January 14, 2019

Monday - Clear and sunny

I woke up just before 8 am and went downstairs.  F was still sleeping and he’d told me that he had set the bread maker to finish at 8am.  I checked it and there were only 5 minutes left, so I waited and took out the bread. However, the loaf was tiny. Something had gone wrong.  

I went upstairs, told F about the loaf and went back to sleep. I woke up every couple of hours for a bit and F told me that he’d reset the bread maker. He’d forgotten to put sugar in the bread last night.  Sigh. Wasted ingredients.

I got up somewhere between 11 and 12, F went back to sleep for a bit but did give me some of the “defective” bread. It tasted okay, but the yeast hadn’t risen. 

He finally got up and we talked about lunch. I asked that we go to karaoke today, and I also suggested going back to the Nature Centre since we didn’t spend much time outside, and today was so nice.

F wanted to have sushi for lunch so I grudgingly said okay. I asked that we not have fish for dinner though. We went to Kintaro Sushi and it was great of course. Kintaro’s sushi is always good, I just don’t like the idea of having sushi so early, but really it was fine.

We drove out to Oyama again and did a little walking around the centre. We walked along the lake path for a bit and then went and explored the temple nearby. I didn’t know, but F’s mother’s family had their grave in that temple. We walked through the place and it was amazing. There was moss everywhere and it was beautiful. I was really surprised by the graveyard. It was huge! Some of it was built on a hill and F took me up the hill.  We found his family’s grave, and then came back down.  I took a few pictures of the temple, but not the graveyard, so have a look.

The pond at the Nature Center.  The white specks are birds if you see them.

More of the Nature Center, with mountains in the background.

Walking up to the temple.  Look at that moss!

Dragon alert!

Looking back towards the first gate.

 We came back into Tsuruoka proper and had a drink at Doutor. I wanted to hit up the hundred yen shop for a couple of things too and did that. 

We talked about dinner and I suggested taking K out. She doesn’t get out much and with the weather being so good, there really isn’t any excuse to take her out. We went back to the house, dropped off our stuff and took K out. 

We went to Tai, the place that F suggested we go last night. It’s a ramen and curry restaurant. K and I had curry and F had ramen of course. They shared an order of gyoza. I was invited too, I just didn’t have room for it.  

We brought K back to the house and made sure she got in safely. Then, we were off again.

F very nicely took me to karaoke. I thought we’d only go for a couple of hours, but the package at the Karaoke box was for 3 hours and included drink bar, so we did well! I had a lot of fun, and I hope F did too. I sang a lot of Queen songs, but also a bunch of my favourites. I hardly hear any new pop music these days, it is quite annoying really.

We came back to the house and settled in. F took a shower as he’s back to work tomorrow. I watched a bit of telly and used my computer to do a few things.

Tomorrow I have a lot to do. I hope to get started on my latest Journal Column and also do a bit of laundry I think. 

Come back later and see what I get up to if you want. Until tomorrow….