Monday - Rainy
F and I finally got underway yesterday at 11am or so. We went first to Gusto and had an okay breakfast and then got on the road to Niigata. We made a couple of pitstops but were able to check in around 4 pm. We made a few plans at the hotel and then F decided he’d take a bath. I suggested that he take his bath and I’d run over to the foreign import food store. He wanted to come with me, so off we went.
I didn’t get too much at the import store, I bought a couple of teas and F got something, I think he bought some wine. We went back to the hotel and took it all back with us. At the hotel, F phoned the restaurant to see if we could get in tonight. We were told it was fine, but there was only one cook tonight, so it might be a tad slow. We were fine with that. We walked over to the restaurant, but took the time to have a decaf drink at Starbucks as we were going to be very early!
We went to El Mirasol, an excellent Mexican restaurant in Niigata. As usual, we had the couple set, but I suggested to F that we get the special nacho set too. It wasn’t part of the set, but they very nicely took out the regular tortilla chips and put the nachos in instead, with a little extra charge. F had a Corona and I had the aqua de Jamaica or hibiscus tea. So nice. We had a lovely meal. There were the nachos, we also had salad, a shrimp taco and a beef burrito that we shared. We finished it up with some Mexican rice and some meatballs. It was so good.
Nicely full, we left the restaurant and walked back towards the hotel. As we passed the bookstore we noticed that it was still open. Woot. I had a gift card and I wanted to spend it. We went downstairs to the English books where I made a lovely discovery. They were having a sale and a lot of books were 50% off. Woot. I picked up three books and took them upstairs with us to pay. F offered to pay the extra that I would owe. I thought it would be about seven or eight hundred yen extra. Unfortunately, the card wasn’t a new one as I thought, it only had 300 odd yen left on it. F still paid for my books and wouldn’t let me give him any of the money for it. Sigh.
We got back to the hotel and had a quiet night in mostly. F did take a bath. He wanted me to go, but I decided not to. I had a shower in the room. Later on, I watched a movie on the free video channel in the room. F was going to watch, but he fell asleep!
Today, we had breakfast in the hotel and it was very nice. There weren’t quite enough Western-style foods for me, but there was a good assortment of different foods available there.
We packed up our room and then checked out of the hotel. F drove us over to the mall. We had a couple of hiccups along the way as we got a bit lost, but made it there. I looked at some ladies' clothing, but didn’t buy anything. We also looked at men’s clothing, but I didn’t buy anything there either.
F was getting a bit snarky so we decided to have a drink. He wanted to go to Komeda’s Coffee in the mall, but there was a long lineup. We could have gone to Starbucks and taken our drinks out, but he didn’t want to. Then, he got tired of waiting and wanted to leave. I was okay with that, if we stopped in the import store in the mall first.
We went to the import store and I picked up two boxes of my favourite rooibos tea. I also got a couple of other things, and F grabbed something too. I bumped into a friend in the store too, so that was nice!
From the mall, we headed over to the port to have lunch. F really wanted to see things at the port and have lunch there. It was his birthday trip, so I wasn’t going to turn him down! We wandered around the area, looking at fish and other interesting things, then went to the fish restaurant. We just sneaked in before last order. We both had a meal set, F had keisendon, or mixed fish on rice, I had salmon and ikura on rice. We shared a salmon jaw steak. It was very good.
When we finished lunch, F wanted to get going fairly soon, but there was one more shop I wanted to go to. It was a liquor store, but they had imported food too. I picked up more tea. Don’t laugh! I can’t get this stuff near where I live and it is amazing!
Finally, we were ready to come back to Tsuruoka. We got back on the road and I fell asleep. I woke up when F went over a big bump! I dozed a lot of the way back.
At the house, K was in bed of course. It was about 6:30 or so. She didn’t need more food, as she still had some left. F spent a bit of time with her and then came upstairs.
We weren’t ready for dinner yet, but around 8 pm we decided to go out. I had suggested going for Korean food, but he countered with yakiniku. That was fine with me. We decided to check and see if we could get into the good place and we could in half an hour.
We drove over to Togashi and were seated. We picked a mixed dish for two people, plus some tongue. We added on some kimchi and vegetables. We had a great meal and everything was delicious.
We came back to the house and chilled out. F opened his bottle of sparkling wine and we both had some. It was quite nice.
After midnight, he went downstairs for a moment and I put his present on the bed next to where he was before. When he came back he was a bit surprised at it. He thanked me for the bag (it looked like a backpack) and then casually tossed it off to the side. I was a little upset that he hadn’t even opened the bag up! I told him to look inside and he did. He found a DVD of a movie that he likes a lot! He was happy with it I think.
And that was my day. Not sure what we’re going to get up to tomorrow. It is actually F’s birthday on Tuesday so I hope to help him have a good day. Come back later and find out if he does have a good day. Until tomorrow….
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