note with the translation app on my phone and let her know that the washing machine wasn’t working too well. She came over to the machine and we had a look. She was doing a very small load, but she’d told the machine to use 50 litres of water…it would take forever to do that, and 3 rinses and oh my. I stopped the machine while she was there and reset it so that less water was needed. She did ask if she could use the bath hose, but when I tried it this morning, it didn’t work. We were able to leave the bathroom and I think I left the machine so it worked okay as later in the day it was empty! Yay.

I made my lunch and then took it upstairs and ate. I watched The Great British Sewing Bee and enjoyed that. It was all about Summer clothing. 

I decided that I really should start my packing, so I opened up my suitcase and then put some stuff in. I think the undies part is done, but not the actual clothes part! I did put my winter coat in. I’m wondering if I should wear that on the bus though. It does take up a bit of room. It’s not a thick one, but…I’ll think about it. Hopefully my tops will dry before I have to pack them!

F called a bit after 5 pm and a while later I went downstairs and started washing my day’s dishes. When F came back to the house, he looked at the washing machine again. Today he asked me for my pinchie but I wasn’t sure what he meant. He looked up the word on Google and it meant my needle-nosed pliers. I have a pair from when I tried to do some beadwork at Christmas. I had to stop what I was doing and go upstairs and look for them. 

They were in the first place I looked, the second time. I tore a few boxes apart and I had given up, when I decided to pull out my drawer and there it was, right at the very back. I took them downstairs to F and then I went back to the kitchen. 

Unfortunately, F wasn’t able to fix the machine tonight. He’s ordered a part that he hopes will help. I tried to give him some advice about how to use the machine until he gets the part. We can use it with small loads and one rinse. Anything more than one rinse takes too long. I suggested that he use less detergent too unless his clothes are really dirty. He wants to go to a laundromat which is another option of course!

Dinner was a few minutes late tonight, because I was upstairs for a while. It was quite simple, but very nice. We had pasta with garlic mayo sauce (yum!), sliced ham, salad and cucumber pickle. Dinner was good. 

I did the dishes and listened to my podcasts. I did finish fairly early and then went upstairs. F was upstairs already. He’s a bit sniffy. He thinks that he is getting a cold and I told him to stay away from me! I’m leaving on Sunday and I do not want to get sick. I can’t believe that he is sick again. 

I decided that I’d watch a movie tonight and I picked Homefront, a Jason Statham movie I’ve had on the DVR for a couple of weeks. It had an interesting cast, but it wasn’t a great movie. I’m not sure what was wrong but I didn’t love it the way I usually do. I deleted it from my DVR afterwards. 

And that’s about it for my day. I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. It might depend on how F feels tomorrow and if I ever finish getting my suitcase packed.

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

October 15, 2026

Thursday - Sunny and warm, rain at night

I went to bed a little late last night, but managed to wake up when my alarm went off. I went downstairs and then came back to the room for a quick and not so long snooze.  I dragged myself out of bed a bit later and got dressed.

I left the house around 11:35 and walked to the bus stop. The bus was almost on time today and I got on. The bus was quite busy, about 6 people got on at City Hall. That almost never happens! I got off at the station and walked up to the post office.

The Post Office’s ATM was really busy and I had to wait about 10 minutes first. From there, I walked over towards S-Mall. I stopped and looked at the Pizza restaurant. The specials looked good, but all of the pizzas had tomatoes as either sauce or topping, so I decided not to go today. I probably should have, but didn’t. 

I went into the mall, checked the hotel’s lunch and decided against it. I’m not an omurice fan really. I went to the grocery store and bought my tea and then a few snacks for the next few days. It’s a good thing I went there first as the grocery store was very busy. I had to wait in line for a good 15 minutes I’d say to pay for my goods.

I went over to the Pizza Hut Express and ordered a 4 cheese pizza box set and then grabbed a table. I started my drink and read some of a book while I waited. My pizza, when it arrived, was really nice. 

After lunch, I went upstairs and checked out Daiso. I bought a few things and then came back downstairs. I decided that I’d take a bus back to the house. So I went over to the bus station and waited a few minutes. 

The bus back to the house wasn’t too busy today. I had a good and quiet ride back and got off at my stop. I walked back to the house, checked things out downstairs and then went upstairs.

I sorted out some laundry and decided I’d do a load of my shirts. Last night F said that he had fixed the machine. Sigh. I went downstairs and put everything in the machine and…the water trickled into the machine. There was no way to make it go faster. I decided to try using the bathtub hose but in the bathroom sink. Many people in Japan reuse their bathwater to do laundry, so our washing machine has a built in hose to run water from the bath. I stuck the end in the bathroom sink instead. It worked, but I had to cut down the number of rinses as I didn’t have that much time to wait. 

It took almost an hour to get my clothes washed and I had to put on the spin cycle a couple of times to get the clothes anywhere near ready to hang up.  I took them upstairs and then watched the news while I hung them up.

I rested for a while and had a couple of cups of tea, which I feel I really deserved! I was tired. 

A bit after 5:30, F called and said he was on his way. I went downstairs to get ready to cook dinner.

When F arrived, I let him know about my problems with the washing machine. He tried to fill it both from the tap and also the hose way. It didn’t really work unfortunately. He couldn’t get the hose to work. I will probably give it a try again tomorrow, but will try filling the machine BEFORE I put my clothes in!

