October 18, 2020

Sunday - Sunny and warm

I slept in this morning and it was nice! I did get up around 11 and planned to have a quiet morning.  However, F wanted to go out for lunch and had an idea where to go, so off we went!  He suggested going for yakiniku to a  place that has a decent lunch set.

We went out for lunch and it was okay. We had a couple of lunch sets and then added on a couple of extra dishes. Over lunch I asked F what he wanted to do next. At first he talked about going back to the house and repairing the shoji (paper screens) and then started to suggest going to the salmon ladder and finally to a cafe near Mt. Chokai.  

We drove off to points unknown and found the salmon ladder/breeding place. It was quite crowded today and there were lots of people around. We walked up the trail a bit to see the Maru-Ike Pond. It’s supposed to be a Power Spot. I don’t know about that, but it is beautiful and usually a calm and quiet place.

If you look carefully, there's a salmon in the middle of the picture.

We drove from there to the little cafe, and found it closed. Of course. It was around 4:30 or so and it is getting on in the season. We looked at some of the artwork posted in the nearby trees and then came back to civilization!

She began to run in the rain.

Beautiful view, and flat land!

F asked me if I’d like to go to the mall and go shopping, I thought he meant for bentos for dinner and said it was okay. Until he turned the opposite way to the mall at the main road. I finally asked him if we were still going to the mall and he had completely forgotten about it.  We did go to the mall, but took the long way round!  After hitting the washrooms, we went to the grocery store and picked up food for the next couple of days. F picked out a bento for K and we drove back to the house. 

At the house, F put some of the stuff away and then I did the rest. He heated up K’s bento and the two of us headed out again. We had noticed in the morning that there was a new Indian Restaurant in Tsuruoka and we decided to see if we could go there.

We went in and the table we were directed to was still grubby from other customers so asked if that was where we were supposed to sit. It was, and to be fair, they did clean it off very soon.

We had a lovely meal. I had a chicken and spinach curry with naan. It came with salad and some chicken tikka and garlic tikka and a drink. I had a mango lassi, F had a regular lassi. His curry was pork and had naan with that. It was all really good, except maybe not quite spicy enough. I had asked for medium and it was on the mild side.  We asked for and received some extra naan too.  When we got up to go, they said that because it was a “Pre-Open” event, it was free!  Holy moly!  We had a 3000 yen dinner for free.  F was really pleased, I was pleased too, but we both felt a bit guilty. 

We came back to the house, but then F remembered he was supposed to get kerosene, so he went off alone and I stayed here and relaxed. It really was a good day and we both enjoyed ourselves.  

I’m not sure what Monday will bring this week. I should do laundry and I have a column due at the end of this month. 

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