February 5, 2024

Monday - Cloudy and cool, some light snow

I woke up fairly early this morning. We had arranged to have breakfast at 8 am, so I got up at 7:30.  Where were we? We were in Yunohama in a nice ryokan.  Let me go back in time….

Sunday was a decent day. F and I had lunch at a Japanese soba restaurant. After that, we did a little shopping to get his mother some food for when we went away. We came back to the house for a while. 

We got ready to go out for the night. I had packed my suitcase and took some snacks and some tea bags, cocoa and coffee packets. After F gave K her dinner, we left and drove to Yunohama.  We checked in and went up to our room. 

We had a lovely room. It had two single beds, a tatami section with a couch and a low table. We had our own toilet, bathroom-style sink and a kitchen-style sink. It was quite nice.

We had a lovely dinner at 7:00pm. We went downstairs to the dining room and were served some gorgeous Japanese dishes. After dinner, we went back to our room and got ready to go to the bath. 

We didn’t make any firm plans to meet up since we both had room keys, so we could go up to the room if we wanted. I went into the women’s section and took my bath.  I used the rotenburo (outdoor bath) for a while and that was lovely. I rinsed off after my baths and got dressed. F was in the lobby just outside the bath. We had a relaxing seat for a few minutes, and I had some water.  We went back to our room and again, relaxed. 

I had taken my new computer with me and I signed into Apple TV+ and we discussed what we’d like to watch. We fixed on Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie and watched that. It was a good documentary and we both enjoyed it. It finished just after midnight. F went to bed, but I stayed up for a couple of hours watching a bit of YouTube. Then, bed.

We had breakfast this morning. It was supposed to be a mix of Japanese and Western food, but it wasn’t really. It was mostly Japanese and the “Western” food was represented by scrambled eggs and wieners. The food was okay, but I was a little underwhelmed. F seemed to like it though.

We left the Ryokan at 11 am and drove back to Tsuruoka. We stopped to get K something for lunch and then went back to the house. I brought my suitcase and backpack upstairs and waited for 

F.

We were going to head out again but F lost his car keys. I never have any idea why F loses his important things all the time. He had to ask me to get him the spare set of keys that I had hidden away for safety!

We went out to The Grand El Sun for our lunch. I had pasta and it was very nice, F had salmon. He doesn’t like salmon so I don’t know why he had it. Oh, yes, I do. The price was reasonable. We also had the drink bar there. 

After lunch, we went to karaoke. I’d asked F if we could go a couple of days ago. We had to wait for 15 minutes or so but then were able to get a room for ourselves. We sang a lot. F gave up after a while, but I kept on until I was ready to go too. 

We did a bit of a grocery shop and then we came back to the house. F made dinner for his mother and I came upstairs and froze while the heater tried to warm up the room! Before I came upstairs, I put away the groceries and…found F’s keys. He’d left them on the kitchen table, but under something that he should have put in the fridge! We were both glad that they turned up. He gave me back the spare set and I put them away again.

For our dinner, I suggested going to Coco Ichibanya again and having the Grandmother’s Curry. We did that! F won a spoon, but I didn’t. That was a tad sad, but no worries. The curry was okay, but not as great as I remembered. While we were eating, I asked F if I could have some cake! It’s my birthday, after all, there should be cake!  He sort of agreed.

After we left the restaurant, we went to Komeda Coffee and had coffee, decaf style. I had their chocolate walnut cake which was very nice. I enjoyed my cake!

We came back to the house and up to our room. I watched the end of the Grammys and actually enjoyed it. I didn’t know everyone on the show, but I knew a lot of the people for a change. 

And that’s about it for my day. My special day is over, but it was a good day so that is nice. Tomorrow I’m back to normal life again.

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