I went back to dinner. Tonight I served hamburgers (from the store) with some rice, potato salad, salad, cucumber pickles and some kimchi. It turned out to be okay. We had dessert too. I was planning to prepare it, but F ended up doing it! He didn’t read all the package instructions, so possibly didn’t do as good a job of heating them up as he could have done! We had some taiyaki from Gyomu Super. They were okay. I’d like to try microwaving them and then toasting them for a minute or two. 

I did the dishes when we finished and listened to some podcasts. I went upstairs when I finished and relaxed for a while until F came upstairs. A little after 10pm I went downstairs and took a shower, then came back upstairs. F had planned to take one too, but changed his mind. 

I watched an episode of DOC and thought it was okay. The plot is thickening I think!

And that’s about it. I’ve watched a lot of YouTube since midnight and I’m just about ready to go to bed. I did quite a lot of walking today so I’m a bit tired.

Oh, before I go. I told F that I’d like him to drive me to the bus station on Sunday and then he asked me if I was coming back the next day! Er, no. 4 nights later. I don’t know why he didn’t ask me any earlier. I’ve told him about this trip ever since I booked it!

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

October 14, 2026

Wednesday - Rainy and cooler

I went to bed a little early last night and then woke up around 5 am and had to go downstairs. I came back upstairs and went back to sleep. When I woke up again, F was gone and I made another trip downstairs!

I snoozed again and watched videos. I got up later and went downstairs with my winter jacket. I was going to wash it. Well, I did, but for some reason, the water didn’t want to come into the washing machine. I ended up having to add water from the sink manually. I finally got the coat washed, but it took ages. 

I took my breakfast upstairs and ate, I relaxed for a while and then I wrote a postcard for Postcrossing. I wrote another one later in the afternoon too. I grabbed my lunch, brought it upstairs to eat. I watched another episode of Modern Love and it was really sweet. It hit home a bit too. It was all about an older woman who met a nice Japanese man and got married and then he died. I was very verklempt at the end. And… we got to see other people from the other stories, just for a few scenes but it was lovely to see them again!

F called after 5:30 and said he was on his way back. I went downstairs later and he came back around then too. He checked on the washing machine and did a whole bunch of things to it. He announced that he fixed it later! Yay. The hose might have been blocked or something.

Dinner tonight was good. We had ginger pork with rice, salad, cucumber pickle, mini-tomatoes, okra and potato salad. 

I did the dishes and then did up the garbage. F did help me a bit. I put the bag in the genkan. I had done mine earlier in the day. As I had tidied up last week, my bag was nearly full, so there was no room for his stuff.

We went off to the grocery store and I bought food for the next couple of days. I got F his canned coffee and K some breakfast sandwiches.

After the grocery store we went to the drugstore and I went in and got some things for the kitchen that we needed. I dumped my stuff in the car and then walked across the street to the post office and mailed off my postcards. I’m hoping they’ll arrive soon. 

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. K was up when we came back. She was using the washroom but had turned on all the lights  in the living room and her bedroom. It was odd. She’s odd!

I went upstairs when I was done and watched a bit of YouTube. At 11 I put on Grey’s Anatomy and watched that. It was a pretty good episode but what the heck are Owen and that (ex)wife of his doing? Harrumph!

And…that was my day. Tomorrow, if I can get myself up and out in time, I’m going to go downtown and do a bit of banking and maybe have lunch out. I need to get myself ready to go away on Sunday and I haven’t done very much at all yet. Sigh. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my Thursday. Until tomorrow….

October 13, 2026

Tuesday - Hot and sunny

I woke up this morning after F had left for work and made a quick trip downstairs. I came back to the room and sorted my laundry before going back to bed with some videos. I snoozed and then got up later.

I took my laundry downstairs and started one load. I grabbed my breakfast after that and took it upstairs to eat. I hung up my laundry in the room and got the second load underway. 

I had a quiet afternoon. I had the window open for a while and then it got really hot in my room. It was up to 28 degrees again. Yikes. I went downstairs to get my lunch and then turned on the AC as I was so warm up here.

Today during my lunch I watched an episode of Matlock. It was quite good, it didn’t annoy me that much!

F called around 5:30 to say he was on his way back. I changed my clothes and went downstairs to get started in the kitchen. I had to do a bit of clean up before I started the dishes. F came back around then and we had a nice reunion.

Tonight I was busy. I made cucumber pickle, washed some mini-tomatoes, and prepped and cooked some chicken drumsticks in the air fryer. We also had salad and rice and steamed broccoli. Dinner was a little late, but nice.

I did the dishes afterwards and then headed upstairs. I relaxed for a while then at 11 watched Law & Order. F came upstairs a bit before that and went to bed. 

After midnight I just relaxed with some YouTube and did my end of day things. One weird thing though was that I had about 4 tiny spiders just appear in front of my eyes. There must be some coming down from the ceiling. I grabbed a duster and moved it around up there, but I’m not sure if it is going to work or not. Yikes.

And that’s about it. I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. I had originally planned to go to the mall and see a movie, but with my trip coming up, I’ve decided not to do that. I’ll miss the Endgame: Encore as it finishes here this week, but I think I’ll be okay. F refused to see it again on Sunday. Oh well. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….