May 14, 2009 - Thursday

Rainy, clearing, sunny, and rainy and cold again.

The last two days were great. Our friends Taeko and James came up to visit us and they brought their son Alex as well. I'm not much of a baby person, but Alex was a really happy little boy and didn't cry much at all.

Over the last two days we did a lot of local tourist things. On Wednesday after lunch we took them to Zenpoji Temple where we walked around and climbed up the steep steps. We also went to a couple of "Ash-i-yu" or foot baths. The first one we went to was great, the second wasn't as good, mostly because of wind. The first one was sheltered, the second one wasn't. We had dinner in Fumihiko's favourite soba restaurant last night and it was very nice. The owner gave us all free ice cream at the end, and really went out of his way to arrange the tables for us so that we could relax and let Alex lie on the tatami.

Today, Fumihiko and I tried to have breakfast at McDonalds but they had stopped serving it by the time we got there. Boo. Not fair! We met up with Taeko and James and drove to Chokai No Mori. It's a hill in Sakata with gorgeous views. We got up there, but in places it was terribly windy so we ended up going into the onsen part and having drinks at the restaurant.

We drove back into Tsuruoka and had lunch at Aki, the okonomiyaki restaurant that we like so much. It was great, and the owner went out of his way to make us feel welcome. We got soup, pickled salad and coffee at the end too. James had taken a picture of him making our lunch, so maybe the owner was doing his bit for Japanese tourism? The ladies in the restaurant, staff and customers were making a big fuss over Alex too.

Sadly, after lunch, James and Taeko had to leave. I offered to keep Alex for them, but they didn't think it was a good idea. And, frankly, neither did I really. He's cute, but....

After they left, I did a quick clean up of the school and Fumihiko loaded up the car with the futons and blankets. We came home for a bit. He washed the sheets and pillow cases, and I hung them up to dry. We'll return those bits to his Mum in a few days. I'll have to remember to get her a nice treat for lending them to us.

At 5 pm, I got Fumihiko to take me back to the school. I had to work. I spent a bit more time on my tidying up, only to have my first student cancel on me. She was sick, poor thing. She really sounded sick on the phone, so I was happy that she stayed away. My children's class of the day had cancelled earlier in the week, so I only had one class after all. It went quite well, and we talked about my visitors and also studied a little English!

Fumihiko picked me up tonight and we went to Moku-Moku for dinner. It was quite nice. The weather was bad at this point and so we didn't have much company in the restaurant. That was fine by me.

We decided to have dinner at home tomorrow night. We got the fixings to make yakiniku, so it'll be simple at least.

And that was it for our day. I am quite tired so I really should get off to bed. I may have picked up Taeko's cold, but I'm hoping to fight it off.

Night!