Friday
Two great days in a row! On Friday I got up early enough to take a shower before we left. We got the car all packed up, then had a nice breakfast at Jiro. From Jiro we hit the drugstore for drinks, then the gas station for gas, and then we were on the highway.
We made super time, listened to some great tunes courtesy of my lovely iPod, then hit a snag. There was a major traffic jam a few exits before Sendai. We weren't sure why, but traffic had slowed to a crawl. It took us about an hour to get out of it. The highway was closed, and the powers that be made us exit the highway. The reason for the traffic jam was that the tollbooth we exited on had only 2 exit gates. One for ETC (eletronic payment system) and one for the cash and ticket method. We don't have ETC so we had to do it the really slow way. However, we did give the exact amount to the worker so it's not like we held anybody up a lot. We found out later that a tanker truck carrying liquid oxygen had turned over on the highway and it took them hours to get everything cleaned up.
We got into Sendai and headed for the hotel. We checked in and then went shopping! I made straight for the Aer Building. Fumihiko and I had a break at Starbucks and tried their new tea lattes. Yum. Sooo good. I had the Earl Grey one, he had the Assam. We also had sandwiches there. Then, downstairs at Maruzen books I was rather restrained. I DIDN'T buy the latest Patricia Cornwell as it's her new series and I didn't like the first book in it. In fact, I didn't buy any authors that I usually buy. I got The Missing Person's Guide to Love by Susanna Jones, and Kate Jacobs' The Friday Night Knitting Club. I also got a couple of magazines (seriously, just two. I kept putting things back!) and some things for the school.
We did a bit of snooping in the Parco building (new department store) but they were closing, so we left. I got a few things in the Foreign Import store in the station...mostly crispbreads, decaf coffee and soup. We tried to have dinner at our favourite place in the station, but because it was January 2nd, they were closing early.
We went back to the hotel and tried their restaurant for dinner. I haven't been too impressed by their breakfasts so wasn't expecting much. However, dinner was great! I had duck, hubby had beef. It was a very nice meal.
We had a quiet evening in the room. I watched Philadelphia on TV and then an episode of Lost. I went to sleep around 3 am.
Saturday
Fumihiko did something that he'd been talking about for a couple of days. He got up early (before 7 am) and went out for a walk. He wanted to see what the city was like before it really started to move again. I did wake up when he left, but went back to sleep. I woke up properly at 8:30 and got up and dressed. Around 9, Fumihiko still wasn't back. I finally phoned him at 20 after nine. He'd gotten a bit lost but was now near the station. He came back to the hotel and we had breakfast together.
We weren't ready to go home yet after we checked out, and we didn't know what to do with ourselves, so we went to The Mall and parked the car. From there we took the subway back into the center of the city and looked around The Loft. We didn't buy anything. Then, we came back to the train station to go to the gyutan restaurant. We had to wait a while to get in, but finally were able to have our gyutan. It was good.
We went back to the car and then got onto the highway to come back to Tsuruoka. Sadly for me, I fell asleep on the way home and missed all the beautiful mountain scenery. We made our usual Sagae stop and bought coffee and some baked goods, then headed on. When we got into the mountains nearer Tsuruoka it started to get a bit hairier. There was a lot of snow on the road. Still, Fumihiko is a good driver and we did well. We got home around 7 ish. We rested and checked email for a while, then went out for dinner. We had a nice meal at Grado, then delivered my new school supplies.
At home again, we relaxed and watched The Lake House. It's a really sweet film, and any movie that talks about Persuasion has got my thumbs up! That was about it for our day. Fumihiko's gone off to sleep, and I'm going to follow as soon as I post this.
Got to go. Night!
3 comments:
Glad to hear you had a good time.
Sounds like fun. What is gyutan? I've never heard of it before!
I was thinking about you today actually, as i'm thinking about going to Japan this year to visit the in-laws alone. As obaachan is in Aomori, Sendai is on my way, been there once before, so i was thinking of stopping off and saying hello. :)
I'm like you, when i get in a book shop i want to buy everything! It's so hard to restrain myself. Also i'm surprised you can buy books in English there. When i was in obihiro i couldn't find any book stores that sold books or magazines in english so i had to stick with reading the catalogues hahaha. Maybe that's just hokkaido though, not sure.
Thanks Sherry. I was surprised too, but it was a nice couple of days.
Kelly, gyutan is cow's tongue. It's the specialty of Sendai city, and is usually served grilled. Some foreigners get a bit squeamish when they hear what it is, but it's really good. Mum sometimes served tongue when I was a kid, but hers was usually boiled. So, since I grew up eating it, it never bothered me!
I'd love to see you if you come this way, but honestly, I live across the country from Sendai. If you go to Aomori via Niigata & Akita you'd go through Tsuruoka. The Sendai route is probably faster as there are more shinkansens that way.
Obihiro is not that big, so it may not have many bookstores with English books. A couple of friends used to live near there, I'll ask them. I was able to find books in Otaru in the mall, and at a couple of great stores in Sapporo as far as Hokkaido goes.
Here in Tsuruoka there's nothing now, but there is a shop near the mall that has a few books. No magazines though. Sendai is a big (about 1 million people) city so there are a couple of places to get books. Niigata is also pretty good for books...or at least it was! I haven't been for a few months.
If you saw my "to be read" pile, you'd know why I didn't buy much. And magazines are rather expensive here. I bought a December Redbook (US) and the US cover price is $4.50. The Japanese price....1740 plus tax. ACK. Why did I buy it? I usually pass on my mags but it's just too much money to buy as many as I want.
Thanks for the comments ladies!
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