October 6, 2025

Monday - Sunny and warmish

Today was a good day, but it almost wasn’t! I stayed up much too late last night/this morning. I didn’t get to bed on time. This morning, I had set my alarm to get up for the hotel’s breakfast, but I was so tired I decided to go back to bed instead. no worries. It’s a free breakfast so I’m not losing any money. 

I woke up a couple of hours later and got up. I dressed. I had planned to go and catch a train to the mall, but I missed the train. I wasn’t even dressed at the time. I checked the next train on my phone, but there wasn’t another one for over an hour. However, there was a bus in about 30 minutes so I decided that I’d catch that one. 

I finished getting dressed and went over to the train station/bus area and caught the bus on time. I had a lovely ride over to the mall. I haven’t seen these parts of Yamagata City so it was a treat. I got off the bus outside the mall and went in.

The first thing I did was have lunch. I went to Pepper Lunch in the Food Court. I had the chicken and pork lunch with some rice and a drink. It was nice. After that, I did a bit of shopping. Sadly, there wasn’t that much that I was interested in buying today. I got more decaf tea and a few snacks.  I did try on some shirts at Aeon. Three of them fit okay, but I wasn’t in love with any of them. I was also looking for presents for my bestie and my sister, but I really didn’t see anything that I liked that much. Sigh. I did get myself some socks, that was nice! 

I went into the 3 Coins store and bought myself a pair of over-ear earphones. I charged them up and so far I love them. I have a hard time wearing things in my ears, but these go over my ears, so they are quite comfortable. They also haven’t fallen out/off yet so that’s a big relief. I tried wearing my old in-ear earphones while I did dishes once and one fell out and went down the drain! Not very good for the earphone!

I stopped and had a doughnut and a decaf iced coffee at Mr Donut. That was a nice break for me. I did a little more shopping and then I decided to leave the mall. I was tired and didn’t want to be there much longer. 

I checked the schedule for transit back to Yamagata station. The train wouldn’t be there for a while, the bus would come in around 15 minutes. I decided to take the bus back.  I again had a nice bus trip back to the station. I couldn’t see as well on the trip back as it was dark, but it was still nice.

I came back to the hotel. On the way, there was a big group of people carrying a mikoshi, or mini-shrine. It was rather a fun Japanese moment. I have no idea what the shrine was about but it’s okay. I’ve never seen anything like that in Tsuruoka. 

Mikoshi on Main Street!

I went up to my hotel room and relaxed for a bit. F and I texted a little. I decided to go out later and have my dinner. I went to a chicken izakaya near the hotel and had a nice meal there. I had some grilled chicken, some fries, some tofu and some chicken skin gyoza. Everything was very nice and I enjoyed my meal. 

I came back to my hotel and relaxed a bit. I took a shower and then turned to my trusty YouTube to catch up with my favourite YouTubers. 

I had a quiet evening in. I have to get to bed soon as I do have to be up early tomorrow. I need to catch a bus into Sendai and then hopefully I’ll meet up with my friend and do a little IKEA shopping!

